The Curse of Curing Cancer - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Aaron Giles was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that tonight was his stag night from the copious amount of alcohol that was being forced upon him. Paradoxically however, this was making him increasingly unaware of any facts at all. It really was a quandary.
One thing he was sure about was that tomorrow he would be the happiest he had ever been, he would be marrying the most amazing woman and he would have a whole lifetime to live with her afterwards. He knew all this to be true however, he also knew that now was not tomorrow, it was now. Now, he was drinking beer from a tube attached to a funnel. Aaron was in that curious thirty minute period when you knew that you had had far too much to drink but no significant consequences had arisen as of yet. Aaron couldn’t do anything about it, it was too late for him now but he could regret in advance what was to come.
Instead, he thought while he still remained lucid he would think about Amy. She really was amazing, the only person on this earth he would endure a stag night for. Aaron noted that while he had been thinking this someone had put a bag over his head and he was being carried, with no considerable care. The lift back and then sudden jerk forward further informed Aaron that he was about to be thrown, sadly he could do nothing with this information as, at some point in the proceedings, his hands had been tied. His journey through the air seemed to last for ever…until it didn’t and Aaron was acquainted with a hard, solid floor.

Little George Hendry watched his mother as she enjoyed what he made her thirty-first cigarette of the day.
“Mum, can I tell you a joke?” enquired George, never quite moving his gaze from that thin brown tube with the white tip. It was a wand, his mum wouldn’t admit it but George knew. How else could it make smoke appear from nowhere out the end.
“There’s nothing I’d like more Georgey.”
“Well ok, so there is this big chimney and a tiny weeny chimney like me.” This provoked a chuckle from George’s mother which morphed into a fit of coughing. George’s mum was always doing that; it was very annoying when George was half way through his new joke.
“Quiet mum, I’ve forgotten where I was. There was a roof with a little chimney and a great, big, enormous chimney and…and the little chim…no the big chimney says to the little chimney, you’re to young to smoke!” George finished with a flourish, proud to have gotten to the end of it all successfully, he had told it exactly right. His mother dutifully laughed and then dutifully stifled the following cough as best she could. Those were the duties of a mother but she had to admit, that was a proper joke. I mean by no stretch of the imagination was it funny but he wasn’t to know. He’d certainly come a long way in joke telling.

Callum Smeaton was rapidly losing hope in this blind date. Fifteen minutes earlier Callum had arrived at the coffee shop five minutes late, flustered and out of breath. While he had been initially relieved to not spot a girl in a yellow hat, his mood had taken a definite fall. Five minutes catching his breath back, five minutes pretending to be texting on his phone and a further five minutes desperately looking inside and out of the restaurant for this girl and her sodding yellow hat. At one point the waitress had come over and asked if he was planning on ordering anything. Stupidly, Callum had explained the situation and the look of pity he received had been almost more than he could take. The waitress couldn’t have been terribly sympathetic anyway as he definitely heard giggling from the counter shortly after the waitress had returned there. Callum would have very much liked to give up right then and there but he now had a chai latte he thought an extra couple of minutes wouldn’t hurt.
He’d met the missing girl on a dating social media thingy. Oh! Not Tinder or anything! It was a legitimate dating site, he wasn’t just looking for sex, well he wouldn’t mind it but his priority was a serious relationship. OH!!! No, no, no, not too serious, he wasn’t already planning the wedding and counting his future kids, he was only nineteen. He was in that healthy midway point between man whore and clingy nutter. He’d spent an age on his profile, it surprised him how many drafts it had taken him to accurately describe who he really was seen as he hadn’t decided on that himself yet. It pretty much changed with the person he was speaking to, or else some people he spoke to wouldn’t like him at all. He hadn’t thought the missing girl had wanted to talk at first but she hadn’t stopped and that was all he could ask for he supposed. It had been hard work, he’d had to come up with every conversation starter but gradually, excruciatingly gradually, she’d began to send bigger and bigger replies until one day she’d even started the conversation. Callum hadn’t been able to stop smiling for that entire day. After a few more weeks of increasingly consistent chin-wagging Callum had been emboldened enough to ask her if she’d like to meet for a coffee. Oh, a coffee, the perfect romantic situation. More chance for conversation than the cinema but you can bail quicker than if you had to eat a whole meal at a restaurant. Much cheaper to offer to pay for as well. He’d stared at that text for a long, long time after sending that. He’d began to sweat once he saw she’d read the message but not replied. He began to shake when he was the ‘typing’ symbol come up. When the notification sounded that a message had come through he’d panicked, turned his phone off, flung it across the table and hid in the toilets until his breathing had returned to normal. He’d come back in the room to see all his mates, gathered round his phone, grinning wildly. One of them, Callum, his best friend, took the phone in one hand and put his other hand behind his back in the style of a waiter. He strode over and, with a flourish, presented a text, a glorious text that read: Yeah, I can do 14:30, I’ll wear a yellow hat so you know who I am. See you then xxx. Well, it was now 14:50 and not all that glorious any more. Unless he’d missed the clock going back or forward but a quick google soon proved that theory wrong. And it definitely was a yellow hat…unless! Unless he was colour blind, had he been colour blind his entire life? He revisited the search for girls with hats with renewed energy. There! A girl with, what he interpreted to be, a red hat. Colours were an abstract concept anyway, who was to say that what he saw with his eyes was the same as what anyone else saw through their eyes. However, even as Callum thought this, he knew in the back of his head that on the drive to the coffee shop he had survived two crossings based on the knowledge that red was red, not yellow. Damn traffic lights, they could never just cut him a break. As if that wasn’t enough evidence, Callum was reassured of his perfect colour vision when the girl in the red hat yelled at him to either stop staring or piss off.
