Mites
A story about possibility, persistence and tiny flesh-eating creatures. The start of a short series about dreams [CN self-harm, graphic injury detail]
They came in the night from nowhere. The third of three hot and sticky nights whose heat was called unprecedented and whose stickiness made sure that no angle of his body or corner of his bed would grant him the cover of sleep. He moved restlessly, half aware that every place he stretched his arms was an attempt to appear relaxed which convinced noone. His body was knotted, rubbed against itself, getting in its own way. His sheets oozed dust and sweat and scratched the stubble on his face. In the humidity of this tangled landscape of restless hair and damp skin – a world which tossed and turned on its head to try and escape the heat – the mites hatched hungry.
He saw the bite on his wrist first, though he had not felt it. A small puncture, barely visible to the eye but hard for his hands to ignore. He scratched it over the course of the day, until it had scabbed over with a fine layer of dried blood and the office dust and sandwich crumbs from under his fingernail. Then, though it was no longer itchy, he scratched off the scab. The feeling that his skin was uneven unsettled him and he wished that there was a polyfiller that existed for the human body. He busied himself with tasks: the deadline he missed yesterday, the aunt he hadn’t texted back, the washing in the machine and the envelopes by the door. That evening, he closed his eyes and felt cold water against his back and tried to wash the day off him. He felt like he’d barely touched the edges of it but his skin was covered in its detritus and pollution. He moisturised his hands and wrists where the bite had been and then his whole body, and only then did he notice the others. That’s a lot of others.
Then he saw it. It could have been a speck of dust but did dust could not jump. Scratching his armpit nervously, he watched in horror as a small black creature jumped from his arm onto his towel before disappearing in another leap. He couldn’t really think of anything to think except shit and I didn’t need this and why is it so hot. He let his towel drop and wondered whether they could have got into his carpet. Shit. The sheets, for sure. I didn’t need this. His wardrobe? This heat! They couldn’t eat through wood, surely. He tried to think calmly. It was dawning on him that there were things – living, breathing, biting, jumping, writhing things – living on his skin, and that they must have been living on him for at least a day. The tube seat. My office chair. He tried hard to remain calm. You fucking idiot. He wanted to dig his fingernail into each red bite and claw out the small creatures responsible. He restrained himself and scratched lightly, feeling the ridges of his skin with the end of his nail. How do mites work? Where do they go after they’ve bitten you? He realised now that he had absolutely no idea how skin worked either, how it healed or grew back once bitten, or what was underneath.
They could have come from anywhere but it did not stop him speculating. He googled ‘skin mites’ and found plenty of potential culprits: public transport, UK rivers, the stranger in a premier inn after his birthday last week, the pleading man who grabbed his arm on the street outside the station. He didn’t have long to get to the pharmacy but still found time to curse each of the could-be causes of this inconvenience in his head. I didn’t need this.
The pharmacist looked at him with little sympathy. ‘Just these, please’.
‘That’s £35.50 all together.’
He bought a fine-tooth comb to be safe and an orange can of bug-killer from the supermarket on the corner for the carpets and curtains and texted his boss to say that he needed to work from home tomorrow. It will be over soon, he grimaced and scratched between his knuckles. He felt like he could feel tiny feet in the alcoves and dark corners of his body, climbing up his legs, hiding behind his knees, marching silently through the sweat trickling down his back. He could not scratch everywhere at once. Sweat collected between the wrinkles on his forehead. He tried to be patient, but his arms and legs felt heavy-laden as though moving through a liquid. To be home was an impossible dream. He wondered if the people that he was passing could see his shame from under his cap or, worse, smell it. Head low, keep your distance. Infestation, in every sense, was something he knew should be kept to oneself.
Though his apartment was no cooler than the outside world, something he hoped was relief washed over him as he shut the door behind him. The threat contained, dignity preserved. Maybe in a few weeks I can make an anecdote from this. He thought about it for a few minutes. It won’t be very funny. He focused on the task at hand. Carpet killer on the carpets. Mite killer on the skin. Mite shampoo on the scalp. All clothes through the wash at ninety degrees. Easy. He’d bought enough of everything to do two or three full cleans of himself and the apartment. Scrubbing his body, he felt like a smile growing across his face. He imagined himself in an advert: Dealing with mites like a MAN. Did they think it would be that easy to bring me down? It was 3am by the time he’d applied cleaner to everything in the apartment and collapsed on his fresh sheets. He thought about all the other things he could have done with his evening. All the ways he could have avoided ending up with small creatures living in his chest hair. It was another balmy night and his skin felt restless and itchy beneath the thick layer of moisturiser that he’d flushed his body with. Just sleep, you idiot.
