Impromptu Arsenic

 

That day, my eyelids were decidedly too heavy. Around me, the twilight swelled and thickened in the swelling of its form. Whoever was supposed to be there that day had long since departed, or perhaps would not come at all. Various indicators, long out of service, swarmed around me, forming a hideous and repulsive collection, so that I wanted to get up immediately and flee from them, were it not for the fact that I would get up then, leaving the laboratory bench was no longer among the moves that would be within my capabilities.

The radio played behind me. An actor, probably hired for a pittance, was reading with a highly theatrical manner passages from some book whose author was most likely ------ (illegible manuscript).

/There, in the countryside, was my aunt and uncle's house. Right after the war, my uncle took a job at a nearby state farm, and a few months later, he dragged my aunt away with one cousin clinging to her skirt and the other still in the womb…/

My exhaustion from the substances was too great for me to work that day. Sitting, I bowed my head and—forming my fingers into sparrow-hawk claws—began furiously scratching the skin beneath my hair, letting snow from dandruff fall onto my trousers and the floor. However, when I noticed that I was drawing blood in several sensitive areas of my crown, I felt some strange, still quasi-rational inhibition. I stopped, roughly combed my ruffled hair with my fingers.

/…I looked into that mirror each day with increasing anxiety, or rather, with increasing certainty that this time it would emerge, appear, materialize in it that fundamentally phantasmagorical apparition – a specter, the same one that had once loomed between the trees in the forest, gleaming in patches of sunlight…/

Arsenic trioxide was always a wonderful killer. A small amount was enough for the corpses of cockroaches to pile up thick and thick, for them to fall, struggling in degenerate convulsions.

/…and on that dark afternoon, when the calm before the storm reached its extreme, and I stood opposite the glass pane – it flickered…/

I reached for the brown, dirty jar. On the yellowed sheet of paper, peeling from its surface, was scrawled in blue pen – As2O3. Panic gripped me as I realized I wasn't wearing protective gloves—and yet traces of the poison could still be present on the glass and lid. I quickly set the jar aside and donned gloves. This time I handled it much more carefully, using more judicious movements, even though I was now properly protected. I unscrewed the cap. A moment later, the pungent odor of amorphous arsenic filled my nostrils.

I scooped some onto my fingers, brought it to my face, to my lips, as if to taste it—but then I immediately withdrew my hand, for I saw myself in the utter absurdity of my actions. But slowly, after a moment, I began to bring it closer again. In a wide arc, as far as possible, I avoided my mouth and directed the substance towards my nostrils. I inhaled the scent—and again I had to pull my hand away abruptly, because my vision darkened, and doubts rose strangely high. A bitter tear dripped from my right eye. A bitter tear dripped from my left eye.

/…from then on, reality lost its proper meaning. No, madness didn't set in, though. No, I didn't disappear for days. No, they weren't worried about me. I must even admit that I was better at maintaining certain appearances than usual./

I placed the measure of arsenic back in the jar. I pushed the laboratory scale across the counter toward me and began taring it. I'd always enjoyed this activity, so I leveled my face with the counter, gazing at its legs. Then I glanced at the needle again, every so often. Its deviation from the proper position was minimal; it was almost ready to perform its function, when a certain aversion to this tinkering and fumbling overtook me. I cast a critical eye over the scale, and only then was I struck by the ubiquitous hopelessness that emanated from me and the bench, sweeping across the entire laboratory, interlocking and twisting in fantastic arabesques alongside the twilight twilight.

I leaned back in my chair, moving it slightly away from the counter so I could stretch my legs. My glasses, dirty, greasy, and finger-covered, I took them off. I began to wipe them with the palm of my apron.

As2O3.

On the shelf stands

a hideous jar. Let it be

a form of abomination today

.

/…and it was the end of summer…/

For a minute, maybe two, I persistently stared at the arsenic. I stared, my head spinning as if… And he did nothing – just stood there, as if unaware that I was staring, leering, glancing at him!

/…then very little…/

His calm, stupidly carefree state, undisturbed by any toil, became unbearable. The obese oval of his cross-section, the elliptical refraction of a cylinder from a perspective, shimmered – reflecting light from an unknown source, for the darkness around him was already quite dense and impenetrable. Only, because I had been sitting there from the beginning, I had this advantage over anyone who would have come from outside: my eyesight had become completely assimilated to this darkness and was able to distinguish shapes and objects almost perfectly. I put a protective glove on my right hand.

/…that I almost never…/

I jumped up and snatched the jar from the shelf. I unscrewed it as quickly as I could. For just a moment, my hand hovered over its opening, trembling, gripped by anxiety and touched for the last time by a premonition… that perhaps a brake was needed…

But before I became aware of its hovering, it was already immersed in an undefined, multi-phased ooze, or who knows what. I scooped up the filth and pulled it out. The consistency was, I'd say, buttery-granular.

