The Vanity Of Cysts

I have some great news, and I have some bad news. Great news first? Sure.

Turns out, after further review, that the lump in my lip is not cancerous. Just as I diagnosed it as cancer over the internet, I was cured over email. The world wide web is more than merely access to information, it is access to healing powers.

My doctor, Dr. Wright, informed me it is most likely just a cyst. And by applying hotness to it three times a day it should shrink. Although, I don’t know if I want it to totally dissapear. Why? I don’t know, it keeps you humble, you know? Knowing that you might die any day, or thinking that you might die any day, is a humbling thing, and maybe something that we should all be aware of, just to keep in mind, because it should probably change the way we live. Like Velcro. What would life be like without velcro? Terrible.

In other news, I am training to become a waiter next week. Which means I will be making money hand over fist, my bedroom might be full to the ceiling of dollar bills in all different denominations by the time I am done working here. Or I might break so many glasses and drop so many drinks before I give them to the customer that I might be fired within a week. Either way it would be a great story.

Oh, the bad news. I won’t be getting a lot of sympathy cards and money and girls and looks and cars and houses and dreams come true because you are dieing things because I just have a cyst. Instead I will just be called a drama king and a hypchondriac.

I laid in bed last night, rolling the ball in my lip around, wondering if it was cancer, and started thinking about the guy I saw last night on the corner. He was outside my restaraunt counting how many floors high each building he could see was. And he was astonished at the height every time as he held his to-go plate from some other, lesser, restaraunt. What was he thinking? He looked like he might be homeless, but you never know, and he was alone on a Saturday night with his doggy bag. My manager called him a freak. He also called the lady that stood at the parking meter and drooled all over it and a the sidewalk a freak. “Fucking freaks.”

I thought about Mike again. Mike, as it turns out, is Schyzophrenic, homeless, jobless, and his family hates him. The drool lady must have ran away from wherever she was supposed to be, and the floor counting man probably has counted his way out of every meaningful relationship he has ever had or could want.

I was worried that I might have cancer. That I might be a bad waiter. That I might not be a lawyer. And that I might fail as a writer because people want me to do something else, be someobody, have benefits for times like this when I have a hard bee bee in my lip. And I worried about this as I laid in my bed that was given to me for free, in my room that I rent every month in a nice house, with a computer on a desk that were both given to me for free, and a car outside that runs. My Bible laid on the floor next to me, cover down so I can pretend like I don’t see the words “Bible” on it and pretend like I don’t think about reading it every night. And I wished I was the one out on the corner counting how many floors up the buildings went, how far I could fall, if it would kill me on impact or if I would hit the ground and regret not jumping from a higher building because I only broke my neck, but could still see and hear and watch the people around me cry and cry and ask why, and me know that I had failed them. Failed them all. I wished I could take their place, all three of the “freaks” and give them a chance, a chance like God has given me, and I wondered what they would do with it. Maybe they would be worried about the doom in their lip as well, maybe they would truly only care about the ball in their mouth because the girl I am dating can feel it sometimes when we kiss. Maybe they would be that vain too.

~ by kevinthomas on June 4, 2006.