Mack didn't want to wake up on Sunday morning. His wife felt emotionally distant, his kids felt even further away, and the skinny punk he hooked up with last night had told him to go to hell, nearly annihilating his apartment door as he left. If not for his job, which he loved, his life might as well be over. The emo kid wasn't important to him, they barely knew each other, but even so, last night's parting monologue cut him like a knife. He thought about all the things in his life he'd given up by moving out to 'experiment'. He'd made a terrible mistake. If he died in his sleep, his transmigratory soul would probably have been happy. He was glad he didn't have a dog to walk or a cat to feed.
Everything was fucked beyond belief. The sinking feeling in his stomach, floating like a bitter pill of intense sadness, wouldn't go away.
He woke up at sunrise, but it was just to take a piss. His bladder was full. He staggered to the bowl and made aim. He leaned against the wall, nearly falling asleep again mid-stream. He shook his dick, washed his hands, and sleepwalked back to bed. His tired eyes squinted against the light pouring in, but all he wanted right now was darkness. Stopping at the kitchen sink, he gulped a litre of water straight from the tap. Retreating into his bedroom, he pulled the blinds down as far as they'd go and draped the cotton sheet back across his frame. The concept of 'being alive' wasn't doing very much for him.
The city outside was quiet.
He woke up again around ten, his bladder having refilled. He'd had a bad dream and woke up drenched in sweat. He couldn't remember what the dream was about, but it felt like he'd been adrift on the ocean, alone, with no sight of land, and no hope of survival. He carried the desperately sad feelings of isolation and helplessness from his nightmare into his waking day. He got up, pissed again, and went back to bed.
By now, Brisbane was alive outside his window, but the mechanic's only goal was to lie silently on his mattress, alone, in the dark, breathing. He wasn't even remotely hungry. His appetite was dead.
Sleep was escape. Sleep was the only way he could keep his thoughts, feeling and emotions at bay. Sleep was silence.
He knew he wouldn't speak with anyone until he went to work tomorrow.
This wasn't just a bad day. This was depression, though the mechanic didn't know it, and even if he did, he would've refused to admit it. Like a solitary man floating on a raft, too many things felt uncertain. He'd lost his direction. He didn't know who he was anymore. He felt like an explorer who'd lost sight of the north star.
If he'd been more in touch with himself, he would've realised that the emo's vicious words weren't the cause of his current mood, though perhaps they were the straw that finally broke the camel's back.
Instead, he told himself to grow a pair and snap out of it.
*
Mack should never have gone to work on Monday morning. All he wanted from the day was a task to occupy his mind, and some company to break the silent monotony of his four rented walls. He wanted someone to talk to, but he had nothing much to say.
He was a shadow of his former self. His feet dragged when he walked, and he looked like he hadn't eaten or showered in a week. His cheery can-do disposition had seemingly evaporated overnight, leaving an empty shell of a man in its place.
His workmates knew he'd recently separated from his wife, difficult terrain to navigate. Something bad must've taken place on the weekend with his wife, they assumed, it was obvious in his demeanour. Perhaps they'd had a fight, they wondered, or perhaps they agreed to get a divorce, but nobody wanted to pry. Mack would talk when he was ready.
Obviously, none of his colleagues had any idea what had actually occurred on the weekend, but the bottom line was the mechanic was in no state to work. His boss should've sent him home, ideally, via his doctor, but that didn't happen.
And so it was that the mechanic was under the bonnet of a 1983 Commodore station wagon, his mind barely functioning, when the metal tool he held in his right hand slipped, piercing the thumbnail on his left, grinding to a halt against the bone.
He looked down, almost curiously, at the pool of blood quickly forming on his thumbnail before watching it flow over, cascading down his wrist, dripping dull burgundy blotches on the concrete garage floor. For a moment, he felt like he was watching the accident happening to someone else. "I've cut myself," he said, barely registering any pain.
His boss came running over. He took a quick look at the deep cut and winced. One of his colleagues was the garage's first aid officer. He cleaned the wound as best he could before wrapping a tight bandage around it. The bloodletting slowed, but the mechanic's thumb was a hideous mess.
"You need to go to the emergency room," his boss said. "Come on, I'll drive you." Mack waved the offer away, preferring to go alone. "Then call me when you've arrived," said his boss, clearly worried about his dependable co-worker and loyal friend.
Mack drove to the hospital with nine functioning digits gripping the steering wheel. He caught every single red light. A trickle of blood snaked down his arm, dripping on his pants.
