Lump Head
by
Simon Petochio

Every morning I woke up and hated it. Some days were worse than others and I was barely able to lift my head from the pillow. Other days I found the strength to ignore it for a little while, but this strength always abandoned me before long. The obvious ridiculousness of someone in my predicament was bad enough: attempting to ignore it or pretending it wasn’t happening was beyond ridiculous. I was humiliated at the notion, even when I was on my own.
 
I think it started a bit over a year ago but I can’t be sure. It was nothing but a small spot at first which gradually became a small lump and was not any real concern for a couple of months until its size got so that it started to change the shape of my head. The lump was not painful. It felt hard under the skin on my hairline and strangely comfortable like the feeling of having a wallet in the back pocket of your jeans. My mother tried to get me to see a doctor in the early stages: ’Just go down and see Doctor Henry’ she would say ‘I’m sure it’s not serious but it can’t hurt to have it looked at.’ Yes it could hurt, Mother, and as long as it didn’t, I wasn’t about to let anyone mess around with my head. 
The idea of entering a doctors surgery always repulsed me to a degree that none of my family could comprehend. Since childhood I have been known to have what Mother calls ‘a pink fit’ when confronted by anyone in the medical profession. Although I have no memory of it, I am told that at the age of 8 I seriously assaulted our then family doctor. She tried to put a stethoscope under my shirt and apparently I flipped my lid. I have since seen this doctor in the street several times. Judging by her condition and demeanor I can only assume that the story is true. She has only one eye - which she averts from me - and when she walks across the street to avoid me it is with a pronounced limp. 
  I did not escape this childish outburst unpunished but, like the act itself, its consequences are no longer clear in my memory; vague mental images of police, and of sitting in offices with serious men  - child psychologists I am told - speaking to me in hushed tones. I guess that none of them referred to themselves as ‘Doctor’.
  My head-lump continued to grow, and about six months ago it reached the size of a clenched fist. I could see its underside by looking upward. It was hard as a skin-covered rock and heavy so that it weighed my head to the left and slightly forward. My mother was beside herself and begged me daily to seek professional help. ‘Please do it for me. Your fear of doctors is unreasonable, it’s pathological! I’m sick with worry! I can’t live like this!’ she sobbed.
  I began to resent her for her unconcealed repugnance at the sight of me. As the lump grew and got heavier I became unable to make eye contact with her or anyone else without a determined effort to lift my head from its forward tilted position. I took advantage of this, wandering around the house avoiding her gaze while she followed me and tried to get into my line of vision by crouching on the floor in front of me. Sometimes she got under my feet before I saw her coming and I would unintentionally stand on her or kick her. ‘I’m trying to help you!’ she would wail ‘You ignore me all the time and then you kick me in the face!’ This became exhausting for us both and it was a relief when she eventually gave up on me. 
During the next few months the lump increased in size until it was very nearly the same size as my original head. Although this hideous growth itself was not painful, its weight started to put enormous strain on my neck. Basic activities such as showering or making toast would leave me physically drained and I spent most of my time lying down, crushing the pillow with my head. I remedied this by constructing an elaborate brace from coat-hangers and sticks of bamboo from our yard. While wearing the brace I was able to remain upright for an hour or so at a time.

Today was my 39th birthday and the lump is now definitely larger than my real head. My mother’s health has rapidly deteriorated over the last year. I can see her hair in the plug hole and hear her wheezing at night. She told me it is stress related. We have hardly spoken since I stopped looking at her. We take it in turns to make dinner and we have our groceries delivered. The house is a mess.
 Due to the great mass of hard flesh that now extends out and downward from just above my eyebrows I can no longer see in any direction other than straight down past my nose. 
To the part of my head-brace that sits beneath my chin I have attached a small mirror at a deliberate angle, which acts as a sort of reverse periscope, allowing me to see what is in front of me. This has the disorienting effect of making everything appear upside down. I have read somewhere that the human brain will eventually compensate for such distortions of vision and interpret the information coming through the eyes as being the right way up. I can’t remember how long this illusion supposedly takes to happen but I hope it happens soon, as I have spent the past two days stumbling around like a drunkard and feeling somewhat queasy.
 This frustrating and impractical situation came to a head just now when I was standing atop a chair in the bathroom, attempting to change a light globe. I was naked, gripping a lit candle between my teeth and leaning back in order to aim the mirror at the ceiling. It was hopeless. I couldn’t see anything past the glare and the dripping wax. The flame singed my lump hair. I flailed about, searching for the light socket with a grim determination that would have looked pathetic to anyone watching. As I tumbled to the floor it felt as though I achieved a full backwards somersault, though my senses cannot be trusted of late. At any rate it was a heavy fall.
  I must have blacked out for a few seconds. When I came to I could feel a sharp line of pain across the front of my lump-head. In the dim light from the hallway I could see the periscope mirror lying broken on the floor. I stood up and leaned against the tiled wall. Reaching up and feeling gently around for the gash on my dome, I noticed that the skin that had always been stretched taut over the growth now felt loose and wet. As I pulled my hand back down and saw that it was bloody I felt something shift at the front of my skull. Suddenly the whole head-sized lump dislodged and came slopping out of the gash, crashing onto my foot with a solid thud. I was temporarily blinded by the wet flap of skin that fell over my eyes. Even as I frantically lifted the flap to see what had fallen out, and even though I knew my foot was broken, I was overcome with a feeling of release from the burden which I had borne for so long. My original head felt light as air.
---------------

  As anyone who reads newspapers will know by now, the lump that fell onto my foot was a football-sized nugget of solid gold. In fact, the third largest gold nugget ever discovered.
Mother is feeling much better these days. She has learned to embrace our new lifestyle. Last night she went to the opera with Tom Selleck and she enjoys having servants.
 I’m glad to say that we are getting along better now, though we still have our differences. She wanted me to have plastic surgery to fix my scars but reluctantly agreed to my preferred option, which was to have some of the gold made into a crown, encrusted with jewels, which covers the unsightly parts of my forehead. Mother still gets a little upset when I pat her on the head and say ‘I told you so’, which I do every day.