Number 7, Gregorovitch Road

On number 7, Gregorovitch Road, southeast, there is a little gray-blue, two-story, 20th century townhouse. This townhouse has lived many lives. It has lived the lives of Mrs. and Mr. Jordyn, who built the 3-by-4 picket-fenced front porch into a 6-by-8 deck. It has lived the lives of Ms. Emily Holloway, who painted the living-dining space a pale green and put in the brass door handles, and her daughter, Ursula, whose growth patterns are scratched into the doorway of the second-floor guest bedroom. It has lived the life of Mr. Thomas, who retired after the second world war and built a two-seater porch swing to hang under the eavestrough. It has lived the lives of Mary and George Coulton, who painted the kitchen cabinets white and began the small vegetable garden out in the backyard.

Now, it lives Wesley Ridgelow. A normal 9-5, day-in-day-out, transit-riding, goldfish-feeding,Swiffer-sweepingg, born-and-bred Canadian resident just like anyone else. Well, Wesley wouldn’t tell you this; Wesley would tell you he is among the top accountants in Olds, Alberta. In his mind, this tidbit of information very much proves that he is not in fact ‘just like anyone else’.

This becomes all too true when Wesley wakes up one Sunday morning. The month is June, and the climate is a sticky-humid cascade of clear skies and mosquito swarms. This is relevant because the night before, as summer evenings often accompany, a fast and wet windstorm swept through Wesley’s suburb. One particular bout of thunder had even shaken the fishbowl of Genevieve, Wesley’s two-year-old goldfish and only roommate. It just so happens that on this particular Saturday evening, during this particular storm, in this particular month of June, that Wesley forgot to latch his bathroom window.

There’s nothing enticingly special about this window. A simple two-by-two-by-four cutout. The only remarkable thing about this window may be that it has no screen to separate Wesley’s bathroom from the elements, as most windows do these days.

And so, Wesley roused on Sunday morning feeling as averagely non-average as ever, and padded towards the bathroom. At the sight of the unlatched window, Wesley’s eyes grew wide.

“Oh, goodness,” he sputtered. From the unlatched window, an array of muddy leaves and swirling rain patterns covered his small bathroom. His previously pristine shower curtain was worn with weather; his teal-colored towels were overturned; his white marble sink—which was just beside the window—was green and brown from the storm. A small line of black sludge led from the lip of the sink and disappeared below the drain.

Wesley got to work cleaning. The shower curtain and towels went into the washer, and the leaves went into the compost. At last was the sludge. Wesley pulled on his yellow rubber scrubbing gloves (courtesy of his mother—God bless her soul) and crouched over the sink. Using his thumb and his forefinger, he plucked the sludge at the lip of the sink and almost immediately recoiled.

It was hot to the touch—red and volcanic and searing and charring—and Wesley gasped, opening his fingers and shaking his hand. The sludge would not budge. It clung to his yellow rubber glove like a molten tarantula, and then, it began to move. Wesley’s eyes widened. His mouth tilted back in a silent scream as he watched horrified as the sludge jerked and inched up the sink.

“Get off!” Wesley gasped, stumbling backward in a vain attempt to escape the sludge. “Get off!” It squirmed its way up his glove, despite his protests, and detached completely from the sink. Heat sunk into his arm and through the glove; searing the skin and melting the rubber as the sludge slowly began to seep up his arm. Wesley fell back into the bathtub, body trembling and shoulders quivering. His mouth gaped unintelligently like a fish drowning on dry land. His eyes prickled with unshed tears, feeling wet and dry all at once.

Wesley had once been ice-fishing up north with his Grandfather and had fallen through the ice. It was as if his entire nervous system went into shock. The water cut into him like knives; so freezing it burned. His limbs screamed and his skin ached—and it was over almost as soon as it started. It was simultaneously the hottest and coldest he’d ever felt, but none of that compared to the smell of his own skin charing as the back sludge slowly dissipated beneath his skin.

As the last bit of sludge seeped into his arm, the scream that had been so insistently clawing at Wesley’s throat sprung free. It tore from him like a wounded animal and left him a shaking, feverish, blubbering mess in his bathtub. He panted for a moment—mouth sputtering, chest heaving—before braving himself to look at whatever was left of his arm.

