Rogers Finger (part two)

This time it was no longer just a hand, it was a whole arm. Yet I was now overwhelmed to see that this was attached to a shoulder which in turn dipped down into a fully formed female breast.
The top corner of a torso and a complete arm now rested in front of us like some kind of macabre prosthetic sculpture. My breath was short and the hairs on my neck and arms were standing erect and to attention. Neither of us spoke but the silence between us was as dense and heavy as a cloud of thick gas. I walked out of the room and made my way down to the kitchen where I sat at the table numb all over. I had no idea how this was happening but my friend was somehow growing a woman in his house. A miracle, it had to be a miracle. Not of the religious kind because I don't believe in that shit but, you know maybe a miracle like the big bang was a miracle - of science. Look, I'm no expert, I don’t know about those things, I just know about my instincts. I knew it was bigger than me though, it was as big as life itself and I didn’t like it.

I didn’t go back to Roger’s house for the rest of that week, I didn’t phone him and he didn’t make any attempt to contact me. I was a little disconcerted with the whole thing to tell you the truth, I was glad to be away from it. Roger didn’t seem to want to know how that finger, that thing had arrived in his life. It didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest that he didn’t know where it came from or why it had grown. He didn’t seem to care about keeping his elderly mother in a state of drug induced ignorance either. I ignored him and he ignored me, I think it was more convenient for the both of us that way.
I was a lousy employee that week too. I was ignoring everything. It was really surprising though, it really took a lot of effort to actually block everything out. you know when you make a conscious decision to avoid thinking about something and you push it to the back of your mind? Well that’s basically what I did. If you’ve got any kind of experience in something like that then you’ll know that sometimes you just end up mentally straying too close to that locked door in your head. You know what’s behind it but you become afraid to open it again in case you realise you made a mistake in shutting it away in the first place and now it’s gotten bigger and worse whilst you were away.
That’s what happened with me, I did it with this. It wasn’t the first time and unfortunately it probably won’t be the last either. It just makes things easier to deal with in the short term. I’m all about short term you know?

So after about two weeks I finally snapped and rode my bike all the way across my neighbourhood to Rogers place. Like most days its raining and I end up completely soaked through; it doesn’t bother me though, I dry fast; that’s why I keep my head shaved, speedy recovery.
Anyway I knocked on his door and waited for much longer than normal. There was the sound of lots of locks (more than I remember) clicking and turning as the door opened a fraction to reveal Rogers mother peering out at me through the crack.
“Hello Mrs Dearly.”
“Nathan. I haven’t seen you in such a long time! How are ya?”
The door opened up fully and Mrs Dearly was standing there, totally resplendent in the grizzled autumnal light of day. She looked healthy and fit for once and it even looked like she was wearing a little make-up. Christ I could say she looked around ten-fifteen years younger. She was still a little wrinkled but seriously she was nothing compared to before, she no longer looked like a ghostly corpse.
“You look well. Listen is Roger in?”
She scratched her nose slowly and methodically and peered at me like a fucking owl or something. “Who’s Roger dear?”
“Roger Mrs Dearly. Your son.”
“Oh Nathan I’m afraid I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
I could tell by her eyes that she knew alright; something was wrong. I could make out a thin layer of sweat across her forehead soaking into the hair near her temples and inching its way down along the cracked wrinkled trenches that furrowed unmistakeably across her brow.
“Could I come in?”
“Well alright then Nathan, seeing as it’s you.”
I stepped into the threshold of the kitchen from the path that I had trod down so often into the room where only two weeks ago I’d looked into that shoebox and seen that hand.
“I see you’ve had a new sink installed Mrs Dearly.”
“Oh call me Madge. Boy, you’ve been delivering papers here for years now; surely we’re on first name terms!”
Had she lost it or something? Why this elaborate cover up? I hadn’t delivered a fucking newspaper here in over ten years!
“Yes there was a problem with the old sink. Can I get you anything Nathan? Tea perhaps?
“Coffee please. Black.”
The kitchen had a clinical smell to it like disinfectant. The new sink glowered at me from the corner, ominous and menacing; I could see something wedged in the pipe underneath and at the back. I didn’t know what it was but I began to get an odd feeling in my stomach.
“Could I use your bathroom please?”
“Certainly dear, up the stairs second on the left.”
“Thanks.”
My heart was beating kind of fast as I climbed up those stairs, my feet felt heavy. Where was Roger? Mrs Dearly was acting weird.

From the toilet window in Roger’s house you can see out into their modest looking back garden. By the looks of it there was a hell of a lot of rubbish out back that day; there had been some kind of bonfire. I could see the charred remains of a sun bed out there as well; it was nothing more than a blackened skeleton now, out there in the driving rain with nothing more to it than ash and ruin.
I eased open the door as softly as I could and sneaked a peak into Roger’s bedroom. It was completely empty. It was naked, stripped bare; its walls painted black and the carpets torn away to reveal harsh planks of decked pale wood. This didn’t make sense.
When I came back downstairs to the kitchen Mrs Dearly had laid out two mugs of coffee for us. I sat down uneasily. I remember drumming my fingers on the table top one after the other, one, two, three, four, and five. Each finger drumming in sequence.
I stopped when Mrs Dearly placed her hand on top of mine and gently started to rub her fingers over my knuckles in small circular motions.
With her other hand she slowly placed a damp sock onto the table that had something stuffed inside it. My eyes were fixed on that sock like laser beams and my body was hard all over. I could feel her looking at me, looking in me.
She emptied the socks contents onto the table top, all the while softly stroking my hand. I knew she hadn’t taken her eyes off me for a single second.
I looked down to the table and saw that she had revealed two severed fingers that were holding onto each other for dear life. They were both horribly familiar looking, lying there coiled unnaturally around each other like snakes or like Christmas tinsel when you pull it out of its box and it’s all tangled together. One of them was slender and feminine and the other was fat and pudgy.
There was no mistaking it, it was Rogers finger entwined with the original.

I remember then looking up into Mrs Dearly’s face to see that she was looking me right in my fucking eye and I swear to God she just burst out laughing. She started gnashing her teeth at me like she was chewing something and her tongue curled up and she slowly licked her lips, running her tongue all along that thin red O shape that she calls a mouth. All the while her eyes blazed at me like nothing I’ve ever seen before or since, I’ll never forget the colour of them, more than fire and less than white. I don’t like to think of the way her mouth chewed at me, it puts all kinds of ideas into my head.

I knocked over my coffee as I bolted for the door, out of that kitchen and away from that house. I haven’t gone back yet. Now I keep everything to do with Roger and Mrs Dearly locked away behind a door in my head, away from rationality and away from me. I daren’t open it again because I know that if I do it will have grown so big that it’ll just plain swallow me whole.