That night he dreamt that he was swimming in a green sea with no land in sight. His arms carried him out further: away from or towards something he did not know. He felt like he was celebrating something – a new client? Christmas? – but he might also have been running away. He could not see anything of a discernable shape. The sky was vast and green and cloudless, and he wasn’t sure where it ended and the water began. There was a cool breeze and the sting of seawater but he struggled to pinpoint the origin of either sensation on his sleeping skin. Beneath or above him he felt something getting closer to him, but when he twisted his body to look there was only a distant whoosh as these disturbances disappeared – into sky or sea he was not sure. He let himself float and breathed an empty sigh of relief. There was thought on the tip of his tongue when he woke, but it quickly vanished. His bedsheets felt like sandpaper and his peeling skin was crawling with life.
Simon Foster sipped his coffee and looked across the office floor. McCallister’s desk was in the corner. He wasn’t looking forward to this afternoon’s task, but he’d come all the way here now and it would be one more thing crossed off when he did get it done. He was supposed to meet one of the directors for drinks after work. I’ll need that.
He watched them all working. In six months, they’ve started to look more focused. A little less malnourished and distracted. Something to report up. Make it sound a little more professional. He resolved not to tell them about McCallister. A blip. A hire from before my time. He scratched his forehead. The problem of McCallister had been on his mind for some weeks now. In some ways it was convenient. A manic employee causing trouble was a good response to his wife’s what’s on your mind and you’re somewhere else, I notice these things, Simon. Five or six of McCallister’s colleagues had come and spoken to him now, and it was no longer a problem for line management or welfare checks. One of his department was refusing to come into work until someone treated David McCallister for whatever was eating him.
His decline had been something impressive to witness. Unusually rapid, and disruptive too. Like one of the ridiculous case studies they’d invent for the one-day management courses that the company would occasionally pay for. He’d had a couple of sick days. Nothing out of the ordinary really, McCallister wasn’t the most reliable. Something of a drinker by the way he’d drag himself in on Mondays. He was reasonably punctual, didn’t complain, and wasn’t one of the few who’d whisper and scheme in the break room. Pretty sure he voted ‘no’ to the union drive. A decent worker, all in all. Then two sick days turned into every other day. He’d told Sally, his line manager something about a rare skin condition. They’d both pushed him for a note from his doctor but he had refused several times. When he came back to the office he was jumpy, scratching his arm all the time, dark circles under his eyes that Simon Foster could see from the other side of the office. He’d never been particularly nervous before, but now he was short with clients on the phone, all but ignored the others on the office floor, took his whole lunch break in the car park. Picked up smoking very suddenly. The man has some problems he needs to sort out before he can commit to a serious career. Simon Foster had felt some of the others on the floor slipping from his tight grip. David McCallister’s predicament seemed a little providential. An opportunity he could not miss: someone asking to be made an example of who no one would really defend. Shame, really, he had potential.
‘You wanted to see me?’ McCallister let himself in and sat down opposite Simon Foster, who, as he was wont to, had started brainstorming other preemptive ways of keeping his employees in line.
‘Haven’t you heard of knocking, McCallister?’
McCallister scratched his elbow through his shirt. Simon Foster noticed what looked like small blood stains where he was scratching. ‘I’m sorry’, he saw his boss looking at his arm ‘– it’s my skin, you see.’
‘You know why I wanted to see you? As an employer, we’re responsible for the health of our employees –’
McCallister said nothing, his eyes glancing down.
‘-- and, like when one of your children gets sick, and you usually catch whatever lurgy they’ve got because you’ve been caring for them. In a workplace, when one of us is sick, it affects the whole team. It’s why we offer such competitive sick pay, holiday benefits, and subscribe to things like the Able Futures programme. Because we know that everyone does their best work when they’re healthy and looked after. Do you see where I’m going with this?’ He could see McCallister’s foot twitching.
