What's This Itch?
The rash started innocently enough. A blush of pink, an afterthought on the forearm. By the next morning it was raised and had darkened to scarlet. That’s also when the itch set in.
The type of itch seated deep in the dermis, impossible to reach for all but the sharpest fingernails. The type that builds, until overlying hair stands on end and muscles twitch. The type where you scratch around the perimeter of the actual itch area to interrupt supply lines. The type that can drive a person toward the edge of their sanity.
I tried to go about my day as I would otherwise. I arrived at the office just in time for our monthly board meeting.
“NJ? NJ? We were asking what you thought about the new compensation package for our board of directors? And, also, if you agree that, ‘The Acoustic Challenges of Proper Fart Muffling,’ is a good centerpiece for our January issue?”
It was clear to everyone that I was distracted. My focus, all of my willpower, was directed toward keeping my hand at my side instead of tearing into my itch. I was only successful at this for two to three minute stretches before inevitably caving to the sweet surrender of a strong scratch.
The following day everyone at the office was affected. All exposed skin was scaly and rust-colored. Flakes of tissue littered the halls, a blizzard of dried and discarded cells. Debris collected underneath fingernails to the point of overflow. The rash had taken over.
The workers were agitated. They felt victimized, but more importantly, they felt itchy. They were looking for someone to direct their frustration toward. Their itch-induced frustration. Somehow word spread that I was patient 0. That I had introduced this plague of excoriation, that I was the vector of disease.
Chants of, “Quar-an-tine! Quar-an-tine!” evolved quickly to, “Lock him up! Lock him up!” They eventually landed on, and stuck to, the more pointed, “Burn his skin! Burn his skin! Burn NJ’s skin!!!!”
I pled my case. After all, even if I had brought this virulent strain of contagion to our otherwise quiet office, burning my skin would not make their condition any less itchy. If anything, it may cure me of my itch; I was nearing the point where a good hot burn followed by extensive skin grafting sounded not unreasonable.
My erythematous co-workers settled on a less violent punishment. They labeled the door of a central, well-windowed conference room, “QUARANTINE,” then locked me inside, for everyone to leer at. Lastly, they pulled mittens over my hands and tied them tightly into the sleeves of my jacket, imprisoning my fingernails in the warm darkness of winter-wear.
“You guys!! C’mon you guys!! It itches so bad, I swear!! I’m sorry I came to work. But I do feel like we’d all feel a lot better with just a little hydrocortisone ointment. Oh man, this rash really itches.”
My screams were blood-curdling. Still, no one came to my aid. The first night in quarantine was spent in a fugue between sleep and wake, driven on by fevered dreams of a skinless man hitch-hiking across the country, muscle exposed, in search of his lost outer layer.
I woke to the sound of the first few go-getters arriving early. Their skin looked much less inflamed than yesterday. I placed a cup to the quarantine room window in the direction of their conversation, in an attempt to overhear them.
“Yeah, just a little hydrocortisone last night and again this morning, I’m feeling much better. I wonder what it was?”
“Yeah, me too. But, on the other hand, the itch is better now so who really cares.”
“Looks like NJ is listening to us.”
I tried to act normal when they pointed toward me. I quickly hid the amplification cup and looked down at my mittens. I had already forgotten what my hands looked like. This itch was getting to me.
What is this itch? Where did this rash come from? Why is it so contagious?
When the other co-workers arrived it was clear they were all feeling better as well, much less itchy. Smiles outnumbered tense grimaces. Still, they didn’t let me out of quarantine and they didn’t release my hands from their mittened cages.
I was able to rub the lip of my long sleeve against the top edge of an office chair, enough to reveal a cherry red crease of wrist skin. From my torso to my fingertips, I was electric with unscratched itch, though when I looked at the exposed sliver of forearm, I felt a moment of relief. I felt as if something larger was at work, that my body was a vessel, a conduit, by which a greater force was attempting to enter our plane. Yes, this process caused my physical body grave discomfort but, perhaps, if I only understood, I wouldn’t perceive it as a debilitating itch but, instead, as an opportunity for growth, for transcendence.
I stared at the portion of wrist that was uncovered. I stared until I forgot that the rough, magenta surface was part of my wrist. I tried to look through it, into whatever may be just underneath. Then, that’s when I caught a glimpse. This was no rash, it wasn’t an infection. This was the greatest discovery of our age.
Again, I woke up. The first thing I noticed was I didn’t feel itchy. The second thing I noticed was that I was wearing a hospital gown laying in what appeared to be a hospital room. The remains of recent memory seemed lost somewhere, just out of reach.
I swung my legs to the side edge of the bulky hospital bed. I stood with the help of the bed railing and took a few unsteady steps. Using a slow shuffle, I made my way to the open door of the room and poked my head out.
“Hello?”
The hall was eerily quiet. Don’t hospitals have nurses and doctors? Where is everyone?
I walked past other hospital rooms, all empty, most appearing as if they hadn’t been used in some time. At the end of the hallway was a set of closed double doors with a small pane of glass in each. The doors were locked. I looked through one of the windows. I could see a comfortable appearing lobby, with a number of empty chairs and a front desk. There was an aging, dark-haired woman sitting behind the desk, looking methodically through a three-ringed binder, thick with stacked pages.
I knocked on the pane.
“Hey! Can you tell me what’s going on? This door is locked!”
The woman paused at her work and set down her pen. She was quite thin, wearing glasses too small for her face, which she also took off and set down. As she closed her binder the cover became visible from my perch. I read, “Cedar Bend Psychiatric Hospital - Permanent Residents.” She stood and walked toward the door, holding my eye contact until she was quite close. After a final look, she shook her head and mouthed, “Sorry,” before sliding a dark cover over the pane, and another on the other door.
“Hey!! Let me out of here!! What is going on??!!”
I slumped, my back to the locked doors. How did I get here? It all started with that itch…
I looked down at my hands, and followed the branching veins upstream into my arm. There, there was a small patch of pale pink rash still visible near the crease opposite my right elbow. I looked into this fading lesion, desperate for answers. I wasn’t prepared for what I found. It was the greatest discovery of our age. But also, I realized then… I was never leaving this hospital.
