Frostwriting

Paper Rash

by Jamieson Wolf

When the itch started, he knew that the books weren’t far behind.

It would start on the palms of his hands; a hot tingling that felt as if his hands were covered in small, thin needles. He would scratch at his hands, hoping to make the itch go away so that the books wouldn’t come.

But it was all for nothing. He knew that if a book wanted to show itself, it would.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

The itch would work its way along his fingers and the backs of his hands. Though his skin wasn’t mottled or red, and there were no signs that anything was wrong, it felt like he had a rash he couldn’t scratch.

He had come to think of it as his paper rash.

There was rug burn, diaper rash and bed sores. Why couldn’t a rash come from paper? He wondered if he was allergic to it, or if the rash, the itch, was something else altogether. He wondered if it was…

There was that dreaded word again. The word he couldn’t bring himself to even think during the daylight hours.

He wondered if it was magic.

Being a sensible fellow, he tried to keep his mind on sensible things. The stock market, his financial portfolio, tennis matches and the different ways to manufacture wine. He thought of things that would bore a normal person to death so that he didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to worry about the next time the itch came to him.

Not that it did any good. It always came, no matter what he did or what he filled his head with.

Today, the itch was especially tart on his skin, biting along his palms and fingers with a ferocity that had only happened once before: when his wife had died.

Then, the itch had started as it normally did but grew hot, almost painful. He closed his eyes, waiting for it to go away. When it did, he opened his eyes. Before him sat a book. It was a thick, hard covered tome with a shiny cover. He read the title:

Letting Go of Your Loved One.

The title had filled him with such unease, such nausea. Cindy had asked him if anything was wrong, if he was alright. He looked a little pale, did he need anything?

He kissed her and assured her that he was alright, that he was fine. He had never told her about the books. When they appeared, they were always something he needed, or something he would come to need.

When he was younger and going through the perils of adolescence, one of the books that had appeared had been Your Body and You. Later, when he had been going through a particularly hard time in high school, it had been Bullies: Why They Do What They Do. When he started to date and could barely control his raging hormones, it had been Thirteen Steps to Dating.

The books were always something useful. But seeing that book, the title, Letting Go of Your Loved One, seeming to mock him from its shiny cover, was too much. It was too much for him. He had thrown it in the garbage.

He had arrived at work to find another book waiting for him on his chair. It was a solemn little black book with a title in gold on the front that read: Seven Steps for Grieving. He had ripped the book in two and thrown it in the box for shredding.

Later, when he had gone to the cafeteria to get himself a chocolate bar, he had put in his money and chosen a Crunch bar. What had fallen out was a small, minute book with gilded edges. Its title was The Serenity Prayer. He had put the book in the cafeteria’s toaster oven and watched it melt slowly.

On the bus ride home, he looked down at the seat next to him. Sitting there was a large trade paperback book with a soft, salmon-coloured cover. Its title was Your Loved Ones and The Afterlife. He had opened the bus window and thrown the book out into the street.

When he had gotten off the bus and walked up the street to his house, he congratulated himself. If the books can’t deliver their message, nothing can happen, he thought. It would be alright, he had gotten through another day. It would be okay.

Then he saw the ambulance sitting outside of his house. And he knew that nothing would be okay again.

The paramedics had tried to save Cindy. But he was later informed that there was really nothing they could have done. Cindy had been living with an undiagnosed brain tumour. It had been tickling like a clock, like a miniature bomb, just waiting to go off.

In his rage, in his grief, he did the only thing he could do: he took all of his books, all of Cindy’s books, into the backyard. He piled them high and doused them with gasoline. He remembered the chick fizz of the match as it lit, the smell of suffer that coated his nostrils.

Then he dropped the match and watched the books burn.

He wondered if books were alive. He imagined that he could hear the books crying to him for help, characters speaking out to him:

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

“Well, fiddle dee dee!”

“My name is Anne. Anne with an E.”

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, sixteen men on a dead man’s chest!”

“I can’t be a wizard. I’m Harry, just…Harry.”

“Please sir? May I have some more?”

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

“You are a bit of mustard, an underdone bit of potato! There is more gravy than ghost to you!”

He watched the books burn and wondered if they were dying.

For a while afterwards, no books bothered him. The itch seemed to have disappeared and the paper rash that affected his skin was absent. He wondered if the books were staying away out of remorse for what they had done, what they had taken from him.

So when the itch began this time, when he sensed it moving along his skin, inflaming his hands with a paper rash only he could see, he knew the books weren’t far behind. When the rash began, the itch underneath his skin, he was surprised to find that he had missed it. The itch had been his one constant. Having the itch remain silent was like losing a friend.

But then he recalled what the itch had taken from him, what the paper rash had cost him. He felt tears spring to his eyes and wiped at them with his stinging hands. He closed his eyes and willed the itch to go away, to leave him alone, to leave him be.

To his surprise, it did leave. He opened his eyes, a smile on his face. But the smile died as quickly as it had come. Sitting on the counter in front of him, his coffee left untouched and cold, was a book.

With a shaking hand, he picked up the book and looked at the title. The title, written in an elegant, curving script, was: When You Know You’re Going To Die.

He dropped the book back onto the counter, not hearing the shattering of his coffee cup or the splatter of cold coffee on the tiled kitchen floor. All he heard was the fluttering of the books pages.

As if it were whispering to him.