Sarai Mannolini-Winwood

Content Warning: This narrative depicts body horror in the form of allegorical self-mutilation and deals with issues of depression, anxiety, and verbal abuse.

The last of the shopping away in the pantry, I turned and yanked out the second cutlery drawer, the one with tongs and assorted things, and dropped it onto the scarred wood kitchen table with a vibrating clatter. I tossed a handful of small wood chips into the hob to keep the fire burning low and breathed deeply of the woodsmoke. I took a moment and rubbed feeling back into my hands.

I dragged the chair, which grumbled and growled across the slate tiles, until it was close under me. A final squeak or two had me sitting flush up against the smoothed edge of the table.

I positioned and then laid out my left arm, palm to ceiling, ensuring that the elbow was in from the edge, flush to the table. Rummaging through the drawer with my free right hand, I found the double-pronged BBQ fork, and with a sigh and a swift motion, I plunged it down through the meat of my elbow. Shunk! I kept pressing until the prong ends pierced the wood. I seem to have aimed well, as nothing leaked out.

My arm flopped around like a fish pulled onto dry dock. Reaching blindly, I found the second fork and slammed it through my wrist, pinning everything satisfactorily in place. I had to use my teeth to unsheathe the paring knife. I really should’ve been more organised.

Placing the edge of the knife against my skin, I sliced open my arm. Cutting slowly, almost gently sawing, through layers of skin, muscle and nerves until the bones shone through in a wet pink soup. I discarded the tongs from the drawer, scattering them on the floor, until I found the ones with the silicon ends. These I slid into the cut and used them to widen the open space.

Peering in, I could easily see the problem. I’d thought I’d gotten this all out last time, but it looked like a new creeper had moved in. If I knew where the tap root was located, I could probably stop the regrowth, but I’d yet to find the damned thing no matter where I cut open.

The dark green vine was viscously coated. At least this one was relatively smooth. I could see small barbs, but nothing that should get caught on its way out. In my teen years, I’d been riddled with grevillea and had spent every night cutting the thorns from my flesh.

I used the knife to cut the vine where it pressed against the bone. Slowly, but with great force, I pulled the thing out, inch by ichor-drenched inch.

A particularly large leaf had formed, and I had to lever it out with the tip of the knife. It was a stubborn one… I HOPE YOU CRASH AND DIE BITCH …with an audible pop, it snapped out, and I had only a moment to grab it before it fell back in. The leaves were the worst; they could regrow the whole vine if you didn’t catch them.

With a final tug, the rest slipped free, and I wound it up in my hand before slinging it into the open fire.

It screamed as it burned, and bursts of black-green flame shot out from the gaps in the grate. I leaned back, but one caught me on the side of the face. I rubbed at my singed eyebrow and hoped it wouldn’t be too noticeable tomorrow.

As the hob coughed back down to its normal embers, I turned to examine my arm. Without the vines, the muscles and nerves were slowly expanding back in. They had been so tight and tense for months now. I always left this detox too long.

The bone shone through between the welling blood. It looked sleek and firm, but I knew the truth, it was full of pockmarks and nodes. I fished around in the drawer, dropping wooden skewers to the floor before I found the one good metal one.

I ran the tip along the bone, feeling for the places where dips had formed. Most of the ridges and nodes were low, nothing too swollen. My fingers stuttered as I dipped into an expanding hole. I ran the tip around the edge, feeling the building swell like a sound on the horizon.

I knew this one well; it was the one I was concerned about. Flashes filled the space above the table. Cupcakes baked, sitting up late on the phone listening to a friend, giving a lift to work, picking up extra groceries, taking up the collection box, volunteering again. I could feel the edges like ridges in a strip mine, small plateaus, but endlessly digging down. It was profligacy.

I sighed, but there was little I could do about this one now. Just keep trying to pull back. To practice my boundaries. To value my own selfhood and time. It was like the node of humility. I didn’t think I could ever bring it back into the smooth line of the bone, but I could keep working on stopping it from growing worse.

The nerves began to twitch and jump, reminding me that today had a specific purpose.

It had been building for months now. Perhaps faster than ever before, except during the pandemic when I’d permanently left open a cannula down to the underarm so I could dig out each new growth at the end of every day. This one had surprised me, though. I thought I’d been getting better at being a bystander. Watching from the sidelines and letting the world wash over me.

But the aches and pains didn’t lie. I had a growth, and it was a big one.

I used the knife to separate the skin from my muscle, moving slowly from the top of the opening down to the base. It had formed on the outside towards the elbow. A sneaky spot that I struggled to see and only noticed when my partner commented on the protrusion.

I slipped the skin free, carefully moving between the layers as one does when peeling apples. The nerves popped and sizzled in the air, expressing their displeasure with my actions. I kept going, leading with the point until I felt a textured firmness different to the spaces around it. I worked carefully to open a maw only as wide as the growth.

When I peered down, I was surprised to see that it was an oyster mushroom. So many small blooms all building up into one larger structure. These were the worst. Anything of the mycelium type was going to be hard to dig out. It wasn’t the body, I could harvest that easily, but I’d need to chase down every fine strand.

I scooted to the edge of my seat and used my foot to drag my handbag from where I’d dropped it by the stove. A few ignoble grunts and it was within reach. I dumped the contents out over the table and rooted around until I found the portable nail kit. With a pleased grin, I drew out tiny silver tweezers.

First, the mushroom. I wrapped my fingers around it, having to squeeze carefully to fit them down the side of my skin. With a wiggle, snap, and wrench, I drew it out. It sobbed as it emerged.

I tossed it in the fire where it wetly smouldered. I’d learnt the hard way not to compost the things from inside me. The one time I’d tried, I’d had to defend the chickens from the tomatoes with a cricket bat.

The bulk out, I began the hard task of finding and drawing all the small filaments. I wished I’d thought to set up a good audiobook, as this would take me through to dinner. I drew each one up into a pile on the edge of my skin flap until they were ready to be shaken free.

I’m sure I’d missed some, but this was the best I could do. I needed to start dinner soon. I popped the tongs out and began drawing the waxed thread I’d prepared earlier through the eyelets in my arm. It would be helpful if I could just lace it up and down when I needed to, but each time the skin healed over and I had to cut it loose. At least the eyelets I’d had installed made this final step easier. It was hard work sewing one-handed.

When the last stitch was tied off, I wiggled, jiggled, and shook the prongs until the forks could be popped out of the wood. Collecting up the used cutlery, I scattered them into the dishwasher trays and tried to decide if tacos or pasta was the go for tonight.

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Sarai Mannolini-Winwood (she/her) is a speculative creative writer as well as a literary theorist and academic. She is intrigued by how we make sense of ourselves through our writing. Her work is available academically in TEXT, Creatio Fantastica, and Dissection, professionally in The Artifice, and creatively in Eunoia Review, Emerging Possibilities, and Creature.

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