Set Another Place at the Table, I’m Bringing my Pimple

By Kim McDougall

First Published by AlienSkin Magazine, 2004

Listen to this story as a podcast from Drabblecast

It starts off like any normal bout of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. I'm constipated, I'm depressed and I've got a pimple the size of a hazelnut on my chin. And it's not even politically correct to gripe about such things any more. So I hose myself down with astringent, slather myself with cover-up and run through the January slush for my bus.

I'm late. The bus lumbers by, blind to my frantic waving. I decide to walk. It's only minus ten, less with the green-house factor. By the time I reach my office high-rise, my pimple throbs with the cold.

If it doesn't go away soon, I think, I'm going to have to buy it a toque.

In the bathroom I deftly apply more make-up to replace what has rubbed off on my scarf. My fingers ache to squeeze it, but this is neither the time nor the place. The bathroom door flings open. Sheila stoops so that her bouffant doesn't scrape the top of the door frame.

"Halloo!" she says. Sheila resembles something out of Mary Poppins' carpet bag. Tall, thin and big-boned. She emphasizes these with flower print jumpsuits.

Never a fan of subtlety, she exclaims, "That's a whopping big zit on your chin, honey!"

"Where?" I gasp, in mock alarm. If I didn't like Sheila so much I'd hate her for calling me honey.

That evening as I settle in for my four point three hours of television, I soak the pimple with a hot compress. By the next morning, like a hot-house flower, it has blossomed into something spectacular. It's now beyond make-up. I search through my cupboard for my nineteen eighty-two cowl neck sweater. I always knew they'd come back into fashion.

Today I make my bus, but wish I hadn't. As the people pile in, the temperature rises, but there is no room to unbutton the snow-suits. Steam rises from the humanoids pressed against me.

It's okay, I whisper to the pimple, we're almost there.

The cowl neck fools everybody except Sheila.

"Oh, honey," she says in sympathy. "Those are some hormones raging in your veins." I am herded into the ladies room where she whisks out her dizzying array of make-up. Deftly, she flicks open an eye-shadow compact. It's dark blue-violet, the color of the heroine's eyes in a romance novel.

"What's that?" I ask drawing back.

"Umm..." She flips over the compact. "Bruised Plum. We'll pretend your boyfriend beats you."

"I don't have a boyfriend," I say.

"Well there you go. You'll be the envy of the lunch room."

I have distinction. I even get a dinner offer, but I turn it down. What if he finds out it's only a zit?

By Thursday I am worried. The pimple has molted, shedding its skin several times. Underneath is something...inhuman. I think of all those alien movies about creatures nesting in eardrums or bursting out of abdomens. Desperately, I scrutinize the pimple for features. A head, a nose, but at this point it is just a quivering mass of flesh on my chin. I call in sick.

I spend the day watching soap-operas I haven't seen since my last sick day. My make-up mirror is close at hand and every time it throbs I inspect the pimple like a mother feeling her baby kick inside her womb.

By sundown I can recognize the definite outline of limbs poking through my skin and dangling down like a ratty beard. Oh, my God! Feet! It’s a breech birth!

Do I call a doctor? I can't. I feel sort of maternal for the ogre growing from my chin. What if they hack it off, or smear it with a turpentine-based cleanser? No doctors, I decide. I am a pioneer. Nine months pregnant and not a midwife for miles around. I boil some water.

The cravings keep me awake at night. I inspect my growth in the chrome toaster while I mix instant oats with peanut-butter and teriyaki. The convex toaster makes it look even more bloated and hideous, but I block those thoughts from my mind.  Somewhere I read that attractive babies get more attention and better care than ugly ones, and I want to be a good mother.

Friday morning I realize that the dangling limbs are arms, not feet. I think I can even see the head. It throbs like a tequila hang-over. I wonder if I should try and push, but my brain has trouble accessing the muscles on my chin. When was the last time I even thought about the muscles on my chin?

At noon the phone rings. I let the machine answer. It's Sheila wondering how I am. Wouldn't she like to know. I want to call her over. Sheila would be able to deal with this. But I am a pioneer woman. I must birth this thing alone.

The chills wake me. Sweat, fever, nausea. I've got them all. In the glaring bathroom light my growth casts a shadow across my face. It yawns, puckering my chin, and the tiny fingers at the ends of the dangling arms make fists, searching for something to grab onto.

Suddenly I no longer feel maternal.

I want it off.

Now.

I look through the drawers for a razor blade, but all I can find is one of those lady shavers, that can't even trim the hair on my legs. In desperation I pull out a cuticle cutter. It's old and dull, but I wield it like a rapier. I'll gouge it off if I have to.

Poised for the attack, I stop. From one of the apartments above me, I hear a man and woman arguing. They sound like a sitcom and I expect to hear canned laughter in the background. There is none, only slamming doors and very faint sobbing.

I put down the cuticle cutter, find a beer and turn on the late night movie. After all, this is the most company I've had on a Saturday night in months.

"You know, She," I say as she starts applying the eye-shadow, "Most women cover up their bruises and say they have a pimple."

"Trust me, honey. When I'm done you'll have distinction."

Sheila is right. For the rest of the afternoon the other women in the office accord me a certain infamy. They part like the red sea when I walk down the hall. No one can resist  passing by my cubicle to get a peek at my "bruise". I am both enticing and repulsive.