Gillian raised his left arm and scratched his chin with the stump. He worked his way through the crowded aisles and looked for a booth that specialized in left hands.
“Can’t really do a proper job getting at that itch with this,” he muttered, as he put his arm back at his side. He perused the display of hands perched on poles.
“One of these, the right size, the right price, that’d do the trick,” he mused.
He stopped in front of a tawny hand. Left hand. Clean. Nails clipped, filed.
“Certificate come with it?" he asked the vendor. "How many users before you got it?”
The vendor’s right eye narrowed and his left glass eye rolled around, directionless, in its socket.
“I only sell good stuff here,” he answered. “Certificate? You want a certificate, you gotta shop over there, in premium. That’ll cost you, though. At my prices, there ain’t no certificate goin’ to come with it.”
“Are you serious? No certificate? Can't tell where this hand came from. Heck. Could already be rottin’ from the inside. No thanks. I’ll be movin’ on.”
Gillian looked over at the less-crowded premium section. He had to pass through a gate to get in, show I.D. Wasn’t worth it. Hands would be too expensive anyway. In a few months, maybe, when he’d saved more.
The houses on Gillian’s street were arranged in a row, like boxes on a shelf. Neat. Lawns green. Hedges trimmed. Quiet.
People had stopped having children. The occasional tricycle or basketball hoop appeared at a house where someone had gotten careless, or where they decided to live on the edge.
Too risky having children. Hard enough keeping up the expenses of a house. With a child, you never knew what could happen. One accident, one illness and you’d find yourself in debt.
Years ago you’d see a neighbor's child that got hurt. The father would come back from the hospital, minus an arm. Or whatever it was the hospital was willing to barter for the kid's treatment. Maybe it would be a kidney, or a piece of the liver. Kids had accidents all the time. The only payment, serious payment, banks, government, hospitals wanted these days was a body part. It was the most valuable thing any ordinary person could offer.
So Gillian never had children. It was the house that took his hand. Foundation collapsing after the last flood. The house or the hand. He figured he could live without his left hand, but where would he live without a house?
Every now and then he’d raise his arm to scratch, or pick something up and he'd remember his hand was gone. He wondered sometimes who had it. Did his hand fit in that other body?
“I don’t feel like myself.”
Melissa, his wife of 21 years, looked over at him with her soft brown eyes.
"You okay?" The love of his life, his only love, Melissa was the center of his peaceful existence.
"Just tired that's all. You finish your paper. I'm going to turn in early."
At three in the morning he heard something through the fog of sleep.
“Gillian.”
He murmured indistinctly in response.
She repeated his name.
“Gillian, something’s wrong.”
She was sitting up, clutching her stomach.
He reached out. She was burning up.
He held her hand. Ice cold.
He jumped out of bed. Turned on the light.
She threw her legs over the side of the bed. The baby blue coverlet fell to the floor.
“What happened? Melissa, what’s wrong?”
She held her stomach.
“I’m in so much pain…”
Her voice trailed off.
He grabbed her coat and shoes, bundled her out of the house and into the car.
Melissa was pale. That was her natural color, but not this pale. Now she was white, a stark white against her raven black hair. Her eyes were closed and she bent over as she gripped her stomach.
“Sepsis.”
They’d been in the hospital for three hours. The emergency room doctor was somber.
“We have to move her up to the ICU.”
The pain had not subsided, but when Melissa heard the words ‘ICU’ she grabbed Gillian’s shirt.
“No. We can’t. There is no money. I’m not going to let them take….”
Gillian knew what she was thinking.
“Don’t worry about it honey. I can manage. Without you, I can’t manage.”
“No, Gillian. I’m telling you.”
“Melissa. I love you. You love me. We have each other. That’s all we have. You know that. Don’t think about anything else. Please come home to me.”
He looked at his feverish wife. Stared into her eyes.
She knew. She understood. This was their life. This was their fate. She let go of his shirt and stopped struggling.
“Be careful, Gillian. I need you. We need our life together. If I come out of this, I want my husband.”
“I will be here, waiting. You just come back.”