To convey what was happening inside the human form, colloquially known as me: my eyes should have been darting, my breathing regular but labored, my pulse rapid, my hair ruffled, etc. I don't know, I really have no idea, if I was betraying even one of the above signs of excitement, some irresistible urge to act amidst the deposits of immobility, but it's quite likely.

I raised my left arm… the sleeve slipped off, revealing a sliver of flesh…

/…infinity. Nothing…/

There I sat, arsenic in my right hand, the shimmering nakedness of my left, and strangely, I uncrossed them, so that I was irresistibly reminded of my pose with a meditating Buddhist.

/…nothing. The whole thing…/

I gathered myself for the final act. Not because of grand abstractions – despair, hatred, love – but just like that, to thin out everything that constantly pressed against my temples. I brought my right hand closer to the nakedness of my left, slowly began to turn the arsenic palm downwards. Pac – and it was done. I placed the poison on my own multilayered epithelial tissue.

What now? Jesus Christ, I ask you, what now? The immensity of this absurdity… the boundlessness of the grotesque… the embarrassing struggle in frustration… well, when all reason diminishes, peters out, falls silent… Spread it!

Well – I rub. I rub, I rub, I rub. Left, right, left, right, against the grain, against the grain, against the grain. I rub! I rub, I rub, I rub. My hand suddenly felt warm, but I didn't know if it was mechanical burning – the energy released by the friction of one particle against another, or organic – the effect of the immediate changes taking place in my tissue due to direct contact with the poison. I don't know – I just rub, rub, rub.

And so, in a few dozen seconds, I squandered a handful of As2O3. My left hand didn't look the best – a reddening had appeared where I'd rubbed it. At first I thought it was just worn-out skin, but then I realized it was growing from within, like a balloon placed under the skin and now gradually filling with air. The hairs that remained on my left hand were broken, stuck together with the remains of goo, chaotically twisted.

/…, that's not it. True…/

I waited with keen curiosity to see what would happen. To my surprise, the redness faded, and suddenly, a complete whiteness took its place. My hand in that area swelled, swollen, and—though I still felt a distinct burning sensation—was completely cold. I touched it. A blister had, in fact, already formed! I distinctly felt something swelling within, and also that the layer of epidermis that prevented it from escaping was very thin.

This swelling began to fill me with disgust. I knew from somewhere the characteristic revulsion that precedes… heaven knows…

Then I realized—it was lymph! Ordinary lymph from lymphatic vessels! I immediately felt safer, more familiar, when I recognized the nature of the undesirable substance beneath my skin. Faced with this, I had only one option. I searched for a well-sharpened pencil and pierced the epidermis. A colorless, unpleasant fluid seeped from beneath the skin, dripping onto my pants.

I peeled off the dead skin. A certain impasse set in. That's it? That's it? This is supposed to be the ruthless emperor, the slayer of cockroaches? I felt cheated.

But then I realized with satisfaction that my hand was still burning—and no less than before. And so, successive layers of my epidermis began to swell under the pressure of the lymph accumulating beneath them and drawn to them like a moth to a flame. I, in turn, pierced and peeled—and this continued several times, until I began to worry, quite frankly. In this way, I practically tore a hole—a crater—in my left hand! And this swelling, alternating with peeling, clearly had no intention of stopping. I was aware that my layers were limited.

I panicked. Ideas were no longer clinging to me, strange thoughts about stagnation—true—impossibilities, possibilities—you guessed it—some absolutes, existential issues. Save my arm, Jesus Mary, Jesus Mary, to the doctor! To the emergency room! And suddenly I jumped up and ran.

It was well after midnight by then. I had to lie to the nurse at the emergency room window, saying I'd spilled some acid—not acid—because it was impossible to tell the whole truth.

In the office, she sat me down on a couch, told me to wait, and went to wake the doctor. And there, in the little closet adjacent to the office, where they probably stored aprons, syringes, dressings, medicines, and bedpans, a radio was playing. And as luck would have it, it was set to the same frequency as the laboratory.

Down the corridor, the doctor, shuffling in his yellowing slippers, was carried away with heavy, slow steps.

/…because smallness and insignificance had clung to me that summer for good. And although another July was approaching, seemingly outlining new, alternative forms of creation, and summer began its etude, while the last chords of the spring song were still resonating, I could tell by the heaviness of my eyelids that nothing would happen, and I wouldn't take a single step in any possible direction. For was any direction still possible? /

Was it possible? That evening, on that shabby, poor couch, I thought that ------------ (illegible manuscript).

/…continuous…/

This was perhaps the last time I would ------------ (illegible manuscript).

/…somehow we go…/

------------ (illegible manuscript).