‘I don’t think so, sorry. If this is about my absences and the doctor’s notes, I can explain you see they don’t –’
‘What I’m saying is that we invest in our own,’ he spoke slowly and carefully, wondering if the pauses were overkill. ‘On one condition: you need to accept our investment.’
McCallister was scratching his wrist absent-mindedly. Simon Foster felt suddenly furious, and hoped that his change in tone would be felt through the office glass. ‘I’ve been, quite frankly, amazed at how unwilling you are to accept this help. Dare I say, ungrateful.’ He thought this was a nice touch. ‘We’ve extended every grace to you over the last six weeks, and you’ve either ignored it or downright rejected it –’ He wasn’t going to let McCallister get a word in. ‘– which is why I’m sorry to say that we have decided to terminate your employment with this company. We will not ask you to work the rest of your contract, which is three weeks, and will pay you for this period in full. I would ask that you pack up your things by the end of the day, if this is at all possible. Don’t worry about preparing anything for handover, we were planning to do some restructuring of the roles within your team in the coming months anyway. Is that all clear? I am sorry, McCallister, I really am – McCallister, are you even listening to what I’m saying?’
McCallister was rubbing his hand up and down his unshaven face, scratching his stubble. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I am listening. It’s just– my skin – I’ve tried to tell you – I really see a future for myself in this company – I just need a bit of time – I need this job. My rent – my rent is going up next month – you must understand.’ Simon Foster watched a drop of sweat rolling down McCallister’s forehead.
‘I’m sorry, McCallister, we’ve given you every opportunity –’
‘Extend my probation – please. There must be another way. I need this job — do you know how much the treatments cost? I’ll talk to the doctor again, I’ll –’ McCallister was frantically scratching his wrist, he was speaking quietly, as though trying not to be overheard.
‘I’ve said everything I’m obliged to say. I think as an employer we’ve been more than generous in spite of the lack of communication from your end.’
For the first time, McCallister looked directly at him, pleading with desperate green eyes. ‘Please. You don’t understand –’ he glanced quickly over his shoulder. ‘They’re in my skin –’
He’s genuinely losing his mind. ‘We’re done here.’ McCallister had rolled up his sleeves and was scratching hard and violently.
‘Please. I can do so much more for the company –’ he stopped speaking and Simon Foster watched his brow furrowing, the earnest look in his eyes fading as though something had clicked in his head.
He’s finally getting it. He tried to make his tone gentler: ‘I wish you no ill will, of course I don’t. As I said, I want you to be well and this is how we make sure this happens for you. There are different kinds of strength, McCallister, and different kinds of challenges for us all, in the world and in the workplace. You haven’t found your strength yet, that much is clear, but I hope your time with us has demonstrated that you have several areas for improvement, for your customers and your colleagues. I hope you find some strength to make these changes.’ It’ll be my taxes which pay for you to figure it out on endless welfare, he thought bitterly.
McCallister had gone silent, presumably accepting his fate, and got up to leave. Simon Foster did not notice the way he had been rubbing his bare arm against the fabric of the chair, or, indeed, the small black creatures which leapt from his head onto Patricia in accounting and Matt in IT and would by the evening have laid their eggs across the office’s grey upholstery. He watched McCallister and thought of what he would say to the director tonight. I captain a steady ship. No possibilities that I haven’t accounted for.
In his dream he ran and ran and ran. He could not stop running, his body a blur in the corner of his eye. Only forward. His back felt hunched and swollen and he wished he could turn and see his shadow to adjust his posture but he could only run. A landscape of tall trees without leaves or branches. Arid ground beneath each fleeting foot. Trees stretching far into the sky. He ran under them and hoped to God that nothing would fall on him. He had to keep running. Faster. More trees, more beige earth. He knew little except that he had to keep moving and that he must, at some point, find a way to eat too. It felt like he had been running for weeks. Don’t stop, David. Hunger getting stronger, rising in his chest like vomit. He wanted to steady himself on one of the needle thin trees but couldn’t bring his legs to stop moving. I have to eat. He felt something come over his body that he could not control. His body grinded to a halt and his head thrust into the soft ground below. Hot liquid rushed into his mouth and down his throat. The feeling of dissolution. His mouth melting in the liquid’s flow. He guzzled it from the earth, metallic and sharp, itching to run again but desperate to keep drinking, wishing someone would pull his head from beneath the warm earth and set him on his way. He drank and drank until the well had bled dry. Then he ran again. The morning arrived and hauled his body up, drained and unrested, sore from dreaming and covered head to toe in bites.