The orderly rolled Melissa off to the elevator. Gillian went to the desk to sign documents.
“How will you pay for this, Mr. Harknet? Are you ready to make arrangements?”
“What will it take?” He looked at the clerk and almost smiled.
“You go upstairs, to facilities. They’ll tell you your options.”
Gillian was waiting for Melissa outside the hospital when she had recovered. It took three weeks. Didn’t matter how long, because the deal Gillian made was for full treatment, plus follow-up care.
Melissa rose from the wheelchair. She was shaky, but able to stand on her own.
“Let me help you, honey,” Gillian said as he held her arm.
Melissa paused and looked into his eyes. He stared back, with his good right eye and his left glass eye rolling around, directionless, in its socket.
Written in response to the Inkwell fiction writing prompt: Shopping
- Image credit: zahidjavali on Pixabay
Wow! That was my reaction after reading your story. Wow once more and in a good way. You story is like one of those books that you start and suddenly can't put down because it is just so good, so full of intrigue and love and sacrifice which are my favorite themes in fiction.
While reading your story, I realized that health services really do cost an arm and a leg—or should I say eye—in this case? It's so damn expensive and one just has to really take good care of one's self, so as not to spend backbreaking money on drugs. It's terrifying what the world is gradually becoming.
I really did love your story. Really did. Thank you for this.
Your comment is upvoted by @topcomment
Info - Support - Discord
Melissa turned pale, when she heard that she was going to be transferred to the ICU, she thought she was going to die, she confessed to her husband that she loved him, that she missed him. May God bless you and your family. And may you have a happy night
Hello @rammargarita. Thank you very much for reading my story. I hope you are well. May God bless you and your family. Have a most pleasant night.
Thank you, I hope you travel this Easter and have fun with your family and may God give you lots of health.
A totally new (and macabre) definition for the expression “it cost an arm and a leg”. Oh my word! You’re so clever and so wonderfully eloquent when showing it off! Brilliant!
Thank you my friend, @itsostylish. This was fun. Every now and then I get the itch to write a story. Thanks for your kind words🌺 ♥️
Oh my! I did not see that ending coming! A world of survival where currency is reduced to the bartering of flesh. So chilling. I hope we never get to this point, or maybe we're already there but just not so openly?
Love always comes at a cost and Gillian portrays this well with his sacrifices. Melissa noticing his missing right eye is punch in the gut for me, yet I admire Gillian for it.
!PIMPWhat a poignant and well-written dystopian sci-fi! I enjoyed this, @agmoore. Well done! ✨
The struggle for survival and to take care of those we love is as old as time itself. Humans do it. Animals do it. I think we hoped for a while we were headed to a more humane society, but it seems in recent years we are going in the opposite direction. Are there not enough resources for everyone to thrive? I don't know.
Thank you very much for reading and for your very generous feedback :)
Be well and peaceful, dear @kemmyb
Organoids will strip us of the value of our organs. Unless we adopt means of producing wealth - not money - ourselves, we will become worthless to overlords and they have a polycrisis coming to reduce their expenses on useless chattel.
Thanks!
This is fiction, but it does have a message.
Thank you for your meaningful response.
I appreciate a good story. I just don't want anyone to hide under the bed from the hand thieves. We're safe. Fingers are safu!
Oh... I hope it won't become reality that people can only pay for medical treatments with their own body parts! But when I think about it, already today often things aren’t much better. For example, I don’t have health insurance and just have to hope I stay healthy ...
Yes! Exactly my point. This is of course extreme. That's what fiction is for. But it is reality, isn't it, for many people? An accident away from financial calamity.
Thanks so much for reading. I wish you had health insurance. I wish no one had to worry about how they would pay for treatment.
Have the most wonderful Sunday, @gen-quimba
Brilliant story! The final sentence made me unsure whether to laugh or cry. I wish I could say it's an unimaginable scenario but alas I cannot. The world is so screwed up that "anything can happen and it usually does."
Thank you! I knew where it was going the whole time. I'm glad it hit you as I hoped it would.