“That… that’s not… that’s not possible,” he heaved, eyes widening as he took in the sight of his arm.

It looked normal.

Normal in the sense that it looked the exact same as when he first pulled on his yellow rubber gloves only thirty minutes earlier—

Normal in the sense that there was no evidence of his previously charred, searing skin, and bubbling rubber glove.

Tentatively, and just to be sure, Wesley lifted a shaking hand and ran it down the skin of his arm—perfectly normal. Not a hair nor scar out of place. A drop of sweat dropped down along Wesley’s brow, and he raised an arm to wipe across his forehead.

He wouldn’t be going into work today.

On Monday, two days after the storm, Wesley was working away in his cubicle, when his stomach lurched. His intestines rolled, and a low, grumbling, gurgle arose. Wesley’s hand strayed away from his calculator to lay overtop his stomach. Nausea ebbed and flowed, reminding Wesley of his vacation to Coney Island, and he sucked in a breath. His lips pursed as he swapped it for a long and low exhale. His chest and throat began to broil, and he threw himself from his chair, sprinting with muttered ‘excuse me’s and ‘thank you’s as he ran for the men’s room.

He dropped into the first stall, paying no mind to locking the door behind him, and hung his head before the toilet. His stomach reeled; as though a divine entity had taken his organs and twisted them as one would drain excess water from a rag. Wesley’s eyes burned, and he squeezed them shut as he retched. At long last, with his stomach wailing and muscles aching, he let himself fall away from his mess. His skin dripped with perspiration.

He slowly blinked himself back to his senses and pulled himself straight against the wall of his bathroom stall. Wesley took in a deep breath, using the back of his hand to wipe his lip as he exhaled. He leaned forward, intending on flushing the toilet, but stopped.

A scream caught in his throat—his eyes widened—his heart pounded through his body and echoed in his ears like cymbals—

Because in the toilet bowl, staring back at him, wasn’t vomit.

“That’s not possible!” Wesley gasped, echoing what he had said only days before in the comfort of his own bathroom. His throat burned, and his vision grew unfocused as he tried to make sense of what he had thrown up—but he couldn’t.

In the toilet, was a writhing mass of maggots.

At least a hundred or more. Yellow—brown—black. Crawling over one another like a hive mind. Two tiny dots for eyes—thin appendages for legs—crawling—squirming—slinking maggots.

Wesley ran. Sprinting faster than he’d ever run before. He was a blur of racing thoughts and wild eyes. He ran all the way back home to number 7 Gregorovitch Road, southeast. His lungs burned and his clothes were sweat-through, and with some final resolve, he dropped onto the porch swing and sobbed.

The following Friday, Wesley quit his job. Over the course of the week, his skin had taken on a gaunt thinness. He counted his ribs as he undressed. His fingernails were yellow and brittle. His hair was falling out in patches. If you compared a picture of Wesley now to his senior prom photo, you’d think he was homeless.

Wesley stepped into his shower, skin flaking off of him as he did. It did that now. The amount of dust was becoming so comical, Wesley imagined his home as living underneath a giant couch, right at the very back where the Swiffer couldn’t reach. He was dust-bunny incarnate.

The water beat down on him, and he felt his ear itching. It didn’t bother him now. In fact, he watched his steamy reflection as an ant crawled out and down his neck. From this view, he could see the fading yellowness to his skin. A maggot nibbled on his scalp, nestled and squirming through his remaining hair. His face was hollowed almost to the bone. Every curve of his skull was visible, and the same could be said for the rest of him. Wesley’s skin stretched over his miserable husk of a body like sugar being stretched into taffy. He looked like death. This was confirmed when Wesley went to the doctor the Tuesday after his Maggot Accident. The Maccident, one could say.

The only place he could get an appointment so last minute was a little hole-in-the-wall, privately owned practice sandwiched between a 7-11 and a bookstore called The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was a bare-facing building, having only ever lived in this doctor’s office, and therefore still young and yearning to be filled with character. There were three measly parking spaces that were occupied by this office for customers. There was one car, in the far right parking space when the bus dropped Wesley off.

