Under the Skin

s the blazing sun started to fall from its zenith over the city of Cairo Zack admitted to himself that he was lost. He knew where he was of course, he was wandering the streets of Old Cairo. But even though he knew that he was still lost. He had set out south to visit some of the famous over crowded suqs (bazaars) in the southern part of the city. It came highly recommended by Jill. They were both on the same understanding with the whole tourism concept. Zack had not came to this most ancient city to just see the pyramids and be done with it. No, there was more here. The pyramids and the Sphinx were fine indeed, but what were they? - Empty monuments in the desert, piles of rock with no occupants but long ago removed pharos. He wanted to see the face of Egypt. And that meant the people. Where they lived, how they lived. The newer districts which spread out from Tahrir Square told nothing of the real Egypt. Jill had told him that the best he was likely to get was to set of and explore the most southern parts of the city. The real Cairo, the medieval Cairo. She had advised him to get himself lost in it, and well, he had.

The hour was not alarmingly late. The sun was still up there, but to make it back to his hotel might take some time, especially since he didn�t really know where he was. He was ready to set back now he was sure. He could feel blisters blooming on the soles of his feet, his ankles and calf muscles were hot and sore like bands of red hot iron had been bound to him there. The heat was oppressive. No more than three people could walk abreast in most of these alleys that criss-crossed and zigzagged every which way. And hundreds and thousands were making there way through these passages. The arteries of the city pulsed with human life. This city was alive. Not a second went by without a shoulder bumping or brushing against you. Flies buzzed and were brushed away absently. The air was not fresh. It was mingled with fragrance that flowed from kitchens that had windows opening onto the alley. Body odour was thick in there, and expelled breath from many people with dreadful halitosis.

Zack would have sat down to think things over but there was no where to sit. He was forced to go with the flow, he was but an individual in the bloodstream, he had to go with the flow. He pulled a quick manoeuvre to help him on the right track. He suddenly turned around and joined the traffic going in the opposite direction. It was easy enough. Then he was swept along the way he had came.

Going back the way he had came had not much effect. He was still lost. The sun was still sinking, and the number of people was increasing even though he thought that was impossible. I have to find a road Zack thought, there are some here somewhere. But where?

The heat was getting to his head now fuelling his frustration. He needed to sit and think. Cool off before taking action. Jill told me to get lost in here, he thought, but she failed to mention that I might really get lost. Maybe I took her suggestion to literally Zack thought, but this is what he had wanted. The real experience. But now it was finished, over, done. Now how to end?

Zack glanced to his sides as he walked along. The city had varying levels of streets and alleys. Somewhere there were some main streets that, if found, would lead back to the main parts of the cities. But he need to rest first and think. So he started looking for a smaller alley that he could rest in. Soon one presented itself. It was narrow, but there was hardly anybody in it. It was one of many small alleys that connected two bigger ones. He had seen plenty of them. A few people walked though it, but they walked in single file with meters between each other. Zack entered and sat down with his back against a stone wall.

Looking to his left and right he could see a mirror image. On one side there was a relatively empty passage that led onto a mass of moving people. The passage connected in a small arch on either side. The people appeared for a second or two, no more and went back on out of Zacks view. So many people. So many faces. The alley was like a haven in which he could hide from the swarm of the unwashed masses. He closed his eyes and was thankful of the blackness behind it. If only I could close my smell and hearing too he thought. Then I could be somewhere else.

In his mind Zack tried to create a map. He failed miserable. He didn�t let panic rise in him, he knew that he could find his way out. Sure it was like a labyrinth, but as long as he wandered about long enough he would either find a street or see another tourist who could speak English. Then he�d be back to the hotel in no time. See the pyramids again tomorrow maybe, he thought. I think I�ve got enough of the real Egypt to last a lifetime. He let his mind drift off into thoughts of a living city where he was lost in a complex anatomy.

Zack opened his eyes, and was surprised to see it was dark.

�What...� He mumbled to himself. He looked up. Off to his sides a few silent shadows passed by, illuminated every now an then by the sombre light that fell from doorways and windows of the ancient stone buildings hugging the alleys. It came back to him. He had dozed off in this passageway. What had meant to be a little break to rest his feet had evidently sent him into slumber. How does that happen!? He asked himself. All the noise of the people and the smell, how could I fall asleep? He was angry at his body for what he felt was a betrayal. I shouldn�t have shut my eyes, he thought, I was exhausted and I sat down and shut my eyes when I was lost in an old, over populated part of this damn city. Now what?

