I knock on death's door, but no one answers

Norbert

11

I knock on Death's Door, but no one answers

I miss Auntie at breakfast because I have to be at work early to commit suicide.

I make a mug of cyanide tea and sit at my desk to drink it. As I lift it to my lips, I notice a big red ring on the calendar in front of me. A reminder that today is my annual inspection, the first for two and a half years.

All the satellite hospitals and clinics that have departments and staff working under the auspices of the city hospital are inspected annually (supposedly) to ensure that cross-city procedures are being adhered to. I frequently receive memos through the internal post advising me of changes and updates to the standard operating procedures. I generally file them in a drawer and continue to run my laboratory in the way that suits me, not a bunch of faceless bureaucrats who don’t even know where Brundy is.

I fish the memo out and note the inspection is to be made by Mr Peregrine Foote-Wharmer, the Laboratory Manager at city hospital. The name rings a bell, and though determined to end it all here and now, I can’t help but satisfy my curiosity first.

I do some research on the Oracle (the NHS version of the Intranet) and discover that Mr Foote-Wharmer is indeed the man I’ve heard of. I am now in a quandary. This chap is a legend in laboratory circles, a man I’ve been dying to meet, though if properly dead I’ll miss out. I’m also fairly sure there isn’t a SOP for intentionally killing yourself whilst on duty, in which case I would posthumously fail the inspection and may therefore be unable to get a job in heaven.

The truth of the matter is I’m a coward. Being respected for doing my job is important, something to strive for. God knows, apart from an insatiable passion for vintage farm tractors, loolybells and masturbation, I have nothing to live for.

This depressing thought has me reaching for the mug, but my sense of duty (sorry, cowardice) prevails. I’ll get the inspection out of the way first. If I fail, I have a sound reason to kill myself. If I pass, I’ll die knowing I’m not a complete failure. I leave my desk, call at Supplies and find what I’m looking for unopened and gathering dust on a shelf.

I’m now totally focused and rushing about like a man on a mission. I remove the mounting pile of dead insects from the lab and have a dust round. I fill the holder with paper towels stolen from the tearoom and put on a lab coat washed at home by Nunky. I decide to clear out all the food and drink from the Blood Bank, but then think better of it. I will wait until everyone has drunk their morning tea and eaten their snacks and then I will stick a post-it on every item left over, saying: “Property of whomever. Do not remove.” thus implicating everyone in the clinic but me. It will be a fitting way to go out. Revenge is better than a suicide note no one will read.

I have just about finished tidying up when the hatch door explodes inwards and the unsexy half of Nurse Blethyn appears with this morning’s geriatric list.

‘Flipping hell, Norbert, what’s going on? You’re bathed and shaved, what hair you’ve got left is tidy and you’re wearing an almost white coat. You look close to normal, considering.’

It is true. I purposely shaved the patchy peach fuzz from my cheeks, washed my hair and changed my underwear this morning, determined to die with dignity and in clean pants.

‘Thank you, Blethyn. It is flattering to be told by a woman – the lower half of whom I have long fantasized about – that I have achieved the dizzy height of close to normal.’

I almost smirk at the look on her face. Imminent death is a liberating experience.

‘You dirty little creep. I will report you to your aunt.’

‘Whenever I look at you from behind, Blethyn, I think of the Sahara desert.’

She picks up my mug and sniffs it. ‘I think someone has put something weird in your tea. You’re not yourself.’

‘I won’t be for much longer, but I’ve decided to go ahead with my annual inspection first. That’s the reason for today’s sartorial elegance. I’m being inspected by some big nob from the city hospital.’

‘In that case, let me warn you. Some prankster has stuck a poster on the wall outside the hatch here, containing photographs of lumps of shit.’

‘I know. It was me.’

‘I take it back. You are a bozo. There’s no way in hell you’ll ever get anywhere near close to normal.’

And with that she is gone.

Once the clinic has slowed to a trickle, Auntie appears with an obese man wearing a burgundy pinstripe, three-piece suit. He clutches a battered leather briefcase in his left hand. His right thumb is hitched into a waistcoat pocket, which I assume contains a pocket watch, as a heavy gold fob chain snakes from it to the top buttonhole. Though totally bald, he has dark brown muttonchop whiskers and a bushy moustache.

I bow before him. ‘Good morning, sir. It is a tremendous honour to meet you.’

