Lament

by Chris Lihou

Image credit: Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

John was discontent. Today was a grey, dismal winter’s day. For John, every day felt like this, no matter the season or the weather. Spring sap had not risen in him for over a decade. He knew intellectually that he was still alive, but everything now had a blandness. John’s prior delight in food had degraded. Mealtimes were now simply the taking on of fuel. Walking the dog had become a chore to be endured. Once, it was a time to carefully observe and relish his surroundings; now, he no longer saw beauty.

He thrived emotionally only in private, in memories of past times. His current relationships, along with his emotions, had all redlined, dimming into a state of passivity. He’d not joined with a woman since - he could not precisely remember when; certainly, it was well before his treatment.

He never suspected. How could he? The autonomous workings of the human body had always needed no thought, no special encouragement - until they did. Then the detective work began in earnest. What was the root cause? What might be the fix? It helped little to know that it was an affliction shared by some percentage of men. But why him?

Specialists and others all had their ideas. Pills, injections, transdermal applications and mechanical means were tried, although a proposed new lover was not. Only further despondency followed each failure. Trying a possible remedy, only to have it fail, increased his performance anxiety for the next time.

It was as though death had paid him a visit, not death itself, but of what it meant to be him: a man with passions, now without the urge or ability to proceed. He was without energy, without motivation. His eye for the ladies was now an idiocy. His spark, his life force, had been extinguished.

As a final blow a tumour appeared on a scan despite him being asymptomatic.

He’d visited the station, where the waiting medical train would carry him forward whether he was ready or not. How might he unravel the fears that the C word instilled? How could he become an informed patient when even those with greater know-how lacked unanimity about what was best? It was a crap shoot, with legal cover for the practitioner, and a journey into the unknown for the patient.

The surgical mantra was remove or kill the tumour, and the pharmaceutical mantra was killing the very essence of being a man, so as not to feed a tumour’s growth. A two-pronged death sentence to remain alive. A two-pronged sentence leading to… well, what exactly?

Treatment completed, what he had once taken for granted now hung useless between his legs, serving no purpose; no longer rising as it once did to give pleasure, no longer able to fuck.

John’s longing for what he’d lost was profound, disturbing his lived equilibrium. At night, he’d frequently lie in a state of unsleep, his prone body aching to be aroused in reaction to his mental memories of female nakedness. His mind touched her, caressed her, entered her, even as his own organs ignored the stimuli.

His mind and body no longer reacted in unison. He had boarded the train before fully understanding its destination; captive, his body was medically assaulted enroute.

***

Chris Lihou

Chris is a retired engineer who, in 2020, following a serious medical diagnosis and treatment, found that writing short stories and poetry provided therapy and delight. His writings speak to the nature of our lives, its highs and lows, our pain and joy, our fantasies, life’s quirks and realities and even a bit of life’s silliness. He has self-published two compilations, Fifty More or Less and Fifty or More. Both are available on Amazon.