Fast Fiction 2008 - If It Moves
Title: If It Moves
Word: ennui
Word Count: 250
Requested by: Stuart Laws
They’re writing about me in the British Medical Journal. I have a whole section to myself. I’ve had MRIs, CAT scans, dye injected into my veins, the works. The doctors didn’t know what it was - they just called it ‘a mass’.
I knew it was serious, even when they were trying to tell me it was a normal occurrence, something anyone could get.
Then they did a biopsy.
It’s in my heart. I can never remember whether it’s to the left or the right. One doctor says it was all the wine. Another called it a sexually transmitted disease. (I was mortified, even when I told him I’d not had sex for months.) The nurse tried to cheer me up; said it’d be a welcome distraction from the ennui of work and day to day life. Well, thanks.
So it sits in my heart, almost blocking one of the chambers completely. They say it’s a miracle I can pump any blood at all. I’ll probably be fine if it stays still, but it might not. It might grow. It might shift for whatever reason.
I woke up to some surgeon in a mask - am I contagious? - and gloves, standing in my room.
“I’m so sorry. There’s nothing we can do.”
It’s the most advanced case of love that they’ve ever had to treat. Apparently it’s incurable.
I’ll be OK if it just stays still.
I have no idea what I’m going to do, or what will happen, if it moves.
Word: ennui
Word Count: 250
Requested by: Stuart Laws
They’re writing about me in the British Medical Journal. I have a whole section to myself. I’ve had MRIs, CAT scans, dye injected into my veins, the works. The doctors didn’t know what it was - they just called it ‘a mass’.
I knew it was serious, even when they were trying to tell me it was a normal occurrence, something anyone could get.
Then they did a biopsy.
It’s in my heart. I can never remember whether it’s to the left or the right. One doctor says it was all the wine. Another called it a sexually transmitted disease. (I was mortified, even when I told him I’d not had sex for months.) The nurse tried to cheer me up; said it’d be a welcome distraction from the ennui of work and day to day life. Well, thanks.
So it sits in my heart, almost blocking one of the chambers completely. They say it’s a miracle I can pump any blood at all. I’ll probably be fine if it stays still, but it might not. It might grow. It might shift for whatever reason.
I woke up to some surgeon in a mask - am I contagious? - and gloves, standing in my room.
“I’m so sorry. There’s nothing we can do.”
It’s the most advanced case of love that they’ve ever had to treat. Apparently it’s incurable.
I’ll be OK if it just stays still.
I have no idea what I’m going to do, or what will happen, if it moves.