The Misaligned Gear

Note: This was written for “Speedhaven”, an amateurish challenge event run by a conman named Tomas Bjartur where you have 30 minutes to write a 500+ word blog post off of a random prompt. The following shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but they are somewhat my actual thoughts. Content warning for body horror.

I have a systematic way to induce panic attacks in myself. This is a sometimes-useful technology which I like to deploy strategically, when the mood strikes.

I look at diagrams of the sinuses like the one below. Then I imagine that my sinuses are inflamed with infection. The idea that there is a buildup of inflammatory bilge stuck in the center of my face, so close to the surface, yet cannot be reached by non-surgical instruments, so close yet so far… The thought is almost unbearable to me when I ruminate on it.

We have indirect means of clearing sinus infections. You might buy a netti-pot, pour a solution through one nostril and shoot it out the other. Hopefully this cleansing mixture will get into your sinuses and dilute the fluid in the infected areas. But wouldn’t it be so nice to be able to rip off the viscera of your face, to scrape your sinuses totally clean? The fact that I can’t and shouldn’t do this is infuriating, unacceptable. It’s like I’ve dropped my phone under the car-seat and it is perpetually just out of reach. Like I am Tantalus.

There are many other images I enjoy serving up to myself when I feel the desire to undermine my mental stability.

Three years ago I gave myself tennis elbow in my left arm by overtraining in the weight-room. That arm is still weak to this day. There isn’t anything I cannot do with that arm specifically, but it is weak, and it feels weak, it clicks, it sometimes gets stuck. It feels as if a dog had gnawed at the tissue connecting my triceps to my elbow. The feeling of tenderness is always in the background. I did a year of physical therapy and two years of mini-experiments in the gym to get my arm back to working order. I have largely made my peace with it. But what drives me mad is not knowing what my damaged ligament looks like. I wonder if the area is permanently inflamed, or if it is worn down like old leather, or if some large structural bit of it has clearly snapped off and the rest is just hanging on for dear life. Since this is all soft tissue, there isn’t really a way to know unless a surgeon opens me up. I’ve talked with surgeons (not about this issue to be clear, I am a normal well-adjusted person), and they’ve all told me that the surprising thing when you cut someone open is that you find all sorts of wacky shit in there that is just not quite right. Sometimes, late at night, I imagine my elbow being sliced open and I would finally get to see what’s really going on in there. The truth at last. That my elbow damage is so close to the surface yet unreachable is (like the sinus infection case) nearly intolerable to me. I have to start whistling or watching short-form videos or cooking food to get this off of my mind.

Another image. My girlfriend and I read a news story about a women who had a compulsive drive to scratch her skull. She scratched so hard that she opened up the skull cavity, exposing her brain. I do not understand how this could possibly be true (shouldn’t the loss of pressure kill you immediately?), but regardless I have diligently filed this imagery away in my mind as a useful tool to use when I feel like torturing myself.

This is why I find David Cronenberg’s films so satisfying. The flesh is a horrible thing to think about, to live inside. It is a constant source of torment to me. I do wonder whether one day I will tip over the edge, claw through my own viscera, and find that what’s underneath it all is not flesh at all, but clockwork, a system of intricate gears, and that in the middle of that complex network there is one tiny, barely perceptible, misaligned gear that is gumming the whole works up. I could then reach in, push the gear back in place, stitch myself back together, and find — what? That I am running smoothly? All my problems are now solved? I feel whole, untouchable, immortal? It is wonderful to think about.