The last three of her patients looked like this. The previous two were younger, less hysterical, sure, but they all have the same look in their eyes, a look which asks you to please do anything to make it not feel like this, a look which is tired of asking hopeless questions. She’d seen David McCallister on the list this morning and known that it would be a testing day. She wished she’d taken him a bit more seriously when he first came in – all of what, three months ago? – but she hadn’t seen anything particularly out of the ordinary. Scabies, presumably sexually transmitted; straightforward prescription a man who, until now, seems to have had it pretty easy. The second time he came to her she’d assumed he was some kind of hypochondriac, but his skin was still teeming with insect life so she’d tried a few other options. By the third time he came, they’d been briefed to wear full PPE and apply protective cream to head and neck when dealing with those reporting itchiness or insect bites. These days her days were full of David McCallisters. Was he the first? She doubted it. He was ahead of the curve, at least. Not the usual demographic who came to her with the bites. He did not give up as easily, but he was ruder, more bitter, as though he alone had been struck with a biblical plague. Today he was eerily quiet.
‘Would you mind sitting down, Mr McCallister?’
He stopped pacing. ‘I’m sorry, doctor.’
‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for. I know that these have been very difficult weeks for you, and that the lack of progress with your skin issue must be frustrating. I have several patients in your position.’
He sat down on the examination table, but his leg was still jittering.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to get started straightaway. If you’re comfortable, would you mind showing me the wounds on your leg, Mr McCallister.’
‘The bites?’
‘The cuts. I just want to make sure there’s no infection and that the wounds are healing.’
‘They’re not healing because the bastards keep biting me.’
‘Are you scratching them?’
‘I’m scratching everything, doctor, and nothing’s getting better.’ He sounded like he was on the brink of tears.
‘On your record it says that you tried to cut the bites out. Can I ask how recently this was, Mr McCallister?’
‘A few weeks maybe. After I lost my job,’ He paused. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is that the only time you’ve self-harmed?’
His eyes wandered around behind her. ‘No…No…I –’ his voice was shaky and distant. ‘I - I tried to burn them off.’
She hoped that her face didn’t betray her wince. ‘Can I ask what you used to do that, Mr McCallister?’
‘I poured a kettle of boiling water down my left leg.’
Too often in her job, she doesn't know what on earth she is supposed to say. She hoped that she didn’t pause for too long. ‘If it’s alright with you I’d like to make sure there’s no signs of infection. Would you be okay removing your trousers, please?’
He obliged nervously. She was glad that she had pulled her mask over her face. His skin looked like some kind of battlefield: cratered, peeling, scorched red and untreated wounds, some of which were beginning to smell. The burn had started to scar, but many of the cuts were still red raw and edging with picked yellow scab. Across everything the marks of fingernail scraping skin. He had clearly not tried to clean anything.
‘Have you been cleaning or dressing these wounds at all, Mr McCallister?’
‘It just makes everything itchier’. He sat up and rolled his trousers back up. ‘I hate the feeling of things rubbing against my skin. It’s just something else for them to infest.’
‘I’m sending the nurse an email now. She’s just down the corridor. She’ll dress the wounds on your leg. I’m going to prescribe you an antiseptic to apply once a day when you change the dressing. For the sake of your healing, please make sure you do this. I’m also going to give you another prescription for the anti-itching cream that you have been using. I’ll make it stronger this time. Apply it twice a day and it should numb the affected areas. We know that its insecticidal properties aren’t effective in your case.’ She tried to speak as coldly as her voice would allow her. ‘How does this sound as a plan of action?’
He picked up his bag from by the door. ‘Thanks for your help again, doctor.’
‘You know,’ she stopped. Will saying this achieve anything? ‘ You know I’ve said this to you before. You know there’s a lot of support available for you, if you’re struggling.’