He checked in with the triage nurse; she mopped up the excess blood and quickly redressed his cut. He parked his arse on an uncomfortable plastic seat. He knew he'd be sitting here for hours: public hospitals in Australia are ridiculously understaffed. He looked up at the tiny TV screen in the corner of the waiting room. An American soap opera was on. He didn't know what it was called, but all those soap operas look the same. The woman in the current scene was hot. He'd plough her for sure. She reminded him of his wife. He told himself he wasn't gay.
The pain began to arrive thick and fast now. His skull pounded and his thumb throbbed violently. At least he knew he was alive, because dead people don't feel pain.
Eventually, after time had slowed to a complete standstill, his name was called and a nurse saw him. She unwrapped the bandage, disinfected his thumb, and after applying a local anaesthetic, she removed the nail completely. Mack didn't feel a thing. The nurse told him his thumbnail would grow back again within a month. She bandaged him up again, gave him a box of heavy-duty painkillers, and sent him on his way.
The nurse was hot. Her rack was massive, and her juicy, freckled cleavage was on full display. He stared at it while she worked on his thumb. He would've loved to jam his fat cock between her tits, fucking them hard before firing his thick seed all over her neck and chin. He should've asked for her number. No way was he gay.
Mack drove himself home from the hospital and opened the door to his stuffy apartment. His thumb was throbbing again, and he popped two of the painkillers the nurse gave him. He messaged his boss, discovering it isn't easy to text with only one functioning thumb. He apologised, explaining what happened -- he couldn't work again until his thumb healed. His boss understood completely. He texted his wife and told her what had happened today. She called him immediately, worried, wondering why her husband didn't ring her from the hospital. Sure, they might be separated, she said, but they'd shared a life together, and she still cared for him.
Mack had no response to offer. The simple truth was he didn't think of her at all at the time of his accident, but he didn't want to tell her that. It'd make him feel even more isolated and alone than he already was.
His wife thought the tone of his voice sounded flat, but she put it down to the painkillers he was surely taking. She had no idea of the experience her husband had had just two short evenings ago, nor how much the aftershock had rattled him. They finished talking, and his wife said what she knew she was expected to say -- 'let me know if you need anything' -- and while Mack thanked her for her kind offer, he knew he wouldn't be asking. He didn't know he was suffering from depression, but his mind went to the place many depressed men go.
I'll be OK, he thought. Don't worry about me. I can look after myself.
He didn't want to be a burden. Not to her, not to anyone.
Their conversation finished with each of the semi-estranged partners telling each other they loved each other. Mack shrugged. He had no idea what love meant anymore.
His wounded thumb throbbed, reminding him he was still alive.
The injured mechanic was in his bathroom when he thought about the nurse who treated him at the hospital. Her breasts were truly enormous. Fuck, did they really make bras that big? He had a serious thing for nurses with big tits, especially ones who wore glasses. He imagined her coaxing a thick sample out of him, her expert hands and mouth moving in unison to extract his DNA. He imagined his balls boiling seconds before his thick sample shot from the tip of his cock, splashing across the lenses of the nurse's black-rimmed glasses. He imagined her licking his sample off her frames and spitting it into a petri dish.
He'd been watching too much porn lately. He definitely wasn't gay. He stood over the toilet bowl and jacked off thinking about the nurse's fat rack. His knees trembled as his load rained down. It wasn't a perfect splashdown, and once he'd caught his breath, he wiped a few stray droplets off the toilet seat.
He stayed home the rest of the week, leaving only to buy groceries. He watched mountains of lesbian porn, jacking off with his good hand. He was so into tits and cunts. No fucking way was he gay.
That thing with the emo kid never happened.
*
Months passed.
A week after his accident, the mechanic removed the bandage. He let the wound on his thumb heal naturally in the air, leaving it naked and unprotected, exposing it to everyday bumps and scrapes. His thumbnail regenerated quickly, and he was surprised to watch it grow upwards from his nailbed at the same time it grew out from the base.
He returned to the garage as soon as he could.
The Queensland Reds made it to the semi-finals, but they were bundled out of the competition by a dynamic Hurricanes outfit. The Super Rugby Pacific trophy landed in windy Wellington for the first time in many long years. The mechanic shrugged. There's always next year. The uncertainty in his life made him realise that while rugby might be the game they play in heaven, it isn't life or death on earth. Hope springs; he just wasn't sure how eternal it was.