Well that was it, even blind optimism had failed him, he decided he’d down the coffee and go buy a jumper to make it all ok again. He lifted the cup to his mouth and tilted it steeply back. It was about half a second before he realised that he could not possible down a drink that was, apparently, hotter than the sun. As he spluttered into a napkin on the table, his creamy moustache just beginning to drip, he noticed something. Something that if he hadn’t been spluttering at that precise angle he wouldn’t have seen. It was so unlikely that he would have seen this that it seemed very likely that he was never supposed to see this. But he had seen it, Callum 1 – 0 Fate. He saw a very pretty girl leaving the restaurant. Her face barely contain her bright blue eyes, it was an exceedingly beautiful face despite the fact that you got the impression that those lips didn’t often smile. Her whole being was anxious though, her body folded in as if in an attempt to hide from the world. Callum wouldn’t why anyone would want to hide those eyes though. What she hadn’t hid very well at all was the tip of a yellow hat, peaking out of her bag. Callum 1 – 1 Fate.

Aaron decided he would like this thirty minute of sober clarity to be over as quickly as possible, if only to dull the pain. He felt movement while still being still which he soon riddled out to mean he was in a vehicle, most likely some sort of van.
Aaron Giles was not having much fun at all so he returned to his happy place: Amy. Neither of them had felt compelled to move away from home when all their friends went off to university and in the void that was left they were able to find each other and gained so much more. And with that, the place they’d both spent their entire lives in felt completely new. They’d stayed there even after university; they were both far too content with the sweet, little adventure that was their lives. They’d never sought for more because it had never occurred to them that there was more to have. As long as Aaron had Amy and Amy had Aaron they could give or take anything else and because of this they were happy and would be until this arrangement was no longer the case.
Aaron was pulled back to reality by the noise of a door being opened and, shortly afterward, hands on his body, lifting him up and out. The change in temperature and disappearance of the night chill told him he was being carried inside. Eventually, he found himself being set down in a chair, his hands untied and the bag removed from his head. Aaron was blinded by the light of the room for longer than he’d of thought it would but when he adjusted he saw he was sat at a desk. Sat at the other side of the desk was a rather tired and quite embarrassed looking man in a suit. The barely muffled giggling from behind Aaron told him that his supposed mates were behind him, enjoying every moment. However, he had no idea what they were enjoying.

She remembered the fatal day she told him the interrupting cow joke.
“Knock knock,” she’d said, “Knock knock…” and then she’d realised she had to explain to George the entire format of knock knock jokes. Five minutes later George had replied “Who there?” which wasn’t quite the true line but it was cute.
“Interrupting cow.”
“Interrupting cow wh…”
“MOOOO!!” mooed George’s mum, nailing the impersonation excellently.
“You didn’t let me finish mum!”
“Darling, I know, its because it’s the interrupting cow.”
“Whaaaa?! You said say whatever you said and then who but you didn’t let meee!” complained George who was becoming increasing hysterical at this mystifying farce. His mum, realising her mistake, decided to bravely try and save this experience for her son. Bravely alas, stupidly.
“Ok, you’re right, that’s not a very good one. Knock knock.”
“Who there” ventured George tentatively but trusting in his mother.
“Boo”
“Boo who?”
“There’s no need to cry now George, you silly billy.”
George fixed his mother with a stare so weary it made her feel like the young, scorned child. She really was trying his patience today. She, however, was delighting in every moment.