‘I am struggling, I’m really struggling. I keep telling people that. I tell everyone. Everyone believes me now, that’s not the problem, everyone is sorry so sorry David but nothing changes. The government are saying there’s just a small outbreak and that it’s contained They’re – they’re – everywhere. I can’t go anywhere without seeing people, people like me, whose skin is on fire all the time. What are they doing?’
She felt a pang of shame. She thought about the investments they kept announcing in defense. The american tech company that’s infesting the health service. All the David McCallisters who are scratching their skin off. She thought about her friend who got the sack for bringing politics into the hospital. She tried to adopt the tone of the solidarity she wished to extent him, but it came out awkward and clinical. ‘I’ve asked the team to send you a list of resources. They help a lot of people. We’re in the process of setting up a group for people in your position.’
‘Thanks for listening, doctor. I’ve got used to it. That’s the worst thing. They’re just a part of me. A part of me that jabs and is always hungry and keeps attacking all the other parts. The scratching isn’t a response, it’s just part of how I live now. I’ve stopped trying to kill them. I think. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want cream that helps me cope. I want somebody to do something.’
She tried to imagine how that must feel, something which she knew to be foolish in her line of work. The biting, nagging feeling that something is completely wrong at the most basic and yet most fundamental level, that is to say, the skin. He scratched his face slowly.
‘You’re not alone in this, Mr McCallister. I’ve scheduled another appointment for two weeks time so we can see how you’re healing.’
‘Take care of yourself, doctor.’ He looked so tired.
‘You too, Mr McCallister. The nurse will call for you in the next ten minutes or so.’
The door shut with a sigh behind him. 10:04am. Seven hours until home. None of this is fair. How many can one person see in a day? She took a deep breath in and asked the receptionist to call in her next patient.
His sleep was paper thin and saturated by sweat. Two velvet curtains drew back and his body stood in a harsh spotlight. A drumroll. Behind him in cursive script was a banner announcing ‘the Amazing Many-armed Man’. He hadn’t immediately noticed the changes. The face he recognised: unshaven beard and purple, brooding eyes. The body was new. Well, different. Maybe older. Hard to tell: it was thin and skeletal and protruding from its torso eight or nine arms, moving frantically as though juggling something. It took him a few seconds to realise that they were only scratching, a whirlwind of short sharp itches before jumping to another spot. His skin showed no signs of discomfort. No one clapped. The Amazing Many-Armed Man looked scared. Bored silence from the crowd. On the corner of the stage, a man in a dark suit and bowler hat appeared and looked on. The man in the hat was slowly laying out various instruments on the corner. He had a small device with several coloured buttons on it and began pressing them in turn. A short whirring and creak of the stage. David watched and could not not speak as the Amazing Many-Armed Man was plunged into a water tank! Set on fire still spluttering! Extinguished then a great weight dropped on his head! The man’s arms never stopped scratching. There was a mania in his eyes. The crowd were getting into it. How much more can he take? Why is he letting them do this to him? David tried to heckle some kind of encouragement but his mouth was airless and empty. The Amazing Many-Armed man dangled from the ceiling and prodded with sticks. CRUNCH of body against stage once more.
Then the scratching continued as normal. David barely noticed as the Amazing Many-Armed Man edged closer to the controller in the hat, still moving his many arms at whirlwind speed. Then a sudden lunge, arms moving furiously towards the – crrrrrnnnkkk. He winced as the Amazing Many-Armed Man hit the floor once more, his body reaching beyond the extension of the chains which held his legs. He’d been so close. A few slow claps from the back of the audience. Two men in blue uniforms came and led the Amazing Many-Armed Man offstage, dragging him by his chains.
When David woke, he burnt with an injustice which seared his arms and scorched in his chest.
It had been a successful morning for Chief Constable Arnold. Bail denied for the would-be-assassin whose plot he personally had foiled, a response team to the scene of a robbery in record time (still missed the thief though, damn!), three confessions from repeat offenders that they’d been wanting to get for a while. For his own confession, which usually consisted of a cigarette and a game of chess in the vicarage garden, the police chief spoke about one of his officers who had watched a homeless man beat himself to death in one of the cells. The CCTV was unfortunately missing, but the autopsy confirmed the presence of tiny creatures on the surface of his skin, among other things which the police chief did not go into. Arnold, an eel-eyed and greasy man, usually used the more grim conversations to try and get something over on the priest, who was by far the better player.
