Dear people who read this story, I would like to be able to see some feedback about this story. I am rather surprised this site has so few reviews… I have also posted this story on fictionpress and it has already garnered reviews…. Not very in depth stuff but at least a reaction to the descriptions in the story…. Or to the plight of the character in question….
So I kind of want to know a few things. Is the hero of this story too far removed from your experience for you to understand what he is going through? Find identifying difficult? Is the crowd here too young for the tone of this story? I am aware I am not a young person any more, thus I have a different view of life and stuff… this does translate over to my stories…. Is it that as a young person you find it hard to identify with this story.. are tales like "The Hunger Games" or "Twilight" are more ur speed and stories abt crippled losers struggling with career and self-confidence issues not ur thing? (I thought that with the current economy.. many ppl would have similar challenges in career and job prospects.)
Would this be better for you set in the highschool/teens settling? Cos the issues of Eric are too close to the street for your taste? He's not godly enough? He's highly unlikable? What?
I mean … would you rather see ultra godly, heroic figures and not everyday people? Or is Fanfiction more a site for fangirling and we can all fuck original content….
I mean.. I wanna know if this lack of response is cos of a generational gap or a disconnect in writer-audience ( at least I can stop expecting to see any reviews at all and take this story off Fanfiction)….
Trying to understand the people who are reading this stuff. I have a feeling that I am at quite a different space than a lot of the people here on this site. So there might be issues of communicating ideas…
I am being as frank as I can here cos I don't believing in dropping hints…. Cos duh I dun want to keep people guessing about how I feel or what I mean when I say something….
Eric sat at the doctor's office with his nose in a Playboy. The wait was longer than he had anticipated. It was two, almost three hours and the queue only seemed to be getting longer.
His life was somber, mundane and even tediously depressing up until a week ago when he found the curious-looking blackheads and had a private session with Blondie. In three days, he found out quite a number of things about himself that really surprised him. He realized after a short period of self-observation, that was rather dirty minded, in fact, extremely dirty minded. He would look at people in wonder what they would look like without clothes. He could tell if a person, man or woman had recently made love or not. In fact, the ubiquous shape of a heart seen on every box of valentine candies reminded him of the full butt of a woman when she bent down, with the round humps as the butt and the sloping sides as her legs as she stood in position with her butt towards him.
On the second day, he began touching himself. He realized that he missed the sensation of soft hands on his body and would run his own hands up and down his own body where no one was around. In fact, because of his growing fetish with touching, he often took off all his clothes in the privacy of his own room so he could enjoy stroking himself better. He also began to desire having someone to hug when he was sleeping. At first, he got his biggest, fluffiest pillow and hugged it to sleep, then, after he woke up one morning kissing the pillow passionately, he went out and got the biggest, softest teddy bear with the nicest fur he could find and found it a better substitute. He almost got Blondie up from her street corner early one morning so she could lie in bed with him. Naturally, he also started sleeping naked.
Last of all, he could not stop making passes at every single woman and some young men that he met. It was so bad that he simply stopped talking to people, in case he slipped up and asked some stranger to snuggle up with him.
Eric was horrified by his increasingly forward behavior. It just wasn't him. Or at least the person he remembered himself to be. It was terribly embarrassing and he felt like a giant pervert.
On the third day after Blondie, he went out and got himself a huge stack of Playboys. He actually wondered why he did not have any of them in his room.
Finally, when he started to clip and comb his pubic hair, he realized that something was definitely off. Also, the number of "blackheads" was increasing and some of these "blackheads" even started protruding from his skin, causing a somewhat bumpy effect. At first he tried removing them, but stopped because there were just too many of them. He did not get anyone to help him out with them because he was terrified of someone finding out about his "condition".
He tried searching the internet for an answer to his problem, but all search attempts and questions to people on medical issues forums turned out dead ends.
Eventually, he decided to go see a doctor. His usual doctor was his uncle, Aston Alexopoulos, but he decided to see someone outside the family so he could keep his secret from his mother. He did not want her, or Ethan to come swooping down on his miserable life and scrutinizing him like he was a freak.
He picked a clinic in Cessville that offered anonymous blood testing for Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and waited for the resident doctor to see him.
After informing the receptionist that he was here to see the doctor and not for an "anonymous" blood test, she handed him a form to fill up, which he did in a few minutes. When he handed it back to her, she looked over it with raised eyebrows and asked, "Can I see some identification please?"
He fumbled around his purse and finally pulled out his worn and batted identity card, which he had not looked at in years.
"You will have to take off your mask in the doctor's office, for purposes of identification," she said as a matter of routine. "And you've incorrectly filled in your age."
She pointed at the portion of the card that stated his date of birth. Eric was quite shocked to find out that he was 75 years old.
"I sort of spotted it immediately, Mr Marsson," she said in a chatty, offhanded manner. "I mean I grew up in Cessville and I've been seeing you around this neighbourhood since I was 8."
Eric was relieved when she returned him his identity card. A voice in his head prompted him to not go ahead with the doctor visit. He sat anxiously waiting in the lobby, examining his card very carefully. He did not recall memories of the day he got his card, but he always carried it in his wallet.
He stared at the date in confusion. He was sure that he was only about 30 and it was all a huge mistake. He wondered why he did not check the accuracy of the date when he first got his card. It made no sense at all.
He looked at his date of birth several times, just to be sure. It was printed clear as day. He was around 75 years old to the day. He flipped the card over and saw his own face on the other side. It was a face of himself as a younger person, but there was no doubt about it, it was his card. He felt a tear form in his eye when he saw his own face. He wondered how he looked at the moment, he had not seen his own face in over 20 years. However, he did not roll over to the bathroom to look into the mirror. It was just too much for him to bear.
