Tom

The smiling surgeon approached Tom brandishing a black marker pen.
            “Have to make absolutely sure”, he said. “Pop yourself on the bed for me young man."
            Tom sat on the hard mattress. He was naked beneath the flimsy hospital gown.
            The surgeon, still smiling his benign smile, said, “Human error is inevitable, even in the esteemed echelons of ontological surgery”. He uncapped his black marker pen and lifted Tom’s gown.
            “There!” he declared triumphantly. “Didn't tickle too much I hope". He scribbled on his clipboard and disappeared behind the curtain rail that surrounded the bed.
            Tom was alone now, the walls of his isolation strengthened by the chipper surgeon’s departure. Since his diagnosis, Tom had done everything he could to avoid being alone; it gave him too much time to think.
            In his darker moments, during that awful purgatory before sleep consumed him, Tom understood that, one day, and maybe far sooner than he’d hoped, he was going to die.
            By God he was going to die.
            Not that God had anything to do with it. What kind of benevolent, merciful deity would allow a cancerous cell to flourish in the testicle of a blameless young man? Only an omnipotent prankster, dark and foul of thought, would treat his life with such callous indifference. 
            A beautiful black face appeared in the curtain. It was the ward nurse.
            “How are you feeling sweetheart?”, she said.
            “I’m fine." Despite his dread sense of impending annihilation, Tom fought any outward sign of weakness. He would not break character, not now.
            “Okay my dear, I’ll come get you in ten minutes”.
            Ten minutes.
            Ten years.
            Ten millennia.
            All insignificant, arbitrary units of time when compared to the infinite, unknowable universe. Tom felt acutely attuned to the crushing indifference of the world around him. Time would eventually consume everything, including itself.
            One day it would all be gone.
            Charles Darwin’s brutal hammer blow to creationism; Albert Camus’ measured response to the profound absurdity of it all; Bill Hicks' righteous indignation; every homicidal religion and all our conjured Gods – all of them lost, plunged into the void from which they were born.
            The day would eventually come when some hapless soul had the historical misfortune to utter humanity's last ever words. But when faced with outright extinction, what words could possibly suffice? A proud and noble tribute to humankind's greatest achievements? Or would civilisation's final spokesman scream in feral terror as the encroaching darkness smotherd him forever?
            Tom lifted his gown to inspect the surgeon's handiwork. An ugly black 'X' stained his inner thigh, like an obscene treasure map.
            What was it the surgeon had said to him?
            'Human error is inevitable'.
            Quite, but did he have to be so blunt? It reminded Tom of those cheesy hospital dramas where the Doctors conversed in cliché.
            'Unforseen complications'.
            'He put up one hell of a fight'.
            'We did all we could'.
            Cosy euphemisms to placate the pre-watershed audience. Stock phrases spoken through ice white teeth. Bloodless bandages, pristine wards and Hollywood nurses – anything to distract the masses from their slow slide in to the grave.
            But Tom was all too aware of the horror stories. A sleep-deprived surgeon might amputate the wrong limb - or remove the perfectly healthy testicle. And sometimes the surgeon would doodle on the moribund appendage using a black marker pen, to avoid such catastrophic mishaps.
            The sudden swish of the curtain rail startled Tom from his solipsistic stream of consciousness.
            It was time.
            Tom began to shuffle off the bed but was interrupted before he could plant his feet on the floor.
            "No need to get up sweetheart", said the nurse. "These beds have wheels. You just lay back".
            She pulled the bed away from the wall with minimal effort. Tom gripped the sides of the mattress.
            "I'm fine to walk, honestly", said Tom. "More than happy to walk".
            The nurse had seen Tom’s haunted look of apprehension a thousand times before.
            She said, “It's no trouble at all, sweetheart”.
            The nurse wheeled the bed out of the ward and in to the main corridor.
            No trouble at all, thought Tom. What the fuck do you know? I'm having a nut removed, you clueless bitch.
            Tom looked up in to the Nurse’s face and smiled. He restrained the swelling impulse to scream and spit and swear; to leap from the bed and run; to rage against the piss-soaked unfairness of it all.
            The fucking injustice of it all.
            Why me?
            WHY ME?
            The nurse pushed Tom through the double swing doors at the end of the corridor.