Arthur's Appendix

Arthur Harris was a loving husband, an attentive father, and a hard, honest worker. In fact, it had been almost twelve years since he had missed a day of work. And, so, it was with an antsy frustration that he lay in his hospital bed, trying as hard as he could to wait patiently for the doctor. After what felt like years, but was closer to just over an hour, the doctor finally paid him a visit. He strolled into Arthur’s room, pinching the temple of his bifocals as he perused his medical chart. He came to stand next to the quietly beeping monitor, updating the chart with Arthur’s most current vital signs. The doctor removed his glasses and regarded Arthur with a nod and polite smile. “Hello, Mister…” he referenced his chart, “Harris.”

“Call me Arthur.” Arthur held out a hand.

The doctor glanced at it before giving it the lightest of shakes. “Very good. Arthur.” He closed the chart as he took a seat at the rolling stool next to the bed and clasped his knees. The short stool made the doctor appear comically lanky. “I’m Doctor Erickson.”

“Nice to meet you, Doc.”

“Likewise.” Again, the polite smile. “Well, Arthur, I’m afraid it’s not great news.”

Arthur wrinkled his brow.

“It looks like your appendix.” 

“Ok,” Arthur answered with a grimace as a wave of pain rolled through. 

Doctor Erickson eyed his abdomen and nodded. “Guess we’re going to have to yank that thing out of there.”

“I don’t need it?” Arthur knew bricks and trowels. Ask him if the bond seam needed to be replaced and he could elaborate on the saturation coefficient until the cows jumped the moon, but when it came to medicine, they seemed to use a lot of words he’d never heard before.

“At this point, Arthur, that thing’s doing you more harm than good, and if it ruptures it becomes a much more complicated procedure. Life threatening, even.” He settled a slow, serious nod.

Arthur returned it. “I guess we better get it out of there then.”

Doctor Erickson smiled again, this time broad and toothy. “Wonderful.” He opened Arthur’s chart again and replaced his glasses and spoke as he scanned. “We’ll go ahead and prep you straight away. Nurse… Koberman will be in shortly to get you sorted out.” He stood and leaned over Arthur. “Any questions before I go.”

“Are you doing the surgery?”

“No.” His smile tightened. “That would be Doctor Morgan. You’re in excellent hands, I assure you.”

Arthur nodded.

The doctor stood straighter. “Anything else, Arthur?”

Arthur considered with a slow nod for a moment before shaking his head and guarding against another wave. “I guess, I’m good.”

“Wonderful.” The doctor extended his hand. “I’ll check in on you after the procedure.”

Arthur shook it, a real one this time. “Thanks, Doc.”

The Doctor turned to go.

Arthur raised a hand. “Oh, Doc.”

The Doctor turned back, his grin not quite patient.

“Can I take it home?”

He tilted his head.

“After you take it out. Can I keep it?”

“Your appendix?”

“Yeah.”

Doctor Erickson scratched his cheek as he examined Arthur. He snorted a tiny nervous chuckle. “I’m afraid that would be against hospital policy.”

“Of course.”

The Doctor flashed him a curious glance before excusing himself with a final nod.

Arthur continued to stare at the door long after the Doctor had departed. He was replaying the events of the morning over again in his mind. What exactly had the old man said? They can’t take it if you don’t let them. No, that wasn’t quite right. They can’t keep it if you tell them, No. That was closer.

He’d walked by the old man thousands of times, every morning, six days a week, for the better part of fifteen years, periodically dropping a coin or two into his cup, without so much as two words exchanged between them. And today of all days the old man decided to deliver him a cryptic message. 

The old man always seemed semi coherent, not really making eye contact, communicating in mumbles and grunts, but today he’d looked right into Arthur’s eyes. And although his toothless slurs had sounded like ramblings, Arthur felt like he was genuinely trying to communicate an important message. Kill it. Burn it. 

The door opened. A slender, dark-skinned nurse, wearing bright blue scrubs closed the door behind her and greeted Arthur with a wave and an enthusiastic whisper. “Hello, Mister Harris.”

“Arthur.”

“Arthur.” She said his name warmly, as if to an old friend. “I’m Grace.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Arthur,” she said, her tone not unlike a kindergarten teacher. “This whole thing will all be over before you know it.” She opened his chart and put the back of her hand to his forehead as she scanned through it. She pulled a crushed paper cup from her waist pocket and held it out. “Here’s a little something to make you sleepy before we take you into surgery.”

Arthur took it, pulled apart the crushed top, and peered at the two blue and white pills. He gazed up at her. “Right now?”

Her already wide smile deepening, “Yep. get those in ya.”

Arthur eyed them once more before tossing them back and taking the paper cup of water Grace was already holding out to him. 

“Wonderful.” She flipped through a couple pages and clicked her pen. “Now, Arthur, I just have a couple quick questions before we’re off. “When was the last time you had something to eat?”

Arthur thought for a moment, remembering that he had uncharacteristically skipped breakfast. “Dinner. Last night.”

She jotted a note.

“I had a couple cups of coffee this morning, though,” he added. 

“So did I,” she joked with a wave. “Are you allergic to any medications?”

As he tried to remember he noticed his thoughts starting to swim around. “Uhm, Penicillin.”

“Is that all?”

“Poison oak.” He heard himself say it and squinted in confusion.  

Grace giggled. “Looks like someone is getting sleepy.”

