Gillian raised his left arm and scratched his chin with the stump. He worked his way through the crowded aisles and looked for a booth that specialized in left hands.
“Can’t really do a proper job getting at that itch with this,” he muttered, as he put his arm back at his side. He perused the display of hands perched on poles.
“One of these, the right size, the right price, that’d do the trick,” he mused.
He stopped in front of a tawny hand. Left hand. Clean. Nails clipped, filed.
“Certificate come with it?" he asked the vendor. "How many users before you got it?”
The vendor’s right eye narrowed and his left glass eye rolled around, directionless, in its socket.
“I only sell good stuff here,” he answered. “Certificate? You want a certificate, you gotta shop over there, in premium. That’ll cost you, though. At my prices, there ain’t no certificate goin’ to come with it.”
“Are you serious? No certificate? Can't tell where this hand came from. Heck. Could already be rottin’ from the inside. No thanks. I’ll be movin’ on.”
Gillian looked over at the less-crowded premium section. He had to pass through a gate to get in, show I.D. Wasn’t worth it. Hands would be too expensive anyway. In a few months, maybe, when he’d saved more.
▲
The houses on Gillian’s street were arranged in a row, like boxes on a shelf. Neat. Lawns green. Hedges trimmed. Quiet.
People had stopped having children. The occasional tricycle or basketball hoop appeared at a house where someone had gotten careless, or where they decided to live on the edge.
Too risky having children. Hard enough keeping up the expenses of a house. With a child, you never knew what could happen. One accident, one illness and you’d find yourself in debt.
Years ago you’d see a neighbor's child that got hurt. The father would come back from the hospital, minus an arm. Or whatever it was the hospital was willing to barter for the kid's treatment. Maybe it would be a kidney, or a piece of the liver. Kids had accidents all the time. The only payment, serious payment, banks, government, hospitals wanted these days was a body part. It was the most valuable thing any ordinary person could offer.
So Gillian never had children. It was the house that took his hand. Foundation collapsing after the last flood. The house or the hand. He figured he could live without his left hand, but where would he live without a house?
Every now and then he’d raise his arm to scratch, or pick something up and he'd remember his hand was gone. He wondered sometimes who had it. Did his hand fit in that other body?
▲
“I don’t feel like myself.”
Melissa, his wife of 21 years, looked over at him with her soft brown eyes.
"You okay?" The love of his life, his only love, Melissa was the center of his peaceful existence.
"Just tired that's all. You finish your paper. I'm going to turn in early."
At three in the morning he heard something through the fog of sleep.
“Gillian.”
He murmured indistinctly in response.
She repeated his name.
“Gillian, something’s wrong.”
She was sitting up, clutching her stomach.
He reached out. She was burning up.
He held her hand. Ice cold.
He jumped out of bed. Turned on the light.
She threw her legs over the side of the bed. The baby blue coverlet fell to the floor.
“What happened? Melissa, what’s wrong?”
She held her stomach.
“I’m in so much pain…”
Her voice trailed off.
He grabbed her coat and shoes, bundled her out of the house and into the car.
Melissa was pale. That was her natural color, but not this pale. Now she was white, a stark white against her raven black hair. Her eyes were closed and she bent over as she gripped her stomach.
▲
“Sepsis.”
They’d been in the hospital for three hours. The emergency room doctor was somber.
“We have to move her up to the ICU.”
The pain had not subsided, but when Melissa heard the words ‘ICU’ she grabbed Gillian’s shirt.
“No. We can’t. There is no money. I’m not going to let them take….”
Gillian knew what she was thinking.
“Don’t worry about it honey. I can manage. Without you, I can’t manage.”
“No, Gillian. I’m telling you.”
“Melissa. I love you. You love me. We have each other. That’s all we have. You know that. Don’t think about anything else. Please come home to me.”
He looked at his feverish wife. Stared into her eyes.
She knew. She understood. This was their life. This was their fate. She let go of his shirt and stopped struggling.
“Be careful, Gillian. I need you. We need our life together. If I come out of this, I want my husband.”
“I will be here, waiting. You just come back.”
The orderly rolled Melissa off to the elevator. Gillian went to the desk to sign documents.
“How will you pay for this, Mr. Harknet? Are you ready to make arrangements?”
“What will it take?” He looked at the clerk and almost smiled.
“You go upstairs, to facilities. They’ll tell you your options.”
▲
Gillian was waiting for Melissa outside the hospital when she had recovered. It took three weeks. Didn’t matter how long, because the deal Gillian made was for full treatment, plus follow-up care.
Melissa rose from the wheelchair. She was shaky, but able to stand on her own.
“Let me help you, honey,” Gillian said as he held her arm.
Melissa paused and looked into his eyes. He stared back, with his good right eye and his left glass eye rolling around, directionless, in its socket.
Written in response to the Inkwell fiction writing prompt: Shopping
- Image credit: zahidjavali on Pixabay
