Cancer of Character

When Marion mentioned she was moving to Southeast Asia to cure herself of cancer, she was only partly lying. She had developed and perfected this habit of telling half-truths in childhood—stating the true part out loud, and the other negating part, in her head.

“Did you finish your homework?”

“Yes.” (for one class)

“What time did you come home?”

“Midnight” (eastern time)

“How many beers have you had tonight?”

“Six” (since I arrived)

“Did you file your taxes?”

“Yes” (away in a drawer)

“You have cancer?”

“Yes” (of character)

Taken together, the spoken and mental statements were complete truths, and so it was with complete ease she was able to answer her co-workers’ questions that the cancer was in her brain, the prognosis was uncertain, and she was going to try alternative therapies.

Marion knew the cells of misanthropy had always been within her. She had always preferred to be alone but had in general, been neutral towards others.  But in the last few months, her mind was a stream of nasty commentary directed at the unsuspecting inhabitants around her. “Go the gym, Lardass”; “a face like a box of hammers”; “ditch the schoolbag, Future Stripper”; “paedophile”; “eat a sandwich, Twiggy”; “1990 called, they want their Mom jeans back”; “closet drunk”.

When no one was on the streets, as was the case in the early hours before dawn, the unstoppable verbal assault was directed inwards. “waste of space”; “socially retarded”; “fraud”, “albatross”; “talentless loser”; “closet drunk”. As the voice became louder and the monologues longer, she ended each day feeling exhausted and alone. She couldn’t accept that she was inherently a terrible person and had begun to believe the vileness was a cancer that had been secretly and silently spreading within her.

On one dark morning while waiting for the bus, the sight of a poster on the side of a passing bus silenced the inner voice. It was a typical holiday poster with a montage of beach, traditional dance, and exotic food and cocktails. And under the picture, “Come to the Land of Smiles”. She spent the bus journey imagining being in a place where everyone smiled and was happy. Though the thought made her feel a bit ill, she could picture the cells of negativity being zapped with the radiation of a thousand smiles.

Marion took a three month unpaid leave of absence to avoid dealing with fussy management and their love of documentation and “certified medical excuses”, accepting that there might be no work if she returned cured or not. She booked an open return ticket and rented a serviced apartment in a small town, where small money went far.

The first two weeks, Marion felt the misery of her character manifested in the heat and noise of the country. It felt as if she were a transplanted organism and the body of the town was trying to repel her. Buses that notoriously stopped anywhere and for anyone, saw her and sped on by. Soi dogs, the gentlest and meekest of rejected creatures, growled as she passed. Street children who would normally surround and cling to a white woman, ran away and hid behind dumpsters when she approached.

Sweating and heaving, Marion lay down on her small bed, and cried. The cancer was getting worse.

One morning after the time when the children went to school and the streets were quieter, Marion headed to 7-Eleven, a place of fixed prices and no cheating, to buy a steamed bun and a soda. She noticed a small woman, so bent over her back seemed like a table. She wore an assortment of bits of coloured fabric that together made her look both regal and homeless. Over one arm, hung several battered plastic bags. As Marion stood across the street and watched the woman, she became aware of strange noises coming from all directions. Suddenly cats of all sizes and colours emerged from crevices and corners of the street to surround the woman, who with lots of gestures and singsongy words took fish from a bag and gently placed them in front of the eager felines.

The woman continued down the road and Marion followed close enough to see how the woman greeted every shopkeeper, pulling out a bunch of bananas, a branch of lychee, a pencil for a small boy or girl. The people responded with wais, smiles, and words of obvious affection. Marion watched in amazement and felt a group of malignant cells just under her ribcage break apart.

The next day Marion rushed to Tesco and loaded up her cart with kibble and candy. On the way to the bus stop she paid too much for a shirt with a design of dolphins and flowers on a turquoise sea background.

At first the dogs growled at the pile of kibble set on the pavement and the children shook their heads side to side at her offer of sweets. On the second day, though it felt false and forced, Marion tried smiling and began speaking.

“Look at your beautiful brown fur and floppy ears. I bet you’re hungry after that long hot night we had. Here take some good boy. You’re the best, loveliest boy.”

“This one is strawberry. Try it! Sweet candy makes you feel like a million bucks. Go on!”

She wasn’t sure when the shift occurred, but by the second month, words were flowing from her spontaneously and without the usual internal amendment. When she passed people on the street, kind words came to mind and she found herself speaking them aloud.  At night, Marion returned to her small room, shocked to catch that in her reflection, she was still smiling.

“This is real,” she remarked.

When Marion returned to her office three months later to see if she still had a job, her former colleagues gasped at the tanned and smiling woman before them. When asked if she had been cured, the only voice she heard was the one she spoke aloud.

“Yes.”