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At first, I didn’t pay it much attention: a wafting discomfort, hardly a touch. A week later, a slight pulsation, barely a few seconds at the time. When it returned, within a few days, it was more a tightening, a pressure, followed by a twinge. Nothing to worry about. Under the left arm. Always the left.
A current shot through the length of my arm, throbbing, stopping at the wrist. Always the left.
A sharp ache in my knee. A sting in the knee of my left leg. The ankle and the leg tingling with pins and needles. The left leg. Always the left.
One at a time, I could tolerate. I could ignore. But when they came together, all the pains, all the twinges, all the soreness, strong and united, I squirmed. I held my breath. I screamed in anguish.
It was too much to bear. Too much to live with. What was I to do?
I spoke to a friend. Or rather, half a friend. He had empathy and sent me to a person who had helped him. No, he didn’t have a problem with his left side. But he wanted to appear as half man, and half invisible. He needed to be cut in half. ‘His new shape,’ he said, ‘offered infinite opportunity.’
‘Here is the address. No need for an appointment. He is in demand,’ my friend said, handing me a business card, ‘but he works around the clock. Like an assembly line. You will be seen in no time.’
And so I went to the man cutter. Man and woman cutter, to be precise.
You must agree, he did an excellent job. He cut away my sinister side, leaving my better half. Aesthetically, it is more pleasing too. I feel whole again.
About vesna main
Vesna Main was born in Zagreb, Croatia. She lives in London and in a small French village. Her publications include: a novel, A Woman with no Clothes On (Delancey, 2008), a collection of short stories, Temptation, A User’s Guide (Salt, 2018), a a novel in dialogue, Good Day? (Salt, 2019) shortlisted for Goldsmith Prize 2019, autofiction Only A Lodger … And Hardly That (Seagull Press, 2020) and novella Bruno and Adele (Platypus Press, 2020), republished in Shorts III (Platypus Press 2021). Her short stories have appeared in jorunals online and in print. Following on from Modernism, Main's focus is on exploring generic possibilities of the narrative. She lives in London.
