Handsome by Holly Lorka

Author:Holly Lorka [Lorka, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2020-02-14T22:00:00+00:00

when alligators attack

The human body opens to the outside world in nine or ten places. It’s overwhelming to consider how vulnerable this makes us to the sheer number of things that are wafting into and out of us daily. I used to work in an emergency room, and I can report that the number of things that waft into people accidentally while they are in the shower alone is staggering. Apparently, people slip and fall upon random things like shampoo bottles or pepper mills frequently while bathing. My favorite, though, was the Ken doll that accidentally slipped into someone’s rectum and had to be removed by a doctor wielding forceps. It was a breach delivery, but I digress. What I mean to tell you about is something completely different.

Many Saturdays ago, after a decent night of drinking and watching the musical Xanadu, I was startled awake at 1 a.m. by the feeling of something crawling into my right ear. That’s not a pleasant sensation, waking up from a beer-induced slumber to the sound and feeling of tiny, crunchy leglets navigating your interior. Whatever it was crawled and crawled and crawled. Bad enough, I thought. But then, when it got in good and deep, it began biting my eardrum, which hurt worse than the Xanadu roller-skate disco music I’d subjected myself to earlier in the evening.

I’ve told you I’m a nurse, and over the years I’ve learned to remain calm in intense or even scary situations. Well, I didn’t really pull that off here. I shot out of bed naked, screaming, “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!” while jumping up and down on one leg and crying. This was obviously one of the finer moments of my life. Too bad no one was there to witness it.

You know what’s worse than the searing pain of being bitten repeatedly on the eardrum? Hearing it. Way the fuck up close: chewchewchewchew. It would stop for a second, then I’d feel it slither or stroll or line dance around in there, then it would start the chewing on me business again, and I’d start jumping around and crying and trying to scream it out of my ear. Is there a hidden camera in my house?

In my rational state, I decided the only thing I could do was to drive to my hospital for help. In between the crawling/chewing/ screaming/jumping, I pulled some clothes on and got into the car and tore off and blew through every goddamned red light while still screaming and crying from the pain and the terror of it all, daring any cop to pull me over and try to figure out how much K2 I’d ingested. There was a moment on Loop 360 when I thought, Well, at least I’ll get a good story out of this, and it could only be better if I also had diarrhea. Right after that thought, before I made the final turn onto the road that led to the hospital where I would certainly

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