“Mother, you need to give me the surname of this Boo, I’ve asked you Boo who?”
“Stop crying George, you silly boy.”
“YOU’RE THE SILLY ONE MUM, YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!!”
George’s mum wisely decided that now was an opportune moment to aborted this particular mission. A few days later, once George had calmed down from his first joke and got his head road the very concept he took rather a liking to these joke things. He began inventing his own jokes. One day he had ambushed his mother and announced to her “Mum, I like knock knock jokes, I’ve made one up myself.”
“You have?” Gasped his mum, so proud of her little boy, “Who’s there?”
“Well done mum!” managed George through giggles, “Interrupting horse.”
The penny dropped in George’s mum’s mind, what had she done?! She forced the words out of her mouth “The interrupting hor…”
“Neeeeeiiiigggghhhh” came the enthusiastic punchline. George fell about laughing at his own ingenious hilarity and his mother took this opportunity to covertly roll her eyes.
“Well done, clever boy, very good.”
“You liked that one? I’ve got another one mum: knock knock.”
“Who’s there” she said tentatively realising there was no escape.
“Interrupting T-Rex”
George’s mum heavily suspected that she knew where this was going and, furthermore, that her son had still not quite grasped the idea of jokes. However, in the back of her mind, the part that suspected little George was a lot cleverer than he let on, it occurred to her that this might well be a merciless punishment. She could have let him have this one, but she wasn’t going to.
“Interrupting T-Rex who” she spurted quick enough to catch her son of guard. She felt slightly bad seeing his face fall. How the cheeky glint in his eyes and his mouth barely able to contain what would have been a very impressive roar was wiped clean and replaced with the cold realisation of one who had been outsmarted, outplayed and outclassed by ones mother.
“That’s not fair mum, you didn’t let me say my bit.”
“You didn’t say it fast enough.”
“Muuuuuum”
“I’m sorry, but you…”
“I’ll tell another one, knock knock.”
Suddenly her victory was gone and she was right back in his grasp, he really was a relentless little squit…who she loved dearly.
“Who’s there?”
“Interrupting giraffe.”
Hmmmm, thought George’s mum; a curious choice.
“Interrupting giraffe wwwwwhhhhh…George, breath!”
George’s poor foresight and planning had landed him at a point in time when he had had to make a giraffe noise. When one just hadn’t come he hadn’t given up but the thought process had been so intense he’d neglected to do other important processes, such as breath.
“I don’t think I like jokes, mum.”
She couldn’t help herself, it was George’s mum’s turn to fall about laughing, and then came the coughing.

“Oi!” yelled Callum instinctively. The girl turned, as hid half the restaurant, to this sudden, two lettered outcry. None of them looked as mortified as the girl though. Callum wouldn’t what the next move was, he hadn’t planned what to follow oi with, or that he’d have an audience. People were starting to follow the gaze of the man who had shouted to an increasingly desperate looking girl, desperate to be anywhere but there.
Every single bone in her body was dragging her towards the door and away from the whole situation. It was so different a second ago, pre-oi. She was just sneaking away, she had almost made it to the door but now he’d seen her. He must know who I am, he oi-ed with confidence, how did he know? Oh, the damn hat was sticking out through the zip of her bag. The problem was now he was real and there were tangible consequences to her actions that she couldn’t lie to herself about. The fact was, this girl couldn’t actually bring herself to hurt someone, she’d been hurt by far too many people to be able to hurt someone else. She’d told herself twenty minutes ago that he wasn’t coming and, although it had been a little sad, she’d felt comfortable and took her hat off. A little sad was comfortable for her. When he’d come in five minutes later she’d very quickly become uncomfortable again. She’d been amazed that she’d talked herself into meeting this boy in the first place so when she had let herself out of the idea it wasn’t going to be easy talking herself back in. She felt like a human hokkie-cokkie. She’d elected to do nothing, just let him give up but he hadn’t, which had made her feel terrible. The more she watched him, the unhappier he looked, the worse she felt until it had become too much for her and she’d rushed for the exit. Now, she found herself looking at a boy who might have been a bit angry, quite ridiculous with his foam moustache, very embarrassed but, overwhelmingly, he looked hurt and she couldn’t bear to see that either. It was really a question of who would take control of her body; her mind telling her to run full pelt out down the high street or her morals telling her she’d already screwed up this date but she owed it too him to go and sit with him, at least for a while. She was amazed and slightly impressed that she felt herself walking away from the door, towards the table where the boy sat. Amazed and slightly impressed but very, very scared. She sat down opposite from the boy and realised that she hadn’t got a plan for anything post-sitting down. She held her breath as the boy opened his mouth to say something, but then he closed it again, seemingly having forgotten to say anything. He then glanced around at the watchers who turned back to their meals and made a concerted effort to not look like they were listening.
