I promise that I was a normal person. I used to be. Between my deliverance from visibility and that inevitable evening in my physician’s office, I was completely, unquestionably acceptable and normal.

It was a miserable evening. I stared at the dull green wall of the office, my eyes watering. Everything blurred together: the eternal ticking of a wall clock, my own shaking breath, the chill of the building, the fidgeting of my dry, tremorous hands. With every shift of my body, futile in alleviating my discomfort, the exam paper crinkled under me. My nervous system sparked.

I recalled the symptoms. I had anticipated them, as if it would benefit me.

Myalgia. That morning, I had left my bed with painfully tight limbs. I felt the strain of every movement. I imagined swollen, writhing intestines at every stomach pang and cramp.

Sweating. I had soaked my undershirt. Cold sweat trickled down my brow and salty droplets clung to my lips. Moments after each futile press of a handkerchief, my palms became slick again. I shivered.

Nausea. My sinuses still burned from the morning. I began to miss the times when I had only vomited through my mouth.

Insomnia. I had come to hate the sight of my bedroom ceiling. It mocked me.

Two firm knocks. My physician stepped into the room.

Dr. Katz, my savior. I fervently wished that his passive disposition was a mere act, that his blood raged as mine did. I dreamt that sometime, someday, he would let the gray glass shatter and seize me with righteous power. I would be his vermin to hunt. He would snare me, lean down to cup my dying face, caress my bloody, frothy mouth with forgiveness. I was so filthy, so erratically diseased, but his power could tear the wretched animal sin from my body!

Well, I liked him quite a bit.

Cold light reflected in his spectacles. He wore a clean white coat similar to my own work uniform: buttons at the shoulder in a dignified fashion, the hem just past his hips. Katz kept his dark hair short and neat, as befit his profession. He was younger than I yet easily taller, his face decidedly unremarkable.

"Good evening, Herr Winters," he said. “What’s troubling you?”

I pressed my hands together to quell their trembling. When I first became his patient, I had told him of a supposed childhood illness and the resulting damage to my nervous system. Though I tended to shiver and sweat in his presence, I maintained a clear mind. I was still rational. He knew that. He needed to know that.

I said, "It’s terrible nausea. Pain. I cannot keep food down." Katz nodded and turned away for gloves; it was unnecessary, perhaps, but ghosts of an epidemic still lingered in many minds. Even remembering frail, sick bodies, I would not have minded feeling his skin.

"Are you feverish?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know," he echoed. His weightless tone prompted me to explain myself.

I could offer him nothing but a pitiful, useless, "I've been ill."

With gloved hands, Katz palpated the sides of my neck. It ignited an odd sense of longing in me. His care, though given out of obligation, almost felt tender. Some foolish part of me twisted his professional detachment into kindness. His expression softened in my mind. If he held my face, shared the warmth of his flesh, looked at me fondly…

I lost his touch.

"When did your symptoms begin?" Katz asked.

"Yesterday. I rested that afternoon, but I have worsened since then. Pardon my manner– my head aches. Everything does," I rambled. He turned away again, and I thought of reaching out to him. I could touch his forearm, perhaps his upper back, just to get his attention. Just to feel him.

“How severe is the pain?”

The vice grip of a sphygmomanometer. A muscle in my arm spasmed. He did not seem to notice it as he removed the instrument.

“It’s rather constant soreness… terrible nausea. I had a bit of water for my stomach, and some alcohol.” I admitted the last part on impulse; regret seized my throat when I saw his brief pause. I could not tell if he judged me, but it was a foolish thing to say, regardless.

“I would advise against drinking when ill,” he said evenly. I disappointed him, I thought. Weeks before, I had told him of my intention to abandon my habit. He seemed so pleased, then, but I now gave him an unfavorable image of myself as an alcoholic. I was no such thing. Really, I had limited myself to a few sips of liquor that morning. I allowed myself only enough to wash down the taste of bile. Nothing to calm my symptoms. My stomach protested, my hands trembled, and cold sweat ran down my spine, but it was my burden to bear for past indulgence.

“It relieved my fatigue,” I assured him. “It was a small amount. Not enough to intoxicate me– certainly you can see that.”

