Look closely at your eyes.

Blink.

Are you sure, this time, that both pupils are the same size? Isn’t one just the slightest bit bigger than the other? 

Squeeze your face into a smile. Good. Again. It would happen in an instant, right? A stroke? You would know if you were having one, probably. But just to be certain. Squeeze your face again. Touch your cheeks. Raise both arms above your head, slowly. Did one feel heavier than the other? Maybe. Probably. Do it again. How about now? No, I think you’re okay. I think the danger has passed.

Anyway, you should be sleeping. Sleep deprivation will lower your immune response, which means that whatever you catch will be your fault. 

Once you’re tucked into bed, check your pulse. Do you feel the little pause, the staggering between beats? Picture the EKG graph, the steady spikes that pick up, breathe, and hover for just a second before coming back down. They tell you that’s normal when you’re young, to have little irregularities like that. Like the red spots that appear on your knee and finger and cheek, and the microdensities (read: holes) in your brain, and the cysts on your kidneys. Normal. So normal they weren’t even worth mentioning outside of the visit notes. And who even reads those, anyway?

Should you ask about them? Or will it make you sound like a hypochondriac? If something strange is happening in your body, something growing and moving, you should probably know about it. Don’t you think so?

I think maybe you should try taking the pinworm medication, just in case. You don’t really know, so better to be safe than sorry. But the box says it could damage your stomach lining, just like Ibuprofen. Would you know what a stomach bleed felt like if you were having one? Would you be able to get to the hospital in time? 

You probably wouldn’t, because you’d tell yourself that you’re just imagining things. 

People get it wrong all the time. Doctors get it wrong. You end up in the ER for something unrelated, and the doctors say, Thank God! One more hour and you would have been a goner. It’s lucky you came in when you did. 

Luck isn’t on your side. They won’t catch it in time. Whatever it is. It will grow and multiply and spread to all your organs, and then crawl up your throat and out through your mouth. 

Look. Go look, right now, and tell me it isn’t there—that dark squirming thing inside you. Will you cough it up, or will you have to pull it out like a long string? Wrap it around a pencil so you can draw it out inch by inch without it breaking? Even when you shine a light into the back of your throat, there’s still that place you can’t see. That’s where it hides, shies away from the light. 

Every other time you’ve looked, that feeling of it crawling, inching toward the cavities in your sinuses, was a false alarm. This time it’s happening for real. Why didn’t you do something when you still had the chance? 

What would happen to your dog if you died in your sleep? How long before she would start to cry, to lick you, to scratch at the door? How long would it take for your roommate to find her? You should hide anything embarrassing on your bedside table, slide your medications under the bed, and leave a note saying to burn all of your journals. Just in case. You should clean up the wrappers by your bed and put everything in its place, imagine the room as someone else would see it as they burst through the door when it’s already too late. 

Make sure you turn on the TV, and the white noise, and calming nature sounds. Make sure it’s loud enough, otherwise you’ll be able to hear it. The slow, gurgling movement, feel it pressing against your organs as it grows and makes space for itself, feel it throbbing and twitching and coagulating. 

Remind yourself that it’s all in your head; there’s no evidence that it’s real. Remind yourself also of things that are true, like that heart attacks are a silent killer among women—and does this apply to you, do you think? That more and more young people are dying of colon cancer, and sitting too long can cause a blood clot in your legs that will travel to your lungs and kill you. That forgetting the words for things, like tumultuous and orange, is a sign of cognitive decline. Remember that picture that guy posted of the aneurysm in his brain that tried to kill him, and the person who told you, “Most of us die of toxic megacolon.”  

And that you are going to die one day, tonight or some other night, and thinking about how you won’t be here anymore sends a paralyzing jolt through you like a full-body brain freeze. 

You should make peace with this before you sleep, just in case it’s the last time. 

But before you do, don’t you think you should check your eyes again?

Caleb Weinhardt (he/him) is a queer and trans fiction writer. He grew up on a farm in the Midwest, but now lives near several Twilight filming locations with his dog, Winnie, and an apartment full of chicken-related decor. His work appears in or is forthcoming in Tales to Terrify, Broken Antler Magazine Quarterly, Chthonic Matter Quarterly, and others. He also writes about healing from trauma on the Trans Survivors blog. Find him at calebweinhardt.com.


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