“Ellie.”
Managed Callum. Ellie felt the least she could do was match that.
“Callum.”
And both of them took a moment to congratulate themselves on making first contact. One small step for normal people, one giant leap for them. However, time went on and soon, ruthlessly soon, it was time to say something else.
“So…I’ve been here for a while…and I’m guessing you have been too.”
Said Callum rather more grumpily than he’d intended. His pride was still wounded and for some reason that he couldn’t quite justify he was taking it out on her.
“Yeah…Oh gosh, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”
“Are you going to say why?”
Callum couldn’t believe he was pursuing this terribly unromantic line of inquiry. Well, she had tried to stand him up. Although, unless he was very much mistaken, she hadn’t in the end. Even though it would have been the easiest choice by far, if he’d of been closer to the door, he’d have probably run. Ellie looked like she was edging ever closer to tears, why on earth was he putting her through this? Was he getting a kick out it?
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry…I…I couldn’t…look I’m really sorry for this. I’ve ruined this, I’ll pay for your coffee and I’ll go.”
Ellie was definitely on a very small countdown to many, many tears and she really would prefer to have her little breakdown somewhere more private than this coffee shop.
“But, we’re both here now.”
“I know but it isn’t going to work is it.”
“Oh.”
It was very important for the remains of Callum’s pride that he didn’t let too much devastation through. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions in two letter utterances beginning with O.
“You’re angry, that’s not how you should feel on a date is it.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You are.”
“Don’t tell me, how I feel.”
It irritated Callum how angry that last sentence sounded.
“I’m sorry...how are you feeling.”
“How am I feeling?” ,he realised this she had sent him one small window in which he could have another go at this date, all he had to do was not be grumpy, “Well, I’m obviously a bit scared, I don’t go on many dates, and I’m quite uncertain as to what to expect and worried that we won’t find anything to talk…”
“Oh gosh, I so…”
Apologising was sort of what Ellie did, a lot, so much, five times this conversation alone. She’d been going for the sixth but she didn’t make it to the end.
“But I’m really excited to meet you, you look so pretty.”
In Callum’s rush to get that out before she’d apologised again he’d said a lot more than he’d intended a lot louder than he’d intended.
“Ah, that was probably a bit weird wasn’t it?” Callum started nervously but then he remembered he really didn’t have much to lose any more so he decided to continue on the ‘say what you really think’ path, “Well, I meant it. I don’t do this much and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you on messenger. How do you feel.”
“Wow, are you sure? I’m…I’m excited to I guess.”
Before Callum could stop himself he heard himself say. “I guess?”
Callum watched helplessly as his words, his disappointed tone hit her ears and then all he could do and wait for the inevitable apology and the guilt that came with it. Instead, she let out a little laugh. It was nervous and tiny but Callum really enjoyed that laugh. He would love to coax another one of those out of her.
“We are terrible at this aren’t we.”
She did it! She laughed again and he laughed with her and with that, two awkward people found a strategy to get through this date, maybe even enjoy it.
“I’ve had worse, I reckon.”
“Oooh, that sounds like a story.”
“Oh gosh, well. Oh this is so embarrassing,” ,she giggled, Callum was becoming quite enthralled by that giggle, “So there’s this guy who like me and he asked if we could go on a date and it was nice…but just nice you know, he really was just a friend.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Yeah! So, we are at this party, I struggle with parties anyway, but he was getting really close and then he just flat out says it ‘I like you, do you want to be my girlfriend.’”
“Oh no, he didn’t!”
“Exactly! He did, it was awful. So I’m stuck there and I don’t want to just say no so I was trying to think of a way to let him down gently.”
“You told him you were seeing someone else?”
“Oh no, he wouldn’t have believed that.”
“You told him you weren’t in the right place?”
“No, that’s way too generic.”
“You didn’t tell him you were a lesbian did you?!”
“Er…no, but at that level.”
“What did you tell him!?”
“I said that I was into Asian boys.”
Callum erupted into laughter, Ellie couldn’t help but grin.
“Hahaha, that is brilliant. So are you…you know, into Asian boys?”
“Oh no, well it’s not that I don’t like Asian boys, oh gosh, I’m not prejudice. I just had to think of something that didn’t sound generic and that’s what my brain came up with so that’s what I came out with.”
“That is funny.”