As always Zack felt tired after waking up. Why does that happen he wondered? He knew all he had to do was shake it off so he gingerly stood up. A cool night air swept through the passage, lifting up dust and throwing it around, the sound of fabric flapping came to him and strange scents. Maybe this isn�t too bad he decided. At least I can search around without the large crowds and the heat. Zack glanced up. Starts were still visible in the sky despite the pall of pollution that hung over the city. Zack was beginning to realise that the night was the experience here. All the spirit of the day lingered but the hustle and bustle of the crowds had been filtered out, or chased away by the stars.

Zack walked absently through the alleys letting chance be his guide. He reserved his conscious mind for taking in the city under night. Distant voices drifted along, light spilling out onto the alley casting arcs of light for him to walk through, his silhouette pressed up against the cold stone set hundreds of years ago. Signs of life were confined to the Egyptians who walked along, there heads bowed, seeming to navigate by some mind map. But there were not many of there walking along, just a few - a smattering to keep the city alive. A few others were sitting or lying in the sides of the alleys. For the most part no sound came from there, except from the few who snored. Most were a silent bunch covered in rags.

Zack was enjoying the night when some one called him from behind. He was speaking in Egyptian, and Zack couldn�t understand a word. He seemed angry, and Zack immediately felt threatened. There was just something in his voice. It didn�t matter what language he spoke, the tone tells all. And the tone told Zack that he was in trouble.

Zack was certain that he was being addressed, but who could tell? Maybe the voice was not directed at him. There was only one thing for it, he knew. He stared to turn around slowly, and his heart jumped when he saw an evil looking man standing a few feet away from him with a knife in hand. As Zack turned to face him, the man spoke again, harsh and urgent. He finished his sentence of by punctuating it with a gesture of his knife.

�I ...I�m sorry I don�t understand.� Zack managed to force out in a trembling voice. Unfortunately it only seemed to enrage the man further. He started to talk in a low dark voice, and Zack got desperate. He reached into his pocket and drew out his wallet. The man stoped his talking and looked at Zacks wallet. Zack opened it and took out all the money he had in it. Before he could offer it the man reached out and grabbed it, then stuffed it in a pocket unceremoniously. Zack hoped that this would sent the man away, but he started talking again - an evil looking grin sprang onto his face, and a glint of malice was in his eyes.

Before Zack could react the man attacked. The knife was swiped at Zacks abdomen and cut deeply into him. He reached down instinctively to where he had been cut, and the man followed with a sturdy punch to Zack�s face. The blow sent him reeling and he lost his balance, stumbled, and fell against a basket. Zack rolled into a foetal position even as the man started to kick at him, catching him in the groin, the stomach which sent Zack into agony as it rubbed salt into his slashed belly. Then a blow caught his head and the world went to black.

When Zack came around he was not where he had been. Somebody had there arm around him and was pulling him along, none to gently into a big room. There were many people in this room. They sat on all the seats, and many stood on the hard cement floor. Electric light bulbs hung bare in the white water stained roof, shedding weak light down onto the people below. There were smells in the air that Zack faintly identified as being to the sick or the hospital. Urine and antiseptic cleaning liquids, that did not seem to go together, but then Zack wasn�t sure what he could smell over the body odour of the one who was carrying him. He tried to speak, but his had was all groggy, and the words hard to form. He felt pain in places all over his body. He looked up at the person carrying him, and was surprised to see a stocky woman with thick dark hair. She completely ignored him and carried him over to a desk where she spoke to some one in a dirt white uniform. He couldn�t make out the words, his ears were ringing, and they seemed on a completely different level of consciousness to him.

After the conversation someone came and led him away from the woman who had brought him in. They went down a hall with many opened doors, inside Zack could see patents lying on beds. Windows in the rooms were thrown wide open, allowing the cool night breeze to sweep into the room. The tiled floors were dirty, and many patents cried out in pain but no one came. Zack only slowly seemed to realise that he was in a hospital. In one room he was sure that he a rat scurrying along the floor, but his eyes were a little blurred and he wasn�t sure.

Zack was taken through a set of double doors into a small room which seemed only slightly better lit than the rest of the place. An old operating table was in the room, a tank of gas beside it and a tray containing scalpels, scissors and other surgical implements. Zack was quickly dumped on the table and a mask was clamped over his mouth. He tried to protest, he didn�t like the looks of the place. He looked around as he began to feel the world slip away. The light over head shone down onto him, but away from it he could see the dirty walls and floors piled with old surgical masks, gloves and other things. And a bug or two crawling there. Zack made a last moan of protest but it was too late.