“I understand,” he said, his tone gentle within the confines of professionalism. “Alcohol may worsen illness. That is all I mean to say.”

I wondered if I appeared neurotic.

His hand drifted to the stethoscope. I trembled. I could never discern whether the sight of it incited dread or excitement in me, but my skin prickled all the same. I unbuttoned my shirt halfway, offering enough of myself for him to auscultate properly.

“Breathe through the mouth,” he told me.

Our dance had changed. I always visited him when the opportunity presented itself: for moderate illness, accidental injuries (as far as he was concerned, accidental), every immunization or annual exam the clinic offered. But I was not simply ill that day. As he listened to my organs, pressing cold metal to flesh polished with sweat, I could think of nothing other than how disgusting I was.

He heard it for himself! My heart raced, disobedient to my wishes. I could not keep my breathing steady or calm. Every organ seemed to cry out to me, shrieking in fury that I had deprived my body of its most necessary substance. I wanted Katz to silence them, to extract them, for they carried my sins.

“Are you alright, Herr Winters?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor. The clinic is cold.” As my sweat dried, it seemed to absorb the chill, and I had no way of warming myself.

“Is it difficult to stay calm?”

“I feel alright, thank you. I am not nervous.”

He withdrew the stethoscope. I felt that I insulted him, given the eagerness with which I dressed myself, but I could not stop shivering.

He checked for fever. I did not hear what he said, absorbed in my own misery, but I held the thermometer under my tongue. I wanted to lie in bed, feel his hand moving hair out of my face, and close my eyes. I would know that I had no reason to worry. Someone would look after me.

“Fever,” he said, taking the thermometer out of my mouth. “We can have a blood test done. I’ve heard recent talk of accidental poisonings. Toxins in fish,” he said.

I did not know if it would reveal the painkiller in my system, if it still lingered. If anyone suspected me.

In truth, I did not need anyone to investigate my condition. I was not sick in some innocent way, nor by misfortune. Exorcism describes it better. I had invited a demon into my body and now attempted to purge it. In visiting Katz, I only sought company. But he could never know the truth about me. He could never help me.

“Thank you, but there is no need,” I told him. “I think I will return to my apartment.”

Katz paused, studying me with vague confusion.

“Are you certain? I must suggest–”

“Yes, thank you, Herr Doktor Katz. I will contact you if my symptoms worsen.”

I already knew they would. In the surgical ward of the clinic, I knew I could find those terrible, wonderful pills. They would soothe and stabilize me. My flesh crawled, my eyes watered at the artificial light, and somewhere within the building slept my poison. But if the vials were to slip from my coat, and someone were to see? I did not trust my sobering mind, nor my tremorous hands, to steal effectively.

By some miracle, I did not waver when I stood. I bid him a good evening. My stomach turned. My hand slammed against the wall. Katz began to ask if I was alright– I lurched forward to vomit into a bin.

On the tram, my nausea and pain rose and fell in waves. I laid my head in my hands. Few people talked. I heard a conversation in French, lively and bright between two young women. At least I could largely ignore the inane pleasure in their voices, lacking knowledge of French.

My mind was clear by the time I reached my building, an ugly block of ancient concrete. I never wanted for another home.

Lacking the energy to climb the stairs, I dragged myself into the lift. It jolted to life with a low wail. I strangled the railing until my knuckles turned white. Pain rolled through my head at every tremble. Some bastard had filled the space with cigarette scent, rancid and thick. I pressed my hand to my mouth, choking.

The lift jerked to a stop at the third floor. Still coughing, I nearly threw myself into the hall. The scents of stale mildew and faint cat piss infused the carpet, but I could bear it. My neighbors would not be home until midnight. Some of the lights had long died, providing a welcome dimness.

I fumbled with the keys to my discolored outer door, swearing as I fought to control my shaking hands. I finally unlocked it, nudged my inner door open, and dragged both of them shut.

Herr Doktor Katz had sent me home with common medicine. In better spirits, I would have laughed to myself at how useless those pill bottles were. I threw them against my wall– perhaps too forcefully, but they goddamn deserved it.