“That’s not the worst part. So he goes off, not looking too upset and I think it’s all done. But it wasn’t; about ten minutes later he came back into the room and he’d…he’d…oh gosh.”
“What had he done?!”
“He’d blacked up.”
“What!?”
“He’d covered himself in chocolate mousse, you must understand he was very drunk.”
Callum couldn’t stop laughing and Ellie, despite telling him to stop and that it had been a terrible situation, couldn’t help but join in. After she thought he’d had his fair share of fun at her expense she countered; “So what’s you most embarrassing date then, mister?”
That stopped him with a very satisfying immediacy. Reluctantly, he began his tale.
“Ok so I’d met this girl, Shannon, at this thing and we’d hit it off so we planned to go on a date that Saturday which turned out to be Valentine’s day so the pressure was on. So, I’m on my way and she texts me to say that there’s something she should warn me about but then my phone dies. Bit inconvenient but I knew where we were meeting so it was fine. So, I get there and I’m waiting and then this middle age woman comes up and says ‘Are you Callum?’ and I say yes, a little weirded out. Then she says she was Shannon’s mum and I freaked out.”
“Her actually mother came with her on valentine’s day?!”
“And her dad, they were waiting in the restaurant. Turns out she’d lied to me about her age and she was actually two years younger than me. That’s my little sister’s age and I’ve always felt that any girl I see should be as different as possible from my sister. Anyway, the parents come to chaperone their poor innocent daughter from this college boy. The father just glared at me all the way through the starter. He looked like he wanted to use my balls for earrings.”
Now it was Ellie’s turn to laugh in the face of excruciating embarrassment.
“Yeah, yeah very funny but it was so awkward. We all sat in silence for such a long time and then an idea popped into my head. In hindsight it wasn’t that good an idea and I have no idea whether it work because I didn’t stick around to find out.”
“What on earth did you do.”
“Well, I’ll tell you but you must promise not to laugh.”
“Of course, I promise.”
“I stood up and said ‘you’ve been part of our new dating show, thank you for taking part!’ then I pointed to several corners of the room and said ‘here are our hidden cameras’ and then, without further ado, I ran out the door, didn’t stop running for about five minutes and then called my mum and spent valentine’s day with her, we had a good time.”
Ellie battled valiantly against herself for a few seconds before very loudly breaking her promise. Callum couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed, she was laughing and it was music to his ears.
“Do you want to go catch a film or something?”
“Yeah, I would.”
Callum smiled at Ellie and she smiled back and then the coffee shop erupted into applause, one of the waitresses even let out a whoop. The general public really do love an underdog story.

He was in a small room, it was clean and bland with a book shelf heaving with various books he didn’t recognise. Curiously, in the corner there was a sink for no apparent reason. The walls were decorated with certificates but certificates of what? What sort of person decorates with certificates? Oh!
“Erm…hi Aaron, we met at the pub quiz a few weeks ago, I’m Callum’s friend from work.” Said the man across from Aaron. He appeared to have a bit of trouble adding sincerity to the fifteenth word in his utterance.
“Nick, yeah…Dr Nick, what’s going on?!” replied Aaron, surprised at how slurred his own voice was in his own ears.
“Well, you know what I…er…do, don’t you Aaron.”
Dr Nick desperately tried to convey every modicum of sympathy that a man who isn’t actually going to stop can. Aaron knew exactly what Dr Nick was going to do but he had certainly not accepted that yet. The muffled giggling behind him erupted into full-blown, uncontrollable cackles.
“Do you think he know yet?”
“He must do. Look, he’s gone pale”
“He’s sweating now, ahahahaha, this is amazing!”
Dr Nick came to the conclusion that the very least he could do was name the doom that was about to befall Aaron.
“I’m very sorry about the circumstances Aaron but it’s going to be very quick, almost completely painless and it is also very important to check from time to time. I was shocked to hear you’d gone so long without having one of these anyway.”
“No, no, NO!!!” screamed Aaron with mounting panic directly correlated to the mounting realisation that this friend of a “friend” was about to check his prostate.
“We’re worried about you mate, we just want to put our minds at rest.” His friends taunted him with the cruel confidence of people who weren’t about to be rectally corked.
“No, this is NOT happening!” but already Aaron knew the inevitability of the situation, “I’m going to kill you!!! Kill you all!!!”