‘They’re spreading like wildfire. I’ve had to cancel a few meetings with people who want me to pray with them.’
‘Better safe than sorry, Steven.’
The priest was in check. ‘Nice move. What are my options here?’ He paused. ‘I’m finding it increasingly difficult to justify the approach that we’re taking with what appears to me to be approaching an epidemic. How long is the line going to be it’s under control.’
‘’You’re smart enough to know that that’s always going to be the line. There’s a lot that’s in development.’
‘But it’s wearing pretty thin when people are being eaten up by bugs and being told that they’ve just got to deal with it at home and promised some perpetual solution ‘in development’. You shouldn’t have left your bishop without backup.’
‘Shit. The solutions are in development. We’re working with local NHS trusts and a couple of startups that I don’t understand to roll out some trials with anyone presenting symptoms in our custody.’
‘You’re testing cures on prisoners?’
‘Don’t be naive. It’s nothing new. A lot of these guys are passing the bugs onto each other, but they’re not really spreading beyond a few enclaves anyway. The bugs don’t seem to stick to some people. Some of the sick ones have started trying to infect my men and prison officers, though. Animals. Jumping on them and rubbing themselves against them. I’ve got a couple of guys on indefinite sick leave. Upped PPE and made sure everyone knows that they’re allowed to use their tasers.’
Arnold thought he saw a glimmer of anger cross the priest’s face, but put it down to concentration. I’m playing well today.
‘I hear that the one who tried to infect the health secretary is still in your custody.’
‘Yeah he was denied bail this morning. Don’t know why they even bothered.’
‘You stopped him yourself, I hear?’ The priest barely looked up. ‘Check, by the way.’
‘Bastard. Excuse my language, reverend’, Arnold chuckled at his own joke. ‘I found him waiting for the guy around the back of the conference centre. The bastard knew that he’s a big smoker. Must’ve thought that his protection wouldn’t step out with him.’
‘Do you know whether he really did intend to kill the man?’
‘He wanted to pass on the creatures, which, in his view, is a death sentence. He wrote as much in his diary.’ He gripped the queen tightly in his pudgy fingers as he retreated across the board.
‘And that’s what they’re calling attempted murder?’
‘The press took it and ran with it.’
The priest considered his next move carefully. ‘You know he was one of the ones who tried to see me last week.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’ Arnold felt a resentment growing in his chest.
‘We spoke on the phone. He’s not a man of faith, and I didn’t get much sense out of him.’
‘What did he say? This is important evidence, Steven.’
‘He asked me whether I thought that he was being punished by God. I told him that we cannot know the mind of God, but that He walks with us even through the shadow of the valley of death. Then he asked whether God made mites.’
‘Neighbours have said they were worried about the state he was in. They didn’t really know him but saw the signs. Can’t say I feel too sorry for him. We see a lot of guys like him.’ He surveyed the board. ‘I can’t get out of this one, can I?’
‘I don’t think so. Your king doesn’t have anywhere to go. I hope your solution is developed soon.’ The priest offered a reluctant smile and reached for the cigarettes in his pocket. ‘Another game?’ Chief Constable Arnold nodded decisively. Even on a day of great success there can be failures. I might get him this time.
In the darkness of dreaming he saw only his cell and the people who built it, not slaves hauling great stones towards a great pyramid, but men he grew up with, who made jokes and worked slowly and complained about the meal deal they’d bought in a rush this morning. David was with them as they mixed the concrete for the floor and walls. The cell came together slowly around him. He watched the creatures jump from his skin and get cast in the construction around him. Plastered and painted over. Tiny bumps in the wall – heads, teeth, legs – which jutted out against his fingers as he ran his bleeding hands along the length of his tiny world.
The day of the great parade arrived and Caitlin Banks was nervous. The two men from Inset had explained the science to her again and she had absorbed enough for the press briefing but certainly not enough to feel comfortable or confident with how today would progress. The doses would be as high as they could possibly be. And there was no alternative to using the prisoners. The treatment wouldn’t work unless there was something living underneath – the men from Inset had tied themselves in knots trying not to say ‘bait’. Chief Constable Arnold liked to joke that it had been a while since any of these people were really living. Caitlin thought that the Chief Constable was probably the most disgusting man she’d ever met. She couldn’t think of a single time that his eyeline had got as far as her neck let alone looked her in the eyes. No doubt he’ll take the credit for today. She hoped that there would come a time when such men were not necessary in the completion of her duties.