He tried to focus on her face, her smile growing fuzzy. “Miss Nurse?”

She giggled again. “Yes, Arthur?”

“Can I keep it?” Even through the growing film he saw her smile wash away. “I wanna keep a pendik.”

Arthur was aware of the quiet beeps, then the plastic tubing tangling around his arm, then the warm, dim of the room. He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he could see more. He turned his head to the side. There was a row of beds. One, three beds away, was occupied by a large figure.

“Mu—” He tried to speak and found he couldn’t, and in fact the attempt had exhausted him. He tried to raise his entangled hand before passing out again.

He woke to the shake of his bed and the muted squeaking of tiny wheels. He let his head fall to the side. In the warm, dim room, two soft silhouettes stopped to regard him. As he fell back asleep the figures resumed to push the bed, the distant squeak returning. 

When Arthur woke next, he felt more coherent, familiar with the low, humid light of the room. He tried to push himself up to his elbows and found he couldn’t. Instead, he rolled to his side, his weight tugging at the plastic tubing. He relaxed and breathed deep and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was able to raise himself on an elbow, and with another round of deep breaths, up to a slouching seated position. He felt the warmth of the thread of drool across his lip. He fumbled at the tubes protruding from his wrist. He clasped them and felt them break loose. He pushed himself off of the bed and fell to his knees. He slurred as he called out with a gravely whisper.

Arthur pushed the swinging door open and grasped its edge as he leaned into the hall, peering into the humid, dim light. “Hello?” He let go of the door and stumbled across the hall, before finding purchase on the adjacent wall. He held himself up against it as he stepped along, his feet as heavy as if he was trudging through a bog of molasses. 

In the distance he could see an even dimmer, but even more rich glow through a bank of windows. He fought off the veil of unconsciousness, taking deep steady breaths as he worked his way along the wall. The windows grew closer. 

He felt along the wall for what seemed like an eternity, but was no more than two minutes, until the bank of windows was right in front of him, just across the short chasm of the hall. Arthur steadied himself, found his feet, and pushed toward the other wall. He caught ahold of a windowsill, just short of collapsing. He clutched the sill and breathed and pulled himself to his feet, resting his face against the glass.

He turned an ear. Footsteps? 

He fortified his grip and let himself step back. He tried to let his focus drift through the glass. Slowly he began to see. Elaborate bassinets. Rows of cradles. A nursery. Arthur peered. A flick of something at the edge of a crib. He clutched at the window and strained to focus. Another flutter of something thin and midnight black. 

Definitely footsteps.

Arthur let his focus go slack, like those moments as a child when he would be examining a single ant crawling along before allowing his peripheral vision to zoom out, revealing every ant on the ant hill all at once, undulating and squirming as one organism. Thin wisps of cobalt black tentacles writhed from almost all of the incubators.

A hand on his shoulder. A distant voice.

There were names on the feet of the complicated cradles. Ramirez, Johnson, Gilford, He froze. …Harris. He slapped a hand on the window and watched the black tentacles writhe up from the basket bearing his name. He didn’t feel the needle as it sunk into his neck, just a little pressure before he fell asleep to dreams of black, writhing tendrils.

Arthur Harris pushed the gear into park and left the car running. The door shut behind him with a thud, his breath steaming in the morning air as he hustled across the lot. The old man was sitting on his crate next to the door just like any other day. As Arthur pushed into the mart, he caught the old man’s watchful gaze.

Arthur pushed the door open with his butt, his hands full with coffee and savory pastry. He shrugged to the old man. If only his hands weren’t full, he could spare a few dimes. He froze in surprise when he found the old man’s sober stare. He shrugged again. “Sorry.”

The old man narrowed his gaze. “Don’t let them take it from you.”

“Huh?”

“They can’t keep it if you tell them ‘No’.”

“Yeah. Ok.” Not knowing what to do, Arthur held out his sandwich. “You hungry?”

The old man took it blindly as he continued to stare up at him. “You have to kill it. Burn it”

“Burn it? Burn what?”

The old man chomped a bite and spoke through a mouthful. “The alien. We’re gestation pods. The rates are so low we don’t even notice. But when they burst another one of them is born, and when there’s enough of them,” he huffed, launching a spray of egg and muffin. “You have to burn it,” he added before taking another bite and staring up at Arthur as he chewed.

“Alright.” Arthur fished into his breast pocket and pulled out a crumpled bill, He tucked it into the old man’s cup. “I’ll burn it.”

Before Arthur could stand straight the old man held out a crumpled paper cup. “Take it before they send you in.”

Arthur cautiously took the wadded cup and pulled the wrinkled top open. He peered inside at the round, off-white pill. He turned an eye to the old man. “Before they send me in?”

“They can’t keep it if you tell them, ‘No’.”

Arthur smiled, tucked the crumpled cup with the pill into his pocket and toasted the old man with a tip of his cup. “Will do. Thanks.”

The old man took another chomp of the sandwich as he watched Arthur pull away.

Arthur M. Harris. 

April 21, 1980 - November 2, 2024.

Arthur Harris passed away at Saint Elmore hospital after complications from minor surgery. Born in Windhoek, Angola, to William and Claire Harris. Arthur received decorations from both; The Foreign Legion and the U.N. Central Convoy. E. M. Harris is survived by his wife, Edna, and daughter and son, Herbert (9), and Connelley (6). Ceremony to be held privately.