This, to Aaron’s annoyance, only created more laughter from his tormentors. He turned back to see Dr Nick had sheathed a hand with a green, disposable glove. Dr Nick quickly hid the half smile that had slid onto his face but Aaron caught it. Aaron had two thoughts about this, one very small and brief and one very loud and large. The small one was that he couldn’t blame the poor doctor, if it was happening to anyone else, Aaron had to admit, this would be very, very funny indeed. However, this was of course widely overshadowed by the other thought; that smirking man’s index finger, in a matter of seconds, was about to boldly go where nothing had ever gone before.
“Get him in position boys!”
This appeared to be the signal for all of Aaron’s friends to race towards him in unison. They moved so swiftly and in such tight formation that it occurred to Aaron that this must have been a procedure they had practiced and that was enough to give anyone chills. Alex and Henry went for a trouser leg each and brought them down along with Aaron’s pants in one fell swoop and then vacated the now extremely homoerotic area. Todd and Luke lifted Aaron onto the desk and held him down while Nick and Ollie got him into position, being very careful not to touch anything that was actually part of Aaron. Any attempt that Aaron made to combat this SAS-style assault was futile as he was outnumbered, in shock and becoming increasingly intoxicated. Dr Nick leant over to Aaron’s ear and whispered “It will all be over soon, Aaron, just stay still”.
This was, in all honesty, purely designed to comfort however it’s actual effect was to unnerve Aaron more than any nightmare he could remember. However, this misstep was soon forgotten as Aaron was finally made to accept what was going to happen to him because it WAS happening, right then and there. First the tip, then a bit more, then a lot more, and then a bit more that Aaron thought one finger could go, and then it started to rummage around...in Aaron’s arsehole. The worst thing about the feeling was that, if Aaron was being completely honest with himself, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He decided never to be completely honest about that little fact, not even to himself.
Then something happened, Dr Nick realised it first. His face fell fast and far and as the first of Aaron’s friends noticed this they were dragged just as abruptly from their elation to the same harsh reality. The laughing died, and I mean died. There was no transition, there were wild chuckles and then there was empty, empty silence that denied the laughter had ever happened, that denied that laughter had ever existed. Aaron arose, confused. He raised his trousers and sat there on the desk staring at his friends who stared back, completely wordless. Aaron turned to Dr Nick who was wishing back to the time when all he had had to inform Aaron of was a prostate exam.
“Aaron, I’m so sorry, there’s no easy way to say this but you have prostate cancer. I’m so sorry.”
After a seconds silence Aaron began to laugh as the rest of the room remained entirely and terribly silent.
“This is a hell of a joke guys! A bit far though isn’t it?!”
Aaron would have given anything for his stupid, idiot friends to all join him in his laughter but all he saw was men desperate to not be stood where they were in this very point in time.
“I’m sorry mate” one of them managed, Aaron didn’t notice who. He was only thinking of one thing right now. He had managed to filter his life down to one thought; Amy. He was getting married to Amy tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be the happiest he had ever been, he would be marrying the most amazing woman and he would have a whole lifetime to live with her afterwards. But a whole lifetime had lost a lot of value since he’s last thought that thought.

So, you see, the chimney joke really does represent a good few years of hard work and solid improvement. But of course, George also happened to have the sort of mind that deconstructs jokes, ruining them completely.
“That was a funny chimney joke wasn’t it mum.”
“It was very good Georgey, good job.”
“I don’t get it mum.” His unashamed honesty coming through, as good as his performance had been, not even he could save bad material.
“Oh. Well, it isn’t really actually that funny a joke.”
“No, I don’t think so either actually. Soooo, why is it a joke?”
“Well, erm…so chimneys smoke and so do people. Like me, see, with my cigarettes.”
“Oh I see, so it means two different things, and this means it’s funny!”
“Yes, well done, clever boy.” She was very proud how she’d dealt with that. Finally, a joke break down she’d managed to end before tears had appeared. There were four of five seconds of blissful silence before just one more cog turned in George’s mind that meant just one more question was needed.
“But muuum, why is the little chimney like me too young to smoke? Am I too young to smoke?”
“You won’t ever smoke.” She snapped, rather more harshly than she’d meant to but the whole response had been an unplanned emotional reflex.
“Why?”
“Because…well smoking is very bad, your mother is very naughty for doing it.”
“But lots of people do it, mummy.”
“It’s naughty, George, lots of people are naughty.”
“If it’s naughty you should stop mum.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“You always tell me I should stop doing naughty things.”
There is something about a child’s persistence that really can quickly wear you down to the truth. Unfortunately, due to the irritating nature of this technique the truth tended to be accompanied with a certain amount of anger.
“You aren’t bloody smoking because it will kill you George. Smoking gives you cancer and the cancer eats away at you and you die. You see? So you are to swear to me now that you will never ever smoke, NOW!!!”