I stumbled through the bathroom door. Something undesirable gazed back at me through the mirror. I had smashed the glass at some point and left a web of cracks in the corner, but I could not remember when I had attacked it or what I had used.

I opened the cabinet. The bare wooden shelf taunted me.

I should not have destroyed my stockpile. What idiot stomps on his medicine vials behind a bar? Lets them bleed? Pours his painkillers over the street? I swore then that I did not need them, that I wanted to bare myself to terrible thoughts. I must have been drunk, though I remembered it all with startling clarity. I could not come back from this.

Given the humiliating end of my appointment, and the pain gnawing at my limbs, I had little choice but to drift into my bedroom. White sheets lay unmade. On my desk, needles– I could not bear to look at them. In my nightstand, the downturned glasses waited for me dutifully. The leash on my own impulse grew thin. I thought of Katz’s advice.

I imagined taking a glass to pour myself a drink. He would grab my wrist, knock the wickedness out of my grasp, crush the glass under a thick boot. Perhaps I would tremble and resort to yelling at him. He would loom over me, cast his shadow of authority over me. I would make a desperate attempt to dart like a rabbit over to the bottle only to find myself in his arms.

My imagination split into two paths.

Perhaps he would lift me and place me directly on the shattered glass. He would hold me there. Look what you’ve done to yourself. Clear teeth would dig into my soles. Tears would spring into my eyes. I would feel their warmth, taste the salt. He would force me to walk the length of my room and back, allowing me to cry out harshly in pain.

Then, love. If violence did occur, Katz would lift me again and place me on the bed to cry and writhe. He would leave me for a short time, then return to clean me, tend to my wounds, kiss my forehead. I would think, this is simply a lesson I must learn.

If violence did not occur, then he would simply have calmed once he first embraced me. He would kiss me. Hold me down on the bed, under his reliable warmth, until my feverish urge to drink passed. He whispered that I would be alright. He extended his compassion to me.

Both scenes came to the same ending. Katz held me. I rested my head on his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of it, the rising warmth.

I was alone. I lay on my bed, still cold and filthy with sweat as the fever worsened. A cloud settled over my mind. I had forgotten to hang my coat. I still shivered within it, either from the fever or because the radiator had died again. I needed my physician’s embrace.

I would worship him if he desired it. I would worship him if only he could purify me. I do not think I fell into a dream then, but I closed my eyes and envisioned the perfect procedure.

I lay on the bed, clinically naked so Katz could dress me with his tenderness. His gloved hands brushed against me. I would feel no pain, no sense of punishment or guilt, as he made the incision. He swept my organs with his holy gaze. Such filth. Evidence of mortality.

He relieved me of my intestines, set them aside on his tray. I remained alive, though he freed me of my lungs, my liver, my kidneys, my heart. It is an insult that any of us can be reduced to a corpse.

Katz would unweave my design. He would drain my blood but not my essence. He perfected our god’s creation. I awoke, no longer troubled by hunger, exhaustion, or craving. I no longer worried about my work, nor any threat that others could pose to me. He extracted all tiresome, irritating organs, and I was left with pure personhood. Then I could heal from being forced to live. Only then, gutless and clean.

I rolled onto my side and vomited.

It wasn’t real, no. I struck my bedside table with my palm and felt for a glass that was not there. I needed to…

I remembered something true. How awful it is to remember something true; you have no control over it. But that memory was innocent and naive. I remembered laughing until my face hurt. A lovely smile. A gap between front teeth.

Only the truth could be so painful.

Any liquor or dose of my painkiller could have killed it. I rested my palm on my forehead and felt the burning skin. I tried to hold the memory still in my mind, but it made me uneasy to touch it. It was like tasting garlic and mint at the same time.

I should have kept my medicine.

I should have left my bed and stumbled to the kitchen. I should have knelt on the tile, dragged the cabinet door open, and taken a drink to forget it all. Yet for that moment, I surrendered myself to the warmth of that happy memory. I tried to bask in its warmth. I was like an animal with an infected wound; I tried to ignore it and lie in the gentle sun.

I hated my memories, but that evening, when I lay in bed with a high fever and stomach cramps, I was also twenty-two again and feeling love for a ghost.