Pay-Per-View

It's Friday, almost five, you clocked out of work in your head sometime just after lunch, a cheese and pickle baguette from the supermarket, some crisps you picked up to just try and fill the hole, a smoothie, a coffee, and a chocolate bar, you've gotta treat yourself, haven't you, and now you're listlessly scouring the internet for some form of distraction, because nobody can see your monitor, nobody knows whether you're actually doing any work or not, and - most likely - they're not doing any work either, so wouldn't grass you up if they saw you window shopping the internet for fear of retribution, I mean, who knows what you know about them.

There. Your eyes are drawn to an advert in the bottom right corner of a social media site, its dark black background giving way to a well lit photograph of a thin, emaciated body, translucent flesh bathed in an amber light that moves to teal, perhaps - you think - suggesting the passage from health to death, and you look into their eyes, cartoonishly weak and sunken, thick dark outline, might just be make-up to make the show look more attractive, they always dress up this premium stuff.

You check the listing, they're going in for an operation at 8pm, good slot, wonder who the surgeon is, hope it's Clementine, he knows how to work the insides for the camera, likes to step back, give you a moment to savour it, really drink up what's working on their innards, makes you itchy, like it's happening to you too, and he makes little observations, quips, you've got a t-shirt at home with "I've never seen that INSIDE a person before!" written on it, that was a funny one, just a stomach tightening but there was a miniature toy horse drifting around in there, maybe it had been there for years or maybe they just swallowed it for the broadcast, funny shit though, made you spit out your beer.

So, you think, looks like a last ditch operation, it's this one and then they're fucked, it's always nice booking a subscription to the post-op deterioration, and you get offered a cheaper rate if you watch to the end of the surgery, but this looks like a premium gig, might be costly and there's always a bunch of cheap streams of similar stuff, might not be as well produced but, y'know, ticks the boxes, right? Though that brain surgery you paid to watch last month, the stupid doctor kept moving right in front of the shot and nobody seemed to be monitoring the feed or the chat room, you were all-capsing your frustration, shit, everyone was and nobody did a damn thing. Still, was only a couple of quid, you pay for bronze you get bronze.

You click on the advert, proceed to the payment page and weigh it up, £70 for the night, that includes any pre and post operation stuff, broadcast beginning at 6pm, maybe you can convince some friends to come round and watch with you, split the cost or they can bring the beers, seems a bit cheeky charging so much if this might be their last operation, I mean, it's not like they're going to need the money to pay for future operations, right? In a way it feels more worthwhile to you to go and fund the smaller, grubbier streams because then at least you're helping them financially to go ahead and get more of the care they need, although they can always go to a bargain basement backstreet place, and you can watch pre-recorded uploads of that at Surgery Store, though there's something a bit tingly about watching it live.

Fuck it, you fill in your details, you pay for the night's stream and you resolve to yourself that you'll subscribe to the post-op stuff as well, because, chances are with this kind of condition they're not going to make it, and you've never watched anyone die on the stream before, that'd be something, and it's kind of nice to think that whatever comforts they might have, a nice bed and the like, they've got that thanks to your subscription fees, like you're looking out for them a bit.

It's pretty much half five now, might as well shut down and head home, get some snacks and text some people, your computer fades to black and you stand up, there's a pain in your stomach, but you don't want to think about it, this job doesn't pay so well and there's no health insurance, surgery costs are always rising, and you really don't want to have people watching some quack cut you up online, it's probably nothing, you'd know if it was something right, probably something you ate, that baguette seemed a bit stale, you hope it's just indigestion.

You hope it's just indigestion.

