The sparrow said I have cancer, and now I’m not sure what to do. I know he’s right, I suspected it long before last night and the dream.
Ella rolled out of bed this morning so quietly that she didn’t wake me. Later, I found a note in the kitchen asking me to buy dinner rolls and olive oil on my way home from work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fulfill this request because I never found myself “on the way home” from work, seeing as I simply hadn’t gone. I didn’t even call in sick. Though that is what I am, right? I’m a citizen of sick. Hammond sent me an email asking why I wasn’t at the all-hands, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. If I did, he’d ask me When I found out and Oh dear, what type? What stage? And then I’d have to tell him that the sparrow didn’t specify. It’d be a whole thing.
The onion I’m holding feels especially heavy. I’m trying to make some shakshuka. It’s 4 PM and I am not hungry, and I need to make shakshuka. I bring the knife down hard, not bothering to move my hand out of the way. My lack of caution startles me, but it makes a sort of sense. If the tip of my finger goes rolling off the counter, then my “sick” could be seen. I’d drive to the hospital and wave around my bloody stump, and they’d at least understand why I came.
The onion splits open and immediately begins to move. Tens of tiny worms burrow and shove and squirm, sound the alarm! Someone just cut our fucking house in half! I watch them for a second, they are almost beautiful.
There’s a window above the compost bin, and the early sunset has turned it into a dark mirror. Holding one half of the diseased onion in each hand, I pause and look at my reflection. I don’t look sick. I actually look kind of hot! Solemn and rosy-cheeked. For a moment, I feel giddy at the prospect of losing weight if they put me through chemo.
I drop the onion in the bin and turn off the stove. I’m sure Ella will understand why there’s no dinner waiting for her. She has to understand about the sparrow, because she loves me. She loves me, so she’ll understand, right? Fuck. For a moment, I consider forging some kind of official-looking diagnosis on a Word document. Do they do that when they tell you you’ve got cancer? Send you home with some kind of certificate?
I sit down in the chair very slowly and press two fingers against my belly. Prodding, moving up to my throat. Are you in there somewhere, you sick cells? My heart nearly stops when I bump up against a lump at the front of my throat. Ah, my Adam’s apple.
Maybe, I think, if I make myself very still, I’ll feel it moving in me like a worm, burrowing and making a home. Here, I can tell the doctor, it’s right here, right under this little patch of skin. And the doctor will thank me and give me some kind of discount, and no one will say “sparrow,” and no one will call me crazy.