I hand him a poster identical to the one I’d stuck to the wall outside. ‘I was wondering, sir, if you would do me the honour of autographing this before I go?’

‘Go where?’ says Auntie.

I’ve been too busy to give much thought to the afterlife, so I just shrug.

Mr Foote-Wharmer is beaming at me like a chubby little gnome who’s just been awarded the prime fishing spot in the garden pond. ‘Why certainly.’ He pulls a pair of pince-nez from his waistcoat pocket and perches them on his chubby nose, unscrews the lid from a fountain pen and signs the bottom corner.

Auntie’s jaw has gone so slack I can see her overworked tonsils.

‘Mr Peregrine Foote-Wharmer is the creator of the Macarbrough Stool Form Scale,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t want to embarrass him, but everyone in the trade calls him Mister Poo.’

‘I am aware of the sobriquet,’ he says, modestly. ‘It’s part and parcel of celebrity.’

‘Nobody in the country, if not the world, knows more about faeces than this man.’

‘I’ve given my life to it, madam. A most underrated diagnostic tool, the stool. You can tell a lot about a man from his turds.’

Mr Foote-Wharmer opens his mouth and makes a fast repetitive sound that is a mixture of a coughing fit, a braying donkey and the bark of a hyena. Unaccustomed as I am, I join in the laughter.

He yanks a spotted handkerchief from the top pocket of his jacket and mops at his face until the fit subsides. ‘I apologise, madam, but it is impossible to be a student of the waste products of the alimentary canal and not have a wicked sense of humour.’

‘I think I’ll err … leave you to it,’ she says, and turns to leave.

‘Charming woman.’ Mr Foote-Wharmer stands his briefcase on the bench, opens it and removes a sheaf of papers. ‘Let me see. Norbert Winstanley Rockhampton-Smythe. Twenty-five years of age. Your marital status?’

‘Virgin.’

‘I’ll tick single. You have a two-one degree in Medical Laboratory Science from Macarbrough University, done on day release whilst working here. Is that correct?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Stuck out here in the sticks with a two-one doing finger pricks and phlebotomy? Sounds like a waste of talent to me, young shaver. Have you never applied to the city hospital?’

‘I’ve had a very difficult upbringing, sir, orphaned at an early age.’ I look forlorn. ‘I can’t talk about the accident, sir, I just can’t. I go to pieces.’

‘There. There.’

‘I live with my aunt – that was her, the Sister in charge – and my uncle, who … how shall I put it … no longer walks on the pavements of reality.’

‘Strong family ties. A sense of duty to those who took you in and cared for you. I understand. Very commendable.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Well, haven’t got all day.’

He walks round the laboratory, checking the colorimeter, microscope and other equipment, making notes here and there. ‘This is all extremely antiquated. When was the last time you had something new?’

‘Not in the seven years I’ve been here, sir. But everything works and is up to the job.’

He pauses in front of the poison cupboard and pulls it open with a forefinger. ‘No key, I notice?’

‘Never has been, sir. Must have been lost during my predecessor’s time. Every week I report it to Maintenance, same as that hatch door. Just look at the dints in the plaster.’

He makes a note. ‘Have to do something about that. There’s enough cyanide in here to poison the whole town.’

‘If you accidentally drank some cyanide in, say, your tea, would it hurt?’

‘It would be the most excruciatingly painful death imaginable.’

He lifts out a glass bottle, removes the stopper and takes a tentative sniff, thus not noticing me stagger and nearly faint. ‘You still fix slides with xylene?’

‘No sir, definitely not.’

‘Thank God for that. This stuff is lethal; a malignant carcinogen. Dispose of it immediately.’

‘Yes sir.’

Still holding on to the bench for support, I glance in the mirror. I have visibly paled and am sweating.

He picks up Nurse Blethyn’s sheet from the desk. ‘What’s this?’

‘Patients I have to bleed on geriatrics, sir,’ I stammer.

‘Well, seeing as there doesn’t appear to be anymore antenatal patients, I will accompany you.’

‘Very well, sir, but might I be excused for a moment?’

He nods.

I rush to the toilet and vomit. You see; I’ve been sniffing xylene for the best part of three years. It unblocks my sinuses, quells my stomach, cures my headaches faster than paracetamol and it can stop me thinking about loolybells for up to four hours. To be told the panacea for almost 15% of my ailments is one of the most lethal cancer-inducing agents known to man is a shock. I’ve been committing suicide for years without knowing it.