The people were excited. The papers had made sure of that. More creepy men to grit her teeth through conversations with. They had told her how much they enjoyed working with someone so organised and politically astute. They would brush against her as they left the briefings and her eyes were just supposed to hide all of the daggers that she wished on their grotesque over-moisturised skin. Senior officials in the party had noticed her professionalism, or so she was told. And, more importantly, the people were excited for the parade. ‘Health for the nation’. A celebration of the institutions which hold our communities together.
She would be waiting by the stages at the end of the parade, ready for Jonathan’s speech in which he would decry all the expedient things to decry: the mites (being careful not to overstate the danger of the small outbreak in the southern cities), the militants, the opposition, all those who seek to bend or subvert the progress of this great nation. He would celebrate the progress of public and private sectors coming together to rid the city of mites and any doubters of this government’s commitment to making life better for working people. She had erred on the side of not mentioning his would-be-assassin – who, indeed, would be one of the prisoners on display at the front of the parade. That whole fiasco, though the press – with a little arm-twisting from Caitlin – had run their stories, hadn’t given them anything in the polls and, despite her best efforts, had made Jonathan look a bit pathetic. Thank God the police are so hungry for blood. She’d given them a story that worked for all of them: ‘middle-class bureaucrat loses mind and tries to kill government minister’. They’d at least managed to use David McCalister as a proxy for the militants who were gaining ground in the poorer cities: out of touch, mentally ill, disorganised. She never lost control of the narrative. No no no. This wasn’t her best work, but Jonathan had been happy enough. Poor idiot was actually quite shaken up by the whole experience. Other people that Caitlin had worked for might have let the attention go to their heads.
The streets were already packed. Caitlin wondered when the last time there had been anything resembling a city-wide celebration was. Not during this government, that’s for sure. People had been provided with the appropriate flags and every alcohol license in the city extended for at least two hours. The Inset people had said that would be plenty of time. ‘Step one, conversely, is to get the whole city in one place, or as close to one place as possible.’
‘Isn’t that immediately an explosion in cases?’ She was not convinced by the weaselly scientists who’d arrived in her office with the first draft of the event, too shiny and smiley for people working in healthcare.
‘Even if the whole population were susceptible to hosting the creatures – which all available data suggests is not true – the formula had had an unprecedented 100% success rate of attracting every living mite in a mile radius of the carrier.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘If you turn to pages six and seven, you’ll see that our trials have been very thorough, Ms. Banks.’
‘Am I right in thinking that all of the trials have been in government facilities?’
‘Yes –’
‘I don’t need to know any more than that, thank you. Please continue.’
‘It’s actually a very simple formula, although we’ve obviously had to scale up the strength and duration massively.’ They had waited for her to turn the page. ‘Do you know how an outbreak of fleas in a household is treated, Ms Banks?’
‘You apply the treatment to the animal responsible and the fleas jump on and die. That’s what was done when I was younger. And you clean everything meticulously beforehand, obviously.’
‘Absolutely. Same principle. We’re going to do the same thing to the city, with your permission, obviously.’
‘Go on...’
‘We wouldn’t want to call this an epidemic. But that’s how we’re going to treat it. Clean the house from above with the aerial display – if you turn to page nineteen – then use the the animals responsible to catch the living mites.’
‘The prisoners. Covered in the formula.’
‘Correct. Head to toe. The mites can’t resist it. It mimics food. And we’re going to get them all out by celebrating justice and health and all the institutions which keep our communities healthy and safe. Everybody wins’
Caitlin wished that she’d asked a different question, but the two men looked like they’d had much more boardroom cocaine than ethics training in their careers. ‘What happens to them after, the prisoners?’
‘The formula is completely safe for human skin. They’re cleaned up, back in prison, a little embarrassed of course, but the mites are off the streets, and, if we all do our jobs on the day, people are going to have a great time too.’
‘Keep talking.’ Caitlin had always liked a challenge.
