Wetlands. Charlotte Roche

open. On the sill is the container of diapers and, next to it, a box with one hundred pairs of rubber gloves in it. It says so on the box. Though there’s probably fewer than that in there now.

      On the wall opposite me is a framed poster—you can see the little metal tabs that hold the glass. It’s a photo of a tree-lined avenue, and written in yellow letters at the top it says, Walk with Jesus. What—take him for a stroll?

      A small crucifix hangs over the doorway. Someone has decorated it with a bough. Why do they do that? The boughs are always from the same kind of plant. The kind with little arched leaves, dark green, with an artificial shine to them. The boughs always look like they’re made out of plastic, but they always turn out to be real. I think they come from some kind of hedge.

      Why do they stick pieces of greenery on crosses? The poster and the crucifix have got to go. I’ll convince mom to take them down. I’m already looking forward to that discussion. Mom’s a practicing Catholic. Wait. I’ve forgotten something. Up high is a TV. I hadn’t looked up there. It’s suspended in a metal frame and tipped way down toward me. It looks as if it could fall on me at any moment. I’ll ask Robin to shake it later. Just to make sure it’s secure. If there’s a TV, there must be a remote—or do I have to get somebody to turn it on and off for me? Maybe it’s in the drawer. I reach over and pull it open and am suddenly aware of my ass. Careful, Helen. Don’t do anything stupid.

      The remote is in a plastic compartment in the drawer. Everything’s cool. Except the anesthesia is wearing off. Do I need to ring and ask for painkillers already?

      Maybe it won’t be that bad. Right, I’ll wait a bit and see how I feel. I’ll try to keep my mind on something else. Like, say, the last unicorn. That won’t work. I clench my teeth. My mind is fixated on my wounded ass. I’m tensing up all over. Especially in my shoulders. My good mood has disappeared. Robin was right. I don’t want to come across as a whiner, though—especially after yapping so much to Robin. I can hold out a little longer. I close my eyes. I put one hand gently on my bandaged ass and the other on the call button. I lie there and the pain throbs. The anesthesia is getting weaker and weaker. The wound burns. My muscles cramp. The throbbing gets faster.

      I push the button and wait. An eternity. I panic. The pain is getting worse, stabbing at my sphincter like a knife. They must have stretched the sphincter wide open. Of course. How else would they get in there. Down my throat? Oh God. The hands of a full-grown man went into my rectum and went to town with scalpels and retractors and suture thread. The pain isn’t directly on the wound but all around it. A blown sphincter.

      He’s finally arrived.

      “Robin?”

      “Yes?”

      “Do they stretch your butthole open wide enough to fit multiple hands into it?”

      “Yes, I’m afraid so. That will be the source of most of the pain when the anesthesia wears off in a few minutes.”

      Hmm. In a few minutes? I need pain medication right now. The thought that it might take a while for painkillers to work scares me so much that I think I’m going throw up. I’ve held out against the pain too long and now I’ll have to wait ages for this shit on my ass to stop hurting. I’ve got to learn to give in to pain and become a patient who’d rather ring too soon for medication than have to make it through the minutes it takes for the stuff to kick in. There’s no medal for holding out against pain, Helen. My asshole has been fatally distended.

      It feels as if the hole is as big around as my entire ass. There’s no way it will ever close normally again. I think they purposefully inflicted additional pain during the operation.

      I was in this same hospital a few years ago. It was the greatest acting job of my life. I was failing French class and was supposed to take an exam the next day. I hadn’t studied and had been skipping class. I had faked being sick for the previous exam. I had pretended I had a migraine so mom would give me a note. This time it had to be something more convincing. I just needed some time to study.

      An excused absence would mean I could make up the exam some other time. First thing in the morning I told my mom I had palpitations in my lower left abdomen. And that they were getting worse. Mom started to worry because she knew this was a sign of appendicitis. Even though the appendix is on the right side. I know that, too. I started to double over in pain. She drove me straight to the pediatrician. I still go to the same doctor I went to as a child. It’s closer to home. He laid me on a stretcher and began to press on my abdomen. He pressed on the left side and I shrieked in pain. He pressed on the right and I didn’t make a sound.

      “It’s unmistakable. Acute appendicitis. You’ve got to take your daughter to the hospital right away. There’s no time to stop off at home for her pajamas. You can drop them off later. This kid’s got to get to the hospital. If it ruptures it’ll infect the entire body and she’ll need a blood transfusion.” I thought to myself, What kid?

      Off to the hospital. This one. Upon arrival I put on the same show. Left, right, all the right reactions. Like a game. Emergency operation. They cut me open and find an appendix that’s not infected or swollen at all. They take it out anyway. You don’t need it. And if they left it in and sewed you up, you might just come back at some stage with real appendicitis. Which would be doubly annoying. But they didn’t tell me they took it out. My mother did.

      When she caught me lying another time, she said: “I can’t believe anything you say. You lied to me and all the doctors just to get out of a French exam. They took an uninfected appendix out of you.”

      “How do you know that?”

      “Mothers know everything. The doctors told me outside the operating room. They had never encountered anything like it before. So I know what a liar you are.”

      At least I knew it was out. Before that conversation with my mom I figured the doctors had opened me up, seen it wasn’t infected, and left it in. So I had always worried I might really get appendicitis. And what could you say then, when you’d supposedly already had appendicitis? So that’s what had happened. Good to know. A lot of needless hours of worrying. Right after you’ve had your appendix taken out, it hurts incredibly badly to laugh, to walk, to stand, to do much of anything, because it feels as if the stitches are going to rip open. I tensed and curled up just like now with my ass. Is it possible the doctors recognized my name? Did it cause a sensation in the hospital back then—that a girl would endure an operation just to trick her teacher? Did they go out of their way to make this operation particularly painful—oops, I slipped—as payback? Am I paranoid because of the pain? Because of the painkillers? What is going on? It hurts so bad. Robin. Bring the pills.

      Here he comes. He hands me two tablets and says something. I can’t concentrate. I’m writhing in pain. I slurp the pills down. Please, let them work fast. Now. To calm myself down, I put my hand on my pubic mound again. I always did this as a kid, too. But back then I didn’t know it was called a pubic mound.

      As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most important part of the whole body. Nice and warm. Perfectly positioned for your hand to reach. My center. I stick my hand into my underwear and run my hand around. This is the best way to put myself to sleep.

      I root around like a squirrel down there, and just as I’m falling asleep I have the impression there’s a log of crap poking out of my ass. The bandages feel exactly like that. I dream that I’m walking across a wide field. A field of parsnips. I can see a man in the distance. A Nordic walker. One of those guys who hikes with a pair of ski-pole-like walking sticks. I think: Look, Helen, a man with four legs.

      He approaches and I can see a giant cock is hanging out of his form-fitting sports leggings. I think: Nope, a man with five legs.

      He walks past me and I turn and watch him go. It pleases me to see he’s pulled his pants down in the back and a huge log of crap is hanging out of his ass, bigger even than his cock. I think: Wow, six legs. I come to and I’m thirsty and aching. The hand on my pubic mound wanders to the back to feel my wound. I want to see what they did back there. How can I have a look? I can look at my pussy if I bend way forward, but I’ve never been able