Lovesick

I had been drinking.  I was depressed, things weren't going so great with Lucy, we'd had one of those awkward conversations that feels like a precursor to us breaking up.  Right now, it seemed so inevitable, it almost felt like we had broken up.  All I could think about was how much I loved her, how much I didn't want things to be over.
    So, sitting here, toast growing cold on the plate in front of me, cup of tea doing little to dull the throbbing in my head, and me, swimming in shame that I went out last night, got drunk, and kissed a girl I met in a bar.
    There's a text on my phone from her, though I'd drunkenly put her name in as Aabygull, I'm assuming I meant to type Abigail, but I daren't read it, because it seems - from the few previewed words - so full of joy and happiness, and I know already that I have to tell her it was just a thing, just a drunken slip, because I'm in love with Lucy.
    I ignore the message for too long, to the point where I'm starting to think that maybe I can get away with not replying, but then another text comes through, and it shows no diminished sense of optimism, instead it looks like she's suggesting evening plans.  I'm going to have to respond.
    Sure enough, it's a buoyant, bright message asking if I want to go to the cinema.  I hate cinema dates, you have to sit there in silence with this person you barely know, concerned that the film isn't entertaining them, that you're not entertaining them, but, at the same time, you don't want to talk all the way through the film.  On the plus side, at least it gives you something to talk about afterwards, but what if they don't really like talking about films?  You assume they must if they're going to suggest a cinema date, but... Wait, it doesn't matter, I've just got to make this a clean cut thing, we can't keep seeing one another, I made a mistake.
    But I hesitate, she wants to see a screening of John Carpenter's The Thing at the Prince Charles Cinema, I'd love to see it on the big screen.  Maybe, I think, I can negotiate this into a friendship, I mean, I've kissed girls before and become friends with them, good friends.
    So I reply, say that'd be good, we arrange to grab a quick drink beforehand.
    Lucy sends me a text an hour later, apologising for the argument yesterday, though I didn't quite frame it as an argument, we were just discussing what we wanted for our respective futures and the contradictions that threw up, which had ultimately lead me to believe that things would have to come to an end to allow either of us to move on with our lives, at least as far as our non-romantic ambitions were concerned.  Yes, in the midst of that debate I was thinking about things cynically, I was taking our relationship for granted, and it was only afterwards that the full potentiality of what I stood to lose presented itself clearly in my mind, and it was then - as I drank - that my love for Lucy was ever more cemented in my head and my heart.  But, it's ok, I've got everything in order now, I know what I want, and this is a good sign if she's reaching out, offering the olive branch.
    Abigail texts back, a happy face made of letters, she says she's looking forward to seeing me and puts an upper and lowercase kiss at the end.  This is going to be difficult.
    All I can think about when Abigail and I meet up that evening is Lucy, I'm aware of myself conversing with Abigail, but it feels responsive rather than an engaged process, nevertheless she doesn't seem to be aware of my distance.  We have a couple of quick beers, head to the cinema, watch the film, half-way through I can see her hand moving gradually from her lap, onto the arm of the chair and then fingertip-toeing onto my arm, down towards my fingers, and then we're holding one another's hand.  When I return her grip she lets herself ease back into her seat a little more.  I wish Lucy was here instead.
    Lucy and I meet up the next day for lunch, and I'm overwhelmed with guilt and shame, I can't look her in the eye because I keep remembering Abigail's hands on my skin, how, when we kissed goodbye, they pulled me ever so close to her, clutching my shoulders, and I let the kiss linger, I let it mean more than it should have, but not to me, to me it was just a nice kiss without deeper meaning, but how do you explain that to someone, someone who seems so smitten.
    She can sense my awkwardness, and it affects her immediately, makes her uncomfortable and suspicious.  She keeps asking me what's on my mind, and I can't tell her.  Eventually, I'm so evasive, that Lucy suggests we take a break, and I don't think for a second it's what she wanted to say, I feel like my attitude today has coerced her into having to make this decision, and I suddenly come to life, pleading with her desperately, but it's unconvincing.  She doesn't cry, she doesn't show any emotion, she just gets up, gives me a sterile hug and a kiss on the cheek and leaves.  When she's gone tears silently fall from my eyes and refill my coffee.
    I'm so full of virulent anger, chastising myself over and over in my own mind, standing on the tube, trundling furiously home, and I can feel it infecting the other people in the carriage, I can see the little huffs and puffs of nuisance becoming magnified when someone opens their paper into another's personal space, or turns with a backpack nudging the back of someone's head, or bitchy little remarks made under the breath as someone doesn't ask to get by and has to lurch awkwardly over someone else.  I know that I am responsible for this atmosphere of contempt, that it is radiating out of me like a leak at a nuclear power plant, that I am the toxic centre of this little universe.
    By the time I've reached my stop I feel like my reserves of hatred have run dry, and they've been replaced by a longing and despair, that somehow I've been the root of all this, that over the past two days I've sabotaged my own life obliviously.  I feel, even moreso than I did previously, that Lucy is lost to me, that love is gone from there, it has moved somewhere else, it still exists but it has been passed like an infection from Lucy to another, and I realise that the love she gave me I have given to Abigail, that I was foolish, drunk and cowardly, that instead of being honest with my emotions, going to Lucy when I needed to, I spread the disease of love to Abigail and I must deal with the consequences.  I cannot get her to love another, we don't choose who we love, but we must be responsible for those who love us, and I resent Abigail, I resent her for the love she has for me, because she is not the person I want to love me, but I'm afraid of being alone and maybe, until the love is cured, I can cope with this.  I shall let the love wither us both, because that is all it is good for, like all emotions love is a wasting disease.