Operation Ditching Rupert

"Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies but not everyone lives." ~Alan Sachs

I know it is a morbid quote to start this blog posting but I am a wee bit apprehensive about a scheduled event next week. Only a few more sleep deprived nights before D-day - surgery to remove a tumor that has kept me housebound for several weeks. My last posting revealed the source of my distraction from any serious writing over this period has been a tumor, which I've named Rupert. This posting finishes the tale of this alien creature which hopefully will not be my last story.

So here is part 2...

The date to ditch Rupert's heinous hide is finally set. The specialist hit squad is perversely delighted by the prospect of such a complex extraction operation. It is not difficult to fathom that this crew would regard a hostage release negotiation of such a delicate nature to be worthy of accolades. It would be a very large feather in their caps if they manage to pull off the unspeakably intricate task successfully. I am the one being held to ransom. Rupert is not about to give me up so easily when he has found himself somewhere to call home. I am a place so cosy and warm. This unwanted symbiotic co-dependence is destructive for both of us.

A friend provides me with a gift - a voodoo doll of Rupert - so that I can vilify and puncture a vein-riddled representation of his hide with as many pins as I see fit. Small enough to hold in my hand, I want to squeeze him hard so that he can feel the same pain that he inflicts on me. His effigy stares back at me defiantly with his beady small eyes. If I hurt him, am I hurting myself?

 

The parlance is arranged, meeting at non-neutral ground. Rupert has been dragged here, beaten with a sharp needle, drugged to the hilt, and bound with a bag over his head to disorient him. The flimsy gown I wear is supposed to entice him to leave me. Near naked and exposed, I cannot imagine him letting me go without kicking and screaming so loudly that he steals the air of any and all in his proximity. I will skip several heartbeats as he takes my breath away.

This sterile environment is full of fluorescent flickering brightness. Strangely, the icy cold stainless steel pressed against my back gives me cause for hope. This is not a negotiation. My demands are clear and unequivocal. I want him out. I need him out. He has to go and I will send in the hard-core marines equipped with masks and the sharpest of knives to slice him out of his fortified enclave inside my home, my temple. At least they have the sense to stun me into slumber with gas so that I can be spared witnessing the worst of the onslaught.

It is the sleep without dreams, sleep of a thousand sleeps, a peaceful sleep, the first such slumber since Rupert slipped into me. I am there, I am not. This is where I am, this is where I will be, this is where I will go. It will be a short while if the men in masks annihilate Rupert, smash him to smithereens, and spare me too much damage in the messy process. It will be for an infinite while if my intruder drags me down with him.

I hope and pray he does not leave behind an indelible mark beyond the scar created to remove him. I long for some certainty that he will not sneak back into my life, grasping a fresh foothold on the traces of his residue that he might have left behind. I fear the possibility there will be shrapnel pieces of him lodged hidden from the experts during the extraction process. Complex is chaotic even with the best clean up crew in town.

Will I feel whole again when Rupert is gone? Or will I feel hollow or empty without him? He may not have belonged to me as much as he has owned me these last few months but he has been inescapable for this stretch of time. He has been pointing a gun at my head ready to pull the trigger at any moment. I suspect some Stockholm Syndrome sympathy might have creeped into my psyche. I will be glad to be rid of him. Really.

It is astounding how something as small as a tennis ball can cast so large a shadow on my every breath. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?