I’m kind of freaking out after this morning, with the blood and all, but let me explain the last few days first. I’ve always had a little piece of dead gray skin in my belly button, like a fish scale or something. It’s an innie, by the way, as we called them as kids, versus an outie, like some kind of abdominal cyclops staring out at everyone during shirtless summer days. I always wanted the outie.
Anyway, I’ve had it my entire life, like a piece of belly button lint that fossilized along the way. I assumed it was a part of the umbilical cord that stayed attached, withered, and dried. I tried a few times to dislodge it because of my obsessive nature, picking at it with a pinky nail or swabbing away with a Q-tip. This wasn’t daily or anything, just whenever I happened to remember to wash it in the shower, or notice the extra flab surrounding it. A bit more of that lately, which is why I’ve been dwelling on it more. Too much comfort eating, I guess.
Day before yesterday, I was obsessing over it more than usual, to the point my belly button and surrounding skin was pink from scratching. I went into the bathroom of my apartment, took out tweezers from the medicine cabinet, and set out to do some excavating. I was super careful, and kept picturing someone bumping into me with the door and me jamming the tweezers into my guts. I live alone, by the way.
The tips of the two stainless steel tweezer prongs gently pinched together on the gray flake. I squeezed a little harder to see if any nerves were connected, but felt nothing. I gave a gentle tug, again fearing a sharp pain that never came. The piece of dried skin didn’t move. I pulled harder, pinched tighter, but kept everything controlled. It felt like my entire belly button was pulling outward, so I started wiggling the tweezers back and forth in an attempt to dislodge it. That worked. It slowly pulled up to the side, then to the other side, and with a slight popping movement came free. Something apparently tore, because there was a pinch of pain and a small speckle of blood. I winced and quickly dabbed it with a tissue. That did the trick.
I can’t explain the mad feeling of gratification that pulsed through me, like leveling up after an impossible boss battle or popping that Mount Vesuvius on your forehead, only a million times better. The elated feeling only lasted a second, though, until I looked at what was caught in the tweezers.
It had hair. I peered closer and swear there were little whitish bits, like grains of sand, in an upper and lower row, and two slits above those. The hair was bristly, individual barbs that stuck out in a single strip along the top. I shivered.
For whatever reason, I wanted to keep it. Like a patient keeping their kidney stone. It had been with me, a part of me, for so many years. Dumb, I know. Lame, even more so. I dropped it into a small mason jar and set it on the shelf in the living room. I didn’t have any trophies or medals for sports to display because I sucked, but this felt like a victory. Years of battle trying to dig this thing out, and I finally did.
For the rest of the day I couldn’t help but admire my handiwork every time I walked past the shelf to go to the kitchen. Mr. Umbilical. He even looked like a little scrunched up face with a punk rock hairdo.
Yes, I realize I need a life, but remote work, you know? At first you feel lonely, even with the work chat pinging away, but then the outside world starts to feel like a dream, grocery shopping like a field trip. And then it’s not that bad. So don’t judge too hard. At least it wasn’t a sex doll.
Yesterday morning was rough. Town hall meeting on Zoom, and they made us be on camera. The worst. I took on the zombie death stare at my computer monitor, afraid to look at the camera lens, and watched all my coworkers and the executives in their little talking-head boxes. I can’t tell you what they discussed.
After it was over I headed for the kitchen. Another cup of coffee was definitely in order after that. I glanced at Mr. Umbilical and stopped, leaning in closely to look through the mason jar glass. I swayed back and forth to see if it was a trick of the glass, a distortion, but it held. The punky hair, two rows of white “teeth,” and two little beads above them, black as oil. Right where the slits had been.
“What the frick,” I said aloud, staring hard at the jar without blinking. Mr. Umbilical stared right back. A blinking contest from hell.
I straightened and walked to the kitchen, keeping my head turned and eyes on the jar until I was at the counter. I definitely need to get out more, I thought. The coffee poured steaming into my “Today’s a Ctrl+Alt+Del kinda day” mug.
I walked back to the shelf and looked at the thing with eyes in the mason jar. I knew they weren’t really eyes, and it probably wasn’t even umbilical cord. More likely an accumulation of gunk that started forming when I was a kid and didn’t know the merits of good hygiene.
Damn that coffee tasted good. It got me through the rest of the morning, and an energy drink helped me finish off the day.
When I woke up this morning, the craving for coffee was gone. Which was weird, because that’s usually the first thought I have, my coffee fix, followed by thinking today’s the day I finally give notice at the job. I felt a sharp twinge of pain when I sat up in bed, and looked down at the white sheets swirling around my torso. They had red on them.
I yanked the sheets back and stared down at my belly button, rivulets of blood tricking out of the hole and a red smear around it. It must’ve tore worse than I thought. I went cold, but not because of the blood. The health insurance from my job was a joke, and I definitely couldn’t afford an emergency room visit.
I ran into the bathroom, jostled the various bottles under the sink, and pulled out the hydrogen peroxide. I sat on the toilet seat, leaned back so my belly button was almost horizontal, and poured the peroxide into it. Holy hell did that burn and fizz up. I let it soak a minute and then mopped it up with a wad of toilet paper.
What a relief. No more blood. I couldn’t see any obvious damage inside, and the prickling pain had stopped. I leaned back against the toilet tank and let out a deep sigh. At least it was Saturday.
Once the drama was over, my foggy brain bullhorned that we hadn’t had coffee yet, and I could already feel a caffeine-deprivation headache coming on. I finished in the bathroom, got dressed, and walked through the living room. I glanced at the shelf, middle finger fully deployed, and frowned.
The mason jar was empty.