In the meantime, the feeling that he got of skipping this doctor's visit kept growing.
"Mr Marsson!" the doctor exclaimed as soon as he rolled into the consulting room. Apparently there was no way for him to remain fully anonymous in an anonymous testing clinic. "What can I do for you today?"
"I have a skin condition on my back that needs to be looked at."
"Sir, I will need you to remove your mask for identification purposes and so that you'll feel more comfortable during the examination."
Eric hesitated.
"I assure you, Mr Marsson," the doctor reassured him. "All details of this visit will be kept confidential."
"It was many years back, they found out that I had this hereditary condition. I have open sores and lesions on my face. The mask was to protect the sores. Most of it has dried up and closed a long time ago, but the scars have remained," Eric volunteered the information because of the doctor's puzzled expression.
He took off the mask carefully.
The doctor stared hard at the tiny picture on the card and then stared at Eric's face for comparison.
"Are you Eric Marsson?"
"Yes…. Yes, I am."
"How old are you?"
"30."
The doctor looked at him in confusion.
"There is a mistake on that card. They printed my birthday wrong. I did not notice it when I got it."
"Well sir, even if there is a printing error on the card," the doctor was now looking very confused. "There is nothing wrong with your face…"
"What do you mean?"
"I am saying, I do not see any signs of there having been any sort of scar or lesion on your face. You have the most beautiful skin I have seen on anyone, man or woman in my entire career."
He went over to a table and grabbed a small standing mirror, which he brought over to Eric. "Perhaps you might want to have a look…. You are an… exceptionally good-looking individual…"
Eric turned his face away quickly. He could not bear to look into the mirror that the physician had placed on the table before him. He curled up in terror and shouted, "No! No! Take it away!"
He was crying like a child.
Iits okay, Mr Marsson," he said rather quietly to Eric, "I have removed the mirror."
It took a few minutes before Eric was able to look at the doctor again.
"Are you currently on any kind of medication, Mr Marsson?"
The doctor carefully noted down the psychiatric drugs that Eric was taking, almost as an answer to certain of his unspoken queries.
"Do you still go for appointments with the doctor who prescribed them to you?"
"Yes… Yes, I do," he replied, relieved to see that the confusion on the doctor's face had disappeared. "Can you look at the thing on my back now?"
The attending physician helped him off his wheelchair onto an examination bed where he lay flat on his tummy. After pulling up his shirt to allow the doctor to see his back, he felt the physician put something cold on his back, like a sort of instrument or scope.
"I'm going to put some warm towels on your back to try and soften the skin for an extraction of one of the "blackheads", Mr Marsson. Just hold on for a bit."
He felt warm towel on his back and then the extraction took a minute. It felt like the doctor was squeezing a particular spot gently n he felt something pop out. The doctor dropped the object into a plastic container and then he felt a ticklish sensation on the soles of his feet. He curled his toes.
"Stop it!" He snapped.
"Did you feel it, Mr Marsson?"
"The blackheads are not on my soles!"
"I'm just a little curious, Mr Marsson, you mentioned in the form that you have some type of muscular dystrophy... Well, what type is it?"
"I don't know the name."
"You see, I have been looking at your back carefully. As far as I can tell without asking you to take off your pants, you have muscular legs that show no sign of atrophy. Unless you have injured your spine, there is no reason for your lack of ability to use your legs. When I helped you onto the bed, I swear you shifted your legs just a tiny bit, all on your own. You do have issues with spinal alignment... One of your scapula, that's your shoulder bone, seems to be protruding just a little more than the other and seems oddly shaped."
Eric was shocked. He said nothing.
"If you will allow me, sir, I can help you make an appointment with an ostheopath who is very good and can give you a second opinion. If there are no serious structural issues, you might with therapy, be able to walk again."
"I do not want anyone to know about this," he said quietly. '"That is why I came to see you."
"I am going to send the thing that we extracted for testing, just to rule out common skin-related viruses. But to be honest it does look like a piece of bird feather."
"Do I have an STD?"
"Not likely. You do not have any of the symptoms…"
"What is it?"
"Likely some form of virus affecting the skin and/or DNA, causing the growth of warts, even warts that are rough and horn-like. This is not unheard of, although I have never heard of it causing the growth of feather-like protrusions. There is a high chance this might turn out to be a genetic condition of some sort."
He patted Eric on the back, "Don't worry about a thing, stressing out about these sort of things usually makes it worse. Try not to squeeze these "blackheads" out on your own because most people that try to do it usually press too hard and cause damage to the surrounding tissue."
"Is there no medication I can take?"
"We do not know what it is, yet. Come back in a week and I'll have answers for you. In the meantime, just keep the area clean and moisturize it, which might help soften the skin around the area and you will feel more comfortable."
Eric left the clinic rather glad that it was not some kind of STD. He was afraid that he had caught some kind of illness from his interaction with Blondie. However, Blondie seemed healthy and was "monster blackhead" free as far as he could tell.
However, the first thing that he did when he got back, was to lie down in his bed and curl himself up. He rolled over onto his side and flexed his toes. Then he started to bend his knees and bring them up towards his chest. He started to do this almost every hour from different positions the moment he discovered that he could move his legs. On the second day, he tried to stand up, but collapsed on the ground and at best managed to get himself into a crawling position. He did that a few times and then managed to crawl awkwardly around his room.
In spite of his initial optimism and relief from visiting the clinic, the "blackheads" kept multiplying and in a week, some of these "blackheads" actually started to protrude from the skin and took on the appearance of very fine and fluffy down feathers. Eric ended up with two patches of fluffy, whitish feathers on the shoulder blades of his back. He took photos of them in order to keep a record of the "progression" of his "disease."