John Walker's Electronic House

I’m falling to bits.

Not in a rubbish metaphorical/emotional way, but in an actually bits falling off type of way.

First and foremost I’ve got a big fold of skin on the pad of my left index finger, flapping about like a flag, BEGGING ME to bite it off. But it’s a trick. A trick I’ve fallen for too many times already. “Eat me,” it whispers. “Gnaw my loose flap off – it will bite clean and order will be restored.” But it’s a lie. A cruel and wicked lie. Each nibble leads to another further tear. There’s currently a 2cm long streak of absent skin, which reaches a good 5mm at its most broad. Yesterday I had the good idea of putting a plaster on it to stop me from eating my entire hand, and to muffle its luring voice, but today I realised that it was a rubbish idea after all. Plasters make things moist, and moisture prevents the wound from solidifying. It only encouraged the flappage. So now I have entered a crazed endurance test, knowing it’s there, hearing it entice me, and somehow not consuming my own flesh.

Also broken is my back. After a year and a half of sitting an a peculiar 45 degree angle at this desk – the only way it’s possible to accomodate my monitor’s ludicrous depth – something in my right shoulder blade has had quite enough contortion, and now the moment I begin typing I get shooting pains beginning in my back, and rushing down my right arm and into my fingers. THIS HURTS. WRITING THIS HURTS. But it is my duty to tell you of my painful self-consumption and twisted deformities. I shall not shirk on my duty.

Talking of shooting pains down the arm, my left arm now has the proud boast that it requires An Operation. Last week I was electrocuted by a doctor to prove it. I joked to people, saying I was going to be electrocuted, knowing as I did that they would be passing a current through my ulna nerve for this test. I hadn’t realised that it would HURT A LOT. They actually did electrocute me. The pulses of deadly electricity caused my hand to open and close itself involuntarily, thus making me more machine than man, and concluded with the announcement that my ulna nerve has indeed become caught up with a bad crowd in the elbow.

My legs are working for now.

I’m going to my parents’ place for Christmas tomorrow. Back on the 28th. IF I LIVE THAT LONG.