For example, from the Harvard International Review:
The “Kidney Valley” of Nepal and Other Illegal Operations in Vietnam and Indonesia
The world is screwed up, indeed.
Goodness me! I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that everything that you can possibly imagine has already been done... and I can imagine some scary stuff indeed.
😕
Brilliant! We truly sacrifice everything when it comes to our loved ones. This story made it so clear😁.
Thank you, @gabmr. Most of us do care more about family than about ourselves.
Lovely to see you here!
This piece was excellent! Perfectly balanced and paced. When I finished reading, I just smiled. Because... this is what great fiction is all about. Clever, tight, evocative - and it drives home an important message in an interesting genre. It was brilliant, @agmoore Thank you for blessing the community with your wonderful writing. I hope more of our writers take a leaf out of your book! You are an inspiration 🥰
My lovely @inkwell community--thank you!
The joy of writing. I love to see more people dipping their pens in and growing through this medium.
This piece took a load off me...better than popping a pill. And sharing with others is such a gift.
Thank you for your kind, too kind, words.
These are just a few of the reasons that we all love you!!! 💗
♥️🌺♥️
This is a marvelous one we have here. Sometimes we don't have to throw ourselves out just like that even when there is no money.
He believed with love his dying wife shall revive.
Thank you, @stone4!
I think most of us would give a kidney, or anything else to save a child or a loved. Fortunately, most of us are not asked to do that.
Hope you are having a great day.
Now that was chilling.
You always had this wordsmith attribute that pulled the reader into any story.
I loved the character Gillian and his love for Melissa, a true man I'd say.
Ready to sacrifice whatever for his love, smiling even though he knew he was about to lose a body part.
Thank you! That's the best compliment. I try really hard to trim the fat. Cut it down so it's streamlined, and yet not make it so stripped that it has no color. It seems I might have gotten it right, this time :))
Love. It makes life worthwhile. The longer I live the more I realize love matters more than anything else.
Thanks for reading, @seki1, my friend.
A dystopic world gone mad. I'm pretty sure similar stuff is happening even today with organ harvesting, so it's not outside the realm of possibility to imagine a future when this kind of stuff happens. On the other hand, being able to repair our bodies from severe injuries would be a thrilling development and many people who would be happy to receive it (just not a crazy eye moving around :)
Definitely. I believe Vietnam and Indonesia are two well-known locations where organ harvesting is a thriving business.
Was that a joke :))
Organ sharing, without exploitation--a possibly wonderful frontier.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate your positive response.
I'm channeling my inner British with wry humour. But in all seriousness, I believe the future of organ replacement will be more efficient and effective than just organ harvesting and sharing. We have begun developing the technology to create organs from our own tissue (DNA), so the need to harvest limbs and body parts from someone else will be obsolete. Crating an organ from scratch is not the most pleasant and wholesome procedures right now, but the advances in technology are fast, especially with the introduction of artificial intelligence. The future looks bright, but only if you stick around long enough!
😂
Waw! the suspense here is insane. I was intrigued by your story. Here shopping was made but in human parts. This is really sad. The love and affection between Melissa and Gillian is intense, it showed great sacrifice where they can actually give anything just to have each other. Very captivating. Well done
Thank you, @happy080! I really hate to shop. Do it all online if I can, or send one of my kids to the store. So, a negative story about shopping is natural for me.
And yes, love. Love is stronger than fear, or greed, or ambition. I believe you are right about that.
Thank you for reading my story.
I enjoyed it. well done
A great story. I really liked the idea of a healthcare system that's unaffordable for low-income people and the use of organ trafficking to cover medical expenses. Brilliant how the narrative involves us in the plot and makes us reach the conclusion. It was definitely a very enjoyable and fluid read. Excellent work.
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
Excellent day.
Thank you @rinconpoetico7! From one storyteller to another, your remark is much appreciated. We don't really know where ideas come from, do we? It's sort of a soup, of everything we've seen and experienced. Comes out with our own, unique perspective.
Hope you are having a great day.
Wow! That was dark!
I was in hospital earlier this year for a cellulitis infection in my leg. So this was quite chilling!