“I swear mum.”
A small voice inside George’s head that concerned itself with matters such as self-preservation told him he should stop there. The problem was, at George’s age, that is a very small voice and it couldn’t be heard over all the cogs of his mind churning out many very scary questions. If he kept all these questions in he was quite convinced his head was going to burst.
“It will kill me, but it can’t kill you can it. Cos you are so big and clever.”
“It IS killing me.” George’s mum heard herself say. She was still in shock from her initial outburst of naked truth and, for a moment, she’d lost her filter and everything was coming out now. She forced herself to look at her son so she could see what her truth had done to him. Her eyes locked with his and she saw it all. He was a boy, he hadn’t learnt how to hide things yet. She could see straight through his eyes into his mind, she could see a cog, a cog that had never turned before, creaking it’s way gradually through it’s first revolution. And with that first revolution, it was released. A new concept in his head. His mother, who had never left his side for more than a night, who he’d heard was the first face he saw, was going to die. Furthermore, something was actively killing her, bringing the date closer and closer when he would be there and she wouldn’t be. This new thought was more than George could handle, he couldn’t reason with it, hide from it or forget it. Those big eyes that George’s mum had fixed her own to began to fill will tears and then it was too much for her as well. Suddenly she was holding her son in her arms more tightly than she ever had before. She felt every infrequent and wild contortion of his stomach as he wept onto her shoulder, burying his face as deeply into her as he could. For a long time they both stayed in the hug, terrified that to let go would be to lose each other. She heard a small, shaky, muffled voice close to her ear and what it said broke her heart.
“Please, mummy, please stop smoking. I don’t want you to die.”
This wasn’t the first time someone had asked her to stop smoking. She knew people only ever asked because they cared about her but it had always felt like they were trying to control her. Sometimes they’d be angry and that had only made her angry. How dare they get angry, it’s my life let me do what I want with it. I don’t hurt anyone else, why should they be angry. If they didn’t want to be around her then they didn’t have to be. Sometimes people would be sad and that made her angrier. Sadness meant pity and she couldn’t stand to be pitied. But George wasn’t angry, he was more than sad because he certainly was not pitying her. He was heartbroken. George’s mum joined her son in weeping. She wept and wept and then she coughed and coughed and coughed. And then she passed out leaving George very much on his own.
The cinema had been wonderful. Halfway through the film she’d rested her head on his shoulder and he’d wrapped an arm around her shoulder. They’d enjoyed each other’s warmth so much that Callum had just ignored his dead arm and Ellie her stiff neck. The film itself was an a generic Hollywood action, or had it been a sci-fi? Oh it could have been the next Oscar winner for all they cared, it wasn’t long before they were snogging each other’s faces off. Then they’d gone for dinner, they’d had wine at restaurant. Then they had wine at a pub, then another pub. Then they had wine at Callum’s flat. And then they finished off the dregs of the bottle in his bedroom.
They weren’t terribly drunk, certainly tipsy but if they were anything less than entirely comfortable they wouldn’t be in Callum’s bedroom. Well, Callum might have been but Ellie certainly wouldn’t have. Besides, you couldn’t get drunk on the sort of wine that students could afford.
Ellie had never felt quite so comfortable in her own skin and Callum had never felt so relaxed around someone he actually liked, like he didn’t have to perform. Naturally, they both became naked. They’d only just met and they weren’t the sort of person to do ‘that sort of thing’ but neither of them were concerning themselves with thinking at the moment. They were just feeling, in a deep emotional way and also in a way that would be weird for me to describe in any real detail. Both them were stunned that their naked, honest bodies hadn’t immediately turned the other off. They were both still there and they were going to do it. Well, if Callum could get himself self under control.
“I’m so sorry, it’s not you.”
“No, it’s fine. We don’t have to do it right now.”
“I really do think you are gorgeous, I just can’t seem to…it’s very cold isn’t it.”
Unfortunately, ‘getting it up’ is actually the involuntary process of blood rushing to, in this case, Little Callum. No amount of wishing, or being attracted, or anything could help Callum because he was a teenage virgin and his body hated him.
“Have you tried thinking about some…light porn?”
Callum hesitated for a while but decided that honesty was the best policy, “I’ve never really watched porn.”
He did not enjoy the stunned silence that followed so he foolishly tried to fill it, “Well, I’ve never really learnt.”
“How?!”
“No one ever taught me.”
“No one teaches you Cal! HA! Oh gosh, I’m sorry, I’ve just never known of a boy who didn’t…you know. I think it’s kinda cute. Please don’t worry.”