When Zack came to he was sitting in the room that he first remembered seeing when he came into the hospital. At least he thought he was, his senses were kind of blurry at that time. The room still had a fair number of people in it, there still wasn�t any free seats, he was lucky he had one. He sure didn�t know how he had got it. He noticed that most of the people in the room sported some kind of wound. Broken, bleeding noses, people limping, people bent over in pain gripping their stomachs. The place was depressing, there obviously wasn�t enough staff to deal with the number of patents, and not enough money to deal with the ones they could with properly.

Zack reached down and lifted up his blood soaked shirt. There was a brownish- white bandage tied around him, just above his waste where he had been slashed. The wound didn�t feel very good. Zack didn�t expect it to, but there was one place along the slash, near to his left side that felt wrong. It felt swollen, or something, and gave more than a little pain.

Zack reached down and was about to apply some pressure to the wound when he thought better of it. What�s it going to prove? He thought, I know it�ll hurt if I touch it. Instead he decided to try standing. What was he going to do now? His wallet had been stolen, he had no money. I�ll have to walk back to my hotel like this and tell Jill the whole storey.

As Zack slowly stood up something happened. Pain shot through his wound at the place where he had felt sore. Zack could have sworn something moved. He stood half bent over, teeth clenched in pain. He looked up for a nurse, doctor, whatever. There were none here. He started to make his way, painfully, to the front desk. They must have botched something up, Zack thought, not surprising.

He slowly made his way through the room to the desk where an old woman sat. There was a line, but he walked around it. The woman was arguing heatedly in Egyptian with a young man, who eventually stormed off. Zack decided to try English, maybe someone could understand him.

�Excuse me, I have a pain, I need to see a doctor.� Zack asked. The woman looked at him with a mixture of indifference and condescending and shook her head. She firmly said something to him that he didn�t understand.

Zack felt another movement in his abdomen. Zack had a horrible fear that there was something in there moving around, a surgeons ring dropped in perhaps. Zack doubled over in pain. he looked pleadingly up at the woman. She said some more harsh words and turned to talk to someone in the line. Zack was fed up, he was real pain here. Something was wrong damn it, and it was there fault.

�For fucks sake, I need some help!� He yelled at the room. All faces turned his way. He stood in front of them bent over in pain, but no one moved. No one that is except for the woman at the desk who signalled to a large male nurse. The well built man took hold of Zack�s arm and roughly escorted him out the front doors of the hospital which led directly onto a street.

Zack felt the movement again. A street, but too late he thought, I�m in no condition to walk anywhere. The pain in his side was lessening now, and he started to walk along the street. I have to find someone who can understand me, there has to be someone on the street who can help me.

Something moved in there again. This time Zack knew that it was no ring. It was moving in him, all of it�s own accord. Zack panicked.

�Help! HELP!� He screamed out. A few people looked his way, but they scurried off with nervous looks on their faces. Zack reached down to the bandage. He undid it and franticly ripped it off of him. Underneath was a long gash that had been hastily stitched back together. Zack looked to the spot where the pain was. Under the streetlights power he examined his flesh.

There was a lump there like he had first suspected. But it was not a stationary mass like it should be. He could quite clearly see the outline of something nearly an inch long crawling under his skin. The bulge in his skin moved around in sync with his pain. Zack screamed. But no one came. So he got up and ran.

As he ran down the street he could feel it moving around, crawling through his innards. It sent him crazy. He couldn�t get at it. There was no brushing it off, it was under his skin. Slowly he could feel it crawl up and touch the bottom of his rib cage, tickling it. It made him want to vomit, and he did. He fell to the ground and threw up. Then he felt it crawling up again. It�s coming up, then it�ll bury itself in me. It�ll crawl deeper and deeper.

Zack ripped his shirt off and threw it away. He could see the lump now. Working its way up, up. He put his hand in front of it. It hit the barrier and turned side ways. Nausea was running through Zack now. In his frantic desperation he pushed the lump down, back towards the wound. Like pushing an air bubble out of a contact covered book. He pulled his hands away in disgust. His whole body started to tremble. Then up ahead a car�s lights fell onto him.

