Soap

A patch on his hand, that's how it started. A patch that grew steadily and was well adorned with small white purulent beads. These white globules appeared on the top of red mounds of meat erupting like biological mini-volcanoes. The situation could no longer be hidden by long sleeves, and far worst, the small hills of living flesh began to hurt. Only then in the 12th hour Holt decided to go see a doctor.

The dermatologist stood behind a tall metal door painted with flaky white enamel, and in the corner of the reception lobby a mold stain blossomed in the shape of a human head.

He got inside, and the first thing the doctor did was scratch his elbow. Holt looked at this as a bad sign and took a step back trying the door behind, but the knob was stuck. The doctor motioned him to approach.

-- How can I help you?

-- I have an itch on my hands, he lifted his palms up, showing the two red spots oozing down to his elbows.

-- The annoying part is they hurt.

Scratching his beard, the dermatologist lunged beneath the table and pulled out a couple of small-sized condoms that he rolled on his fingers.

-- Let's have a look.

The doctor approached and tested Holt's skin.

-- That's enough, said the doctor.

Then he smiled, lifted one eyebrow, scratched his armpits, and dropped the condoms into the trash.

-- You have a tadpole on your hands, that's how you got in trouble. You put your hand on the frog every day, you have to stop doing that sir.

-- On a frog?

-- Yes sir, on something infected. Go clean your house, take your day step by step and find the frog. It will pass, but you have to stop reinfecting yourself.

Holt picked up his clothes, his shirts, each and every sock and undershirt and washed them all at 90 ºC. He put on a pair of fresh gloves and began scrubbing the bathroom. "I reinfect myself every day", thought Holt, "every day". He looked at his toothbrush, he broke it in half and flushed it down the toilet. Slightly more calm he went to the kitchen, but he still couldn't escape the words "every day". He picked up his coffee cup and threw it against the wall, "This way no one is gonna take it from the trash".

He started recapping his day in a clean kitchen corner, thinking how he would break all his pens at work, how he would change his keyboard, how the mouse would make a jump out the window. Then, in a moment of divine enlightenment, he remembered: every day he went to the bathroom at work, day in day out he would wash his hands with the company soap, the one with the company logo. Every day, even several times a day, he put his hands on the frog in communion with the noxious people at work.

But if the soap was the cause then he couldn't be the only one, there had to be others, others who suffered. Holt decided to investigate. He would have to walk into the bathroom without touching the soap or the sink, he would open the door with his feet, and avoid door handles like all hell.

"But why am I the only one with a tadpole growing on me?" Holt thought, "Where are the other carriers, why doesn't anyone else open their little mouths?"

Holt got his post in the unisex bathroom, taking care not to exclude anyone. He decided to sit and smell all his colleagues farts, just so he could reach a satisfactory conclusion.

  "That fat bitch, she must be it, she would fuck anyone for a handful of fries", thought Holt. But Eillen took out a white cream soap from a rubber wallet, washed her hands and went out. Holt smiled politely while he was pretending to wash his hands for the tenth time. After the woman stepped out Holt pulled out his pruned fingers from beneath the jet of water and waited for the next dubious individual to make an appearance.

"Has to be this four eyes, this bloody bastard from IT, rubbing it in his pants in the server room, coming to wash it off on this soap", Holt thought almost shouting. He was planning to give Colby a bath in the toilet bowl. Colby pulled out a plastic sea shell from where he fished out a sliver of soap. He washed his hands, and left without saying anything. He closed the door with his foot and did all these without raising his gaze from the ground. "What a thing", Holt thought, "I could have sworn he ..."

The next one was Holt's boss. Alister left the stall and smiling at Holt zipped up his fly. "Is he the piece of shit I've been looking for? I may have to sign my resignation with a shovel on his face", contemplated Holt. Alister stopped in front of the mirror, pulled out an antibacterial spray and amply sprayed his hands, filling the toilet with the smell of sweet alcohol. With one foot out, Alister congratulated Holt for the good job he was doing and disappeared before Holt could answer.

Bursting into the bathroom entered his friend, nasty Olaf.

-- Hey buddy, oh man I had some chick this weekend, she almost broke me.

"Could it be him? Of course, I saw him blowing his nose in his hands just the other day", thought Holt.

-- She had about 40 pounds on me... well not 40 but at least 20, and lustful beyond belief.

Olaf boasted from within the stall, while a continuous jet of urine was sloshing the water in the toilet. He stepped out of the stall, passing indifferently by the sink and throwing a final:

-- That's life ...

"Ha ha, he didn't even look at the sink, who's left?" Not a single person had used the froggy soap since he was waiting.

An electric buzz began to massage Holt's leg. The janitor came in with a broom in his hand. He sunk his hands in the water and started sudsing his hands up to his elbows. He took a little water in the crook of his hands and poured it on his forehead and again at the back of his neck. Streams of sweat flowed down the man's clothes. Seeing the wretchedness flowing down from this man, Holt started steaming.

Undoubtedly he was the one, he had to be the pestilence, a man with too many layers of filth to feel a few tadpoles. Holt sneaked behind the old man taking his broom, and swung with all his strength for the janitor's head. He felt the bluntness of the wood failing in his hands, so he swung one more time with the satisfaction of braking the wood in half. The old man, now with a bloody face, threw himself toward Holt, but he stopped him with the rest of the broom. The old man grabbed it, and Holt turned him to the window where both of them were almost thrown out. Holt hit the old man behind his left foot, grabbed him by that leg, and lifted him up balancing him on the edge of the window. He launched a victorious howl and then threw him out. The old man, too immobile to catch on to anything, fell with a splat on the edge of the pavement.

Holt's phone continued to ring. He took a breath and put it to his ear.

-- Greetings, I'm calling you from the dermatology office, there's no infection sir. The lab results came back, it has to be an allergic reaction to something. Have you been fondling a cat, or maybe got a new shirt? I once had a patient covered head to toe in blisters from an allergic reaction to a bracelet. I was telling him "it's from the braided nonsense on your hand" but he kept saying no and no...

Versiunea în română: Săpun