Since I saw her getting run over by a lorry, everyone thought I’d go bonkers or something like that. Some stupid uncle scared mom and dad by talking some Freudian crap. I don’t really know about Freud, but I’m sure he was pretty brainless, if he’s anything at all like my uncle makes him out to be. Dad and mom gave me a big huge lecture on death and a lot of philosophical nonsense after my dim-wit of an uncle brainwashed them. My reactions must have confirmed their worst suspicions. I could hardly look at them. Of course it wasn’t because I saw her get herself plastered onto the road by the lorry. That didn’t matter at all. She wasn’t important anyway- irritating and rather stupid and a bloody tell-tale if there ever was one. It was because of the nose.
I couldn’t bear it.
No one else noticed anything amiss. They were all pretending it was okay, that there was nothing wrong. Maybe they didn’t want to hurt dad’s feelings by pointing out how ugly he looked with a chunk of cartilage-deficient flesh hanging over his hairy upper lip. No one laughed at him. Neither he nor mom nor anyone, not even innocuous acquaintances who dropped in with condolences, was perturbed by this monstrosity.
But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand it all. Day in and day out, I thought of nothing but the nose. I couldn’t do anything else. Everyone thought that it was because she died.
Stupid.
Her death was, frankly, quite convenient. It was the smartest thing she ever did, after getting born, and she didn’t do it herself either. I didn’t like her. She didn’t like me. Of course both of us are better off now.
No, my problem was the nose. And nobody understood it.
One day, I decided I’d think it over logically and rationally and list possible reasons why the nose did what it did. It noted this down behind my EVS note:
1. Dad ate too much and it all went to his nose.
2. The skin on his nose became elastic and got pulled down by gravity.
3. He purposefully got it done because he actually wanted to start a new trend of long noses.
4. The nose just decided to grow on its own to contain all of his cold.
5. Pinocchio story is actually true and dad is a liar.
6. Dad is a monster.
7. Dad is a mutant.
8. It isn’t dad at all. He got replaced by some dumb alien who didn’t know the right size of earth noses.
9. Mom got pissed with dad and yanked his nose.
10. It is because of me.
Of course it wasn’t because of me, was it? I just added that last to round off the reasons to a ten. It wasn’t because of me. It couldn’t be.
As days passed, it grew uglier. I couldn’t talk. I was silenced by the sheer ugliness, the monstrosity, the repulsiveness of the thing. It was pockmarked. It had warts, pimples, black spots, red blotches, grey-black bristles of hair sticking out. I could no longer go to school. I could not eat or drink or sleep. The nose loomed in front of me, accusingly. It seemed to point fingers at me. It seemed to blame me for its repugnant condition. It wasn’t my fault. What could I possibly do about it?
One day, mom spotted my list of reasons in the EVS notebook. She gave me a troubled look. I was relieved. Maybe they’ll take him to a doctor and get it fixed.
But instead of taking dad to a plastic surgeon, I got taken to a psychiatrist! How absurd!
He asked a lot of silly questions. I couldn’t answer of course. All I could see around me was the huge ugly nose, looking at me accusingly, making me move uneasily, making me look guilty. The silly crap he talked nauseated me. I felt like pointing out to him that at 12, I was a lot smarter that the adults around me because I could understand the enormity of the problem of having a hideous nose. Everyone else was just plain stupid. Something had to be done and no one was bothering.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. The nose had left my faculties and senses numb and unresponsive. The psychiatrist looted my parents and gave a date for the next sitting, smiling at me with a false I’m-a-nice-uncle cheeriness. I felt like throwing up.
I was being choked, suffocated, slowly and painfully, murdered and mutilated by the nose. I could see it everywhere- condemning, menacing, intimidating. A flesh and blood indictment of everything I had done.
It had to stop. It had to be stopped. I decided to narrow down my list of reasons by proving each one false. But only for the last reason could I have conclusive proof. I had to find out.
So I went and told mom and dad that I had pushed her on to the road that day, that I had killed her.
They stared at me.
Mom hugged me and said it wasn’t my fault. It couldn’t be true.
Dad’s nose went back to normal, but he didn’t speak.
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