Leaping to his feet Zack stood in the path of the oncoming vehicle. It stoped. He ran around to the side, the air on his naked, sweat covered upper half cold covering him in goose bumps. At the back a window opened and a man with an English accent spoke out.

�What�s the problem, boy?�

�You gotta help me there�s something under here.� Zack said to him in a desperate voice.

�What? Where?�

�In my belly, under the skin. Something�s moving, you gotta get to a hospital, a real hospital, that�s where I got it. It�s a bug or something - IT�S UNDER MY SKIN!� Zack yelled. The man started to wind up his windows, muttering something to himself about drugs.

�No, no you gotta believe me it�s true - HELP ME you have TO HELP ME!� Zack yelled and beat on the window with his bare hands as the car drove speedily off.

The thing in him was moving, and Zack was convinced that it was moving down, burying itself in his flesh, digging a lair maybe to lay eggs and hatch young ones.

�NO! NO! NO!� Zack screamed. That was it. He grabbed at his stitched up wound. One hand grabbed the skin on the lower side, the other grabbed the skin on the higher side. Then with one last raging cry for help, he yanked the two pieces of skin apart with a ripping sound. The skin tore, the stitches came easily apart. Zack screamed continuously. Blood flowed forth as Zack fell onto the road. He sat up cross legged and stared at his belly. The wound was gaping. It was a second mouth, much larger. Its saliva was blood, its tongue was intestines. Zack pulled the top flap of skin up, and examined the wound even as he screamed his pain. He looked for the parasite, he could feel it. He knew where it was, but the light was dim and everything was blood coloured. Then something moved. It was not the pulse of his blood, something different. It came into view. It was covered in blood, but he could see the form of the large, black cockroach clearly. Zack stoped screaming and made an indescribable sound of deep disgust. He reached down with his other hand and grabbed the cockroach. It squirmed in his hand. He threw it on the ground by his feet. It started to scurry away, but Zack lifted a foot and stomped on it with all his might. It took the blow, but still didn�t die. It tried to get away, but there was no way Zack was going to let that happen. He lifted his foot and stamped on it then stamped again and again until there was only a wet patch and some broken shell to mark its passing.

Zack let out a little laugh of triumph after that, but it sounded less triumphant than lunatic. Then he felt light headed. He looked around - blood, so much blood. Then he fell against the hard road.

When Zack woke he felt a sense of de jevu. He was in a bed in a white room. A window was opened and the hot Cairo air sent the flimsy curtains billowing. There were other beds in the room, all of them were occupied. Some of the people on them were thrashing about, but unable to get of the bed. He looked closer and saw the reason why. They were all strapped in to there beds with belts around each limb and there torso. many of the people was calling out in a language he didn�t know, but again the tone told all - there people were crying out for help. Zack looked down and saw that he was also strapped to his bed. He too felt like crying out for help, but he didn�t - who would understand him?

As he looked around he noticed how unclean the place was. Couldn�t they even afford to clean the floors here. Where was he anyway? A hospital, he guessed, and this must be the psychiatric ward.

�Doctor. Doctor!� He called out in a calm, rational voice. He would soon have this sorted out. The doctor would realise that he spoke English and get a translator. Then he would contact Jill and have her come down and fetch him. Easy.

�Doctor!� He called again. He didn�t expect an immediate reaction, this was a busy place from what he remembered. Speaking of remembering, he couldn�t seem to do just that. He thought back. Why am I here? He knew. He remembered the hospital and afterwards on the street. A car stoped, he re-opened his wound for some reason, he remembered it was very painful. He looked down his body. His chest was still bare (he had thrown his shirt away for some reason). A new bandage was wrapped around his waist. It felt fine. There was nothing wrong. Why did that seem unnatural? Should there be something wrong? It felt fine. There was nothing wrong.

�Doctor!� He called, a little anxiety creeping into his voice. He looked back at the floor. Unclean, unwashed. He looked at his bed. The sheets had been washed he was sure, but they were old and stained. Then his eye caught something. A cockroach crawling over the bed.

Zack�s mouth went dry, he froze in place. Something was wrong. The cockroach crawled towards him. No, no go the other way. It came to him. It crawled up onto his bare, exposed chest, tickling him.

�DOCTOR!... HELP... HELP... HELP!� Zack screamed as he began thrashing about on the bed. His motions were so violent that the cockroach was soon sent flying to the ground, but Zack didn�t notice. He didn�t stop thrashing and screaming until a nurse came and sedated him with a large needle.

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