This doctor’s office was called The Bay of Fungi; a play on words on the Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fungi was named so by the owner—a stouter, twirly-moustache sprouting man. His name was Dr. Herman Gy and he had lived in Charlottetown up until decided to start his own medicinal practice. He had a distinguished Eastern accent.

Despite the single car in the customer parking, Wesley was the only patient in the waiting room. It was a musty, cream-colored room; with plastic chairs much like those of a children’s school. Wesley counted three framed photographs of Dr. Herman Gy holding a fish.

The wait was only six minutes. Three for Wesley to fill out a triage form, and another three for Dr. Herman Gy to pee. The examination room was much cozier than the waiting room, which Wesley found slightly contradictory. He stared at the leafy plant in the corner of the room, unable to ascertain whether it was fake or real. Dr. Herman Gy followed his gaze to the plant, and commented ‘Oh, that’s Louise.’

No more comments were made about Louise.

Dr. Herman Gy followed through with a physical exam; he weighed Wesley, took his height, listened to his chest, and looked in his ears and eyes and nose and mouth. He took his blood pressure and pressed a stale popsicle stick to the back of his tongue and told him to take a deep breath. As the examination came to an end, Dr. Herman Gy pulled a chair in front of the table and sat. Wesley rolled his shirt back down and tucked it into his slacks.

“So, I can see your concerns. You are slightly underweight, which isn’t much cause for concern, but there are some oddities in your chest and stomach I can hear,” he said. Wesley frowned, his brow furrowing.

“What does that mean?” he asked. Dr. Herman Gy shrugged, which wasn’t very comforting.

“It just sounds like the flu.” Wesley shook his head.

“That’s not possible,” he said. “I never get sick, and I’ve been going crazy. There has to be something wrong.” Dr. Herman Gy shrugged again.

“Perhaps you got a parasite then,” he said. Wesley’s vision tunneled. His chest quickened as his heart skipped a beat, and his stomach coiled.

Oh no.

The sludge.

Wesley couldn’t remember how he got home. He moved in auto-pilot, the word ‘parasite’ echoing around his brain like the image ‘DVD’ bouncing around a black screen. He slumped to the floor of his bathroom pathetically. He tried all night to rid the sludge from his body, but all his attempts resulted in a bathtub full of maggots and blow flies and ants. He had literally coughed up a lobe of his lung, which he meekly carried out to the backyard and planted as fertilizer.

Wesley turns off the shower and steps out, a trail of dry skin following him. He doesn’t bother with drying himself with a towel; it would only result in the peeling away of whatever remaining skin layers he has. Bits of crumbling toenails crunch under his feet as he walks. He doesn’t have long. Wesley has become a mere shell of what his body used to be. A prison of skin and bone, with his soul decaying from the inside out. As he passes through his bedroom, he makes his bed; leaving dust and skin and hair and fingernail behind. He feeds Genevieve and hopes it won’t be long until someone realizes he is dead. He hopes that she’ll be taken care of.

Wesley moves through his house like a ghost, as though he’s already begun to haunt the reminiscence of his life. The sound of death accompanies him; flies buzzing around and within him as he trudges. Nude and without purpose, Wesley steps out into his backyard, closing the door behind him for the last time. He has accepted his death. He has no one who will mourn him, except for Genevieve, perhaps. He steps off the back porch and slowly slinks to his hands and knees. He crawls through the yard and nestles himself between the blooming vegetables of the garden that Mary and George Coulton had first planted so many years ago.

By the time his neighbors realize that no one has seen Wesley Ridgelow for a few days, his body will have already been reduced to nothing. All that was left of him will have dissipated into the dirt. Genevieve will be taken in by the eight-year-old girl next door, and number 7, Gregorovitch Road, southeast, will go on to live a young widow, named Joslyn Park, who will commend the vitality of the garden, and who will forever wonder what fertilizer was used by the previous owner to make the plants come alive like they do.

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Avery Ann is a poet, author, podcast host, and LGBTQIA2+ activist.