Bumps

She is walking to class when she first notices the bumps. There they were, peering out from under the ends of her blue jeans. Oh, God, she thinks. What is that?

She stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Hoping no one’s around, she yanks the left leg of her jeans up and balances on one of her sandals while she gets a closer look. Hives, red and yellow and loud. Yuck.

Knowing her malady won’t exist unless shared, she texts a picture of her ankle to her mom. She waits for “Delivered” to appear in familiar black font under the image before she looks at her watch. Class starts in five minutes. She reorients herself and marches on.

“I divide people into two categories,” her professor tells the class. “Those who’ve read War and Peace and those who haven’t.” This would normally stress her out (was she supposed to have read War and Peace?!) but she can’t stop itching her ankles. She chose a seat in the back of the lecture hall for this exact purpose, free to attack the bumps away from the competitive note taking contest currently taking place in the front row.

The professor keeps talking. She can’t tell if she’s successfully tuned him out or if he was now speaking Russian. She keeps scratching. When her toes and ankles are gone, she moves on to her legs. Scratching her legs feels so good that when they, too, disappear, she moves on to the rest of her lower body. Her ears fill with a noise that reminds her of toothbrushes in action. No one seems to notice.

She itches her upper body until only her arms and hands are left. Her left and right hand take turns going at it until all that remains of her is a sand-like pile on the carpet and a bookbag. Her friend waits for her by the door after class, but she likes it on the floor. It smells of stale cheese and sweaty feet down there, and that reminds her of the roller rink birthday parties she went to in elementary school.

Her friend leaves. She’s alone. A “where are u?” text lights up on her screen. A janitor will come clean the place soon, she thinks. She doesn’t make a sound, just stays there and listens for the noise of the vacuum.

***

Katie Muschalik is a senior in the Cinema and Media Studies program at the University of Southern California. You can find her film criticism at https://katherants.blogspot.com/