She didn’t want to meet any of them before. They would be paraded in chains, only twelve of them, drugged up, surrounded by the biggest guards she’d been able to find in the region’s prisons. The health and fire services would have their own floats, and she had arranged a few photo-ops for Jonathan with each of them beforehand, the military and police force had organised their own sections of the march. They too would have speeches and screentime at the end of the parade. Her staffers were all stressed out of their minds but Caitlin felt strangely calm. The people working around her moved in slow motion. Months of work that would be the start of a new phase of her career. She’d made lots of new friends during the last few months. People who saw her partnership work with Inset and were sending her gifts and meeting invitations in private members’ clubs. Caitlin Banks, problem-solver in chief. It had taken Caitlin this long to figure out that she was good at her work because she did not believe in it at all. Caitlin Banks did not really believe in anything.
She watched the parade starting on the screen behind the stage, scratching her head absentmindedly. She remembered a dream she had once in which the world went up in flames but she was happy because she was on a boat cruising at speed away from the burning lands and into a glorious sunset. Sometimes she wondered who would be with her on this boat. A passing wonder. Such pleasures needed to be quick. She allowed herself one now. Her boat. Not any of the people who she had moved mountains for to make today happen. The oxbridge sycophants with whom she surrounded herself? Absolutely not. Definitely not the people lining the streets in their droves, bottles and flags in hands. Maybe nobody else would make it onto the boat. She sighed out loud. A girl can dream.
She turned to the task at hand. The press wanted a word.
David McCallister was dreaming in daylight. He’d never seen so many people. Crawling out of doors like the mites from his skin. He couldn’t even feel his skin any more. Numb! What a feeling! In his dream, he was front and centre, covered in a substance thick as blood. All around him people were cheering and booing. For what? For me. He was talking their mites, all of them. They were jumping onto him, from people, from rooftops, from the ground below his feet. He carried them so noone else would have to. Not strong. Not anything, really. What a noble sacrifice. He did not remember how he got here, or where he was going, or what he had sacrificed. His body was a callous and it was now covered in dying mites. He couldn’t feel anything. He felt like a pit for things to jump into. A chasm. Millions of mites disappearing into nothing. Numb! What a dream! Give them all to me. He could feel the weight of a million deaths. He fell to his knees and cried out in glee.
David was on top of the world.
On top of David, among thousands upon thousands of infinitesimally small corpses, one leg – then another – then another – dragged the rest of their scorched body, heaving its bloated abdomen over other bodies which were piled in the poison, towards a small island of exposed skin, barely a few micrometers wide. Here it would rest, or feed, or die, or wait for a better option to present itself.
Whoops. They tried everything. From every angle. Angles which conceal and deceive. They’ve always tried everything. Incantations and incineration and incandescent chemical instant fixes. Smoking and fire and drowning and freezing and so on and so on. My, my isn’t it funny how we just don’t go away? Come back to your body every time. How you scour your perfect skin and think you have polished it like marble and then whoops. Still here. Shout it from the rooftops when you’ve killed us. Hear ye, hear ye. Millions and millions of –surely– dead mites. Nothing could survive that temperature, that ferocity, that amount of energy expended into extinction. No thing but plenty of us. Life has legs and lives well when they are well-used. Some of you build whole lives around denying others this legroom. So no, okay, keep quiet when you see that we survived. Sit in scabby silence and strategise. Declare war, beg for mercy, offer your kin as tribute and – uh oh – you still get bitten (yum). Swelter in your shame and your yellow days thinking how can I possibly hide this? You should learn from the best: in any one body, there are many many places to hide. Some try to escape us. By sea or air or by space. Some build towers so tall that you look to other yous how we look to you. Some even try to fly away, but forget how high we can jump. So say we come from nowhere because you won't to admit the truth. Admitting our existence truly is admitting that we are truly everywhere. That we wander freely among matter and enjoy its abundance. That you’re not going to stop us like this – because you’re a snack. You will say no no no it is not possible and then we will suck your blood as if to say haha. You will shut your eyes and others’ eyes and count to three and you will feel your skin crawling, teeming, breathing even when your restless fearfilled eyes are shut. You will hear your neighbours tossing and turning in their spiky sleep. And you will say, I am fine they didn’t get me. And so you will say that you have won, that we are finished, and that everything must live inside your fantasy finishworld and then, whoops, in blood and bites and bits of loose skin, we will continue to tell a different story. x