“Ha,” chuckled Callum to himself before saying, “It really has just been a series of fuck-ups from start to finish hasn’t it.”
Ellie laughed her laugh, that foghorn of a laugh. It really was magical, who’d have thought such a shy, petite girl could make such a honking noise. As if the laugh hadn’t been enough, the cherry on top arrived, a glorious, enormous snort. Ellie rushed her hands to her nose, momentarily horrified but she was no were ready to stop laughing yet. The laughing was magical, oh, hang on, it really was working miracles.
“Hello!!! Look who’s woken up all of a sudden!” Ellie half laughed, half said.
Little Callum was ready for business.
This feels like a good point to leave this story, I don’t think any of us are interested in what comes next. In fact, I really would prefer to leave it here…but I can’t. I have to tell you that several moments after the happiest moments of Callum’s and Ellie’s life so far Ellie noticed something. If she hadn’t been in the exact position she was in she wouldn’t have noticed at all. But unfortunately, and at the same time extremely fortunately, she was in the position she was in when she noticed the weird-looking mole on his back. If she hadn’t noticed they’d have a had a magical night, the little sleeping they would have done would have been in each other’s arms and they’d have enjoyed a strong, equal relationship. A very rare relationship in which both parties are equally, ecstatically happy. But, she did notice so they in fact spent the night in a hospital where a very tired doctor explained, as kindly as he could, that Callum had a malignant tumour that had spread worryingly far into the rest of him, in other words; cancer. Callum was a teenage virgin with cancer, Callum 1 – 10 Fate.

Jackson Pervis had sat himself down in the hospital for three days now. He’d never once been approached, every was far too busy and Jackson had perfected the art of staying out of people’s way. From Monday to Wednesday he had sat watching the people come in and out of the oncology department. The mother had been rushed in Monday early afternoon, barely conscious, and she had been joined shortly afterwards by her confused husband and an absolutely distraught child. On Tuesday, early morning, a man who seemed to be suffering from an intense hang over had asked for a doctor by the name of Nicholas Burrows for some tests. An hour later, to Jackson’s disbelieve, a bride stormed in, sobbing as she strode towards the same ward and asked for the same doctor. And tonight, at about three in the morning, Jackson had briefly stirred from an uneasy slumber on an uncomfortable chair to see a young couple, neither looking anymore than twenty years old. After a hushed, intense-looking conversation with a few nurses the boy was ushered into an office. The girl was left by herself. Unsure of what to do with herself, she came and sat next to him, barely acknowledging him, and sobbed. Jackson Pervis had wanted to say something to her but no words came, they never did. But the feeling didn’t go away so he removed himself and finally decided to go home.

Jackson wondered, as he unlocked his door, why he’d stayed away so long. He’d told himself it was research but he’d have thought he’d have at least popped home for a shower if it was just research. Jackson hung up his jacket on the rack in the wall, placed his shoes neatly in his little shoe cupboard under the stairs and walked into the dining room. Now he knew why he’d stayed away, he decided not to accept it was there for now. He went about throwing away Monday’s soup and Tuesday’s carbonara and put Wednesday’s shepherd’s pie in the microwave. He watched as it revolved slowly, he tried to anticipate the pops, search for a pattern. It kept him entertained for the six minutes it took to cook and then he had to keep himself distracted some other way. He brewed himself a tea and spent an extra-long time choosing between Peppermint and Spearmint before going with plain old mint as he didn’t feel he deserved the treat.
He sat down with his tea and his meal and enjoyed it for as long as he could. He used his teaspoon to eat the shepherd pie and even sipped the bitty dregs at the end of his tea. But then it was done and washing up didn’t take long with microwave meals. He looked at it, he couldn’t help it, not for this long. The tissue, still lay across IT.
He decided, as a last ditch attempt to ‘do nothing’ he tried to remember the philosophy of that man with the cat. The cat was in the box, he remembered, and there was something about being dead or alive….quantum something something. Yes! When the cat was in the box it was never dead nor alive because you couldn’t see it. Soooo, for as long as he couldn’t see the cure for cancer it might not be there. Unfortunately, after about five minutes of naïve happiness, he got carried away with his own optimism, lifted the tissue and was almost shocked to see the cure for cancer. The cure for all cancers. The cancer of the woman and the man and the boy.
Doing nothing was not working anymore. Sadly, doing nothing changed nothing, it just prolonged the torture. He decided he would go for a nice long sleep and then he’d make a plan and end his life. Now that was a solution. Well done Jackson, well done.