Logging Off

by Spalding, Nick

Having said that, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Sure, the irritable bowel syndrome has always caused me a bit of grief and discomfort, but I’ve never had to rush to the toilet like this. Especially not when I’ve been bunged up like the M25 at rush hour a mere hour or so earlier.

  This is new, horrible and not a little worrying. Especially the awful pain.

  . . . Which has turned into an unpleasant throbbing now the worst of it is over.

  I think – I hope – that I’ve managed to evacuate everything I need to. I’m sure my anus is hoping the same thing, given that it’s been through an assault upon its person that it may never recover from. Not without many, many soothing creams and a long bath.

  Gingerly, I wipe myself and slowly stand up. For a moment my legs don’t want to support me, but eventually I get them to behave. I pull up my jeans, flush the loo and wash my shaking hands in the basin just outside the cubicle.

  Taking several deep breaths, I steady myself internally by the door to the toilet. All I want to do now is gather up my belongings and get out of here as swiftly as possible.

  Yes. That’s it. Just get out quickly, and try to put this entire miserable experience behind—

  JESUS!

  I’ve swung the main toilet door open to be greeted by a sea of anxious faces on the other side. It looks like the whole of Fluidity is standing there . . . waiting to see if I’ve survived my own period of extreme fluidity.

  At the front of this stationary gaggle are Pikky, Winery Smalls and Tex. Pikky looks concerned, Winery looks distraught, Tex looks bored.

  I am painfully aware that from behind me, a smell that is as vast as it is abhorrent is emanating from the toilet and heading towards the crowd.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Pikky asks.

  ‘We were quite worried about you,’ Winery adds.

  ‘Yup. You took off like a steer that’s been spooked by a rattler,’ Tex says, still in his broad Lancashire accent.

  For some reason, even in the middle of this terrible farce, I have to ask.

  ‘Why are you dressed like a gludy cowgoy?’ I ask Tex, as slowly and as clearly as I can, trying to ignore the stench of my disgrace as it wafts across the room.

  Tex looks extremely taken aback by this, as if it’s the first time anyone’s ever asked. Of course, it could also be that he can’t understand what I’m bloody saying.

  ‘Lionel is channelling the Old West this week,’ Winery says, by way of explanation. ‘He’s looking to be inspired by the rugged sensuality of the American frontier.’

  I’m dumbfounded.

  His real name is Lionel?

  ‘’Ight,’ I reply, blinking several times.

  This place is insane. And I have contributed to its insanity more than enough for one lifetime.

  ‘Can I ’ave my rucksack and iGad, glease?’ I ask the crowd, hoping that somebody can understand and help me.

  A sea of blank faces greets this, until Winery holds up her hands. ‘I think he’s trying to ask for his rucksack and iPad,’ she says hesitantly.

  I nod my head feverishly, and am handed both by the woman with the blue hair – who at least has a decent reason to feel pity for me now.

  I take them both with an uneasy smile and look back to the crowd, who are – whether they realise it or not – blocking my way out.

  ‘Glease gud you all leg me garsed?’ I ask pitifully, massaging my aching jaw as I do so.

  They all stare back at me, not comprehending a word of what I’ve just said.

  Cue Winery Smalls again, who has obviously decided she’s going to act as my universal translator. ‘I think he may need us to do something for him!’ she says, leaning forward. ‘Would you like us to do something for you, Mr Bellows?’ she asks me in a clear, slow voice, as if I’m foreign and looking for the nearest railway station.

  Good grief.

  ‘’Es. I want do leave, gut you are glocking my way. Can you all glease move?!’

  Winery’s eyes go wide with comprehension. ‘I think he’s telling us he wants us to move so he can leave!’ she cries triumphantly.

  ‘’Es! Glease move!’

  And with that, the crowd does begin to part, right down the middle – mainly at the behest of Winery Smalls, who is walking backwards with both arms out to the side, and flapping her hands like a woman possessed.

  I walk forward through the gap, the eyes of Fluidity on me as I do so. It’s like they’ve discovered some strange and alien species, and are all wondering what bizarre behaviour it’s going to exhibit next.

  And also what smells it’s going to make.

  Finally, I am able to get by Winery Smalls and head for the exit.

  ‘Gum gack and see us again, Mr Gellows!’ she calls after me, with her teeth clenched together, as if she’s trying to talk to me in my own alien language.

  ‘Dank you,’ I reply – for some fucking reason that will never become clear to me for as long as I live.

  I then reach the main door to Fluidity’s office, hurrying through it as fast as my still-shaky legs can carry me.

  When the elevator doors close, I lean heavily against one wall and rub a hand across my sore eyes.

  I should be absolutely heartbroken that the presentation went so badly.

  I should be angry that Zap Graphics has ripped off my work.

  But I’m neither of those things, because all I can do is worry that there might be something seriously wrong with me.

  I’ve never experienced anything like this locked jaw before, and I’ve never had to take a painful emergency shit in public either. Add both of these to the fact that I’ve been getting that sharp ache in my neck and shoulders . . . and I haven’t been sleeping well either.

  What does it all mean?

  I know I’ve got the stress of work to deal with, but that surely can’t account for all of this? I’ve done plenty of presentations for potential clients before, and not once have I nearly shit my pants. Neither have I been robbed of the ability to talk like a normal human being.

  No. Something is clearly very, very wrong with me.

  ‘Gludy hell,’ I say, under my breath, as the elevator continues its descent.

  Without even thinking about it, I pull out my phone and bring up the HowUPooing app. I figure I’d better chronicle the emergency download I’ve just had to make at Fluidity’s offices.

  I select ‘DIARRHOEA’ and ‘PAINFUL BOWEL MOVEMENT’ from the app’s generous selection of choices, and am dismayed when the phone bongs at me ominously, and a message in red pops up on the screen that reads ‘These symptoms may indicate a serious health issue. Please consider seeing a doctor.’

  Well . . . that says it all, doesn’t it?

  If the poo app thinks I should see a healthcare professional, then I’d bloody well better do what it says.

  After all, if I trust apps to tell me what to eat, where to go and who to date, why wouldn’t I trust them when it comes to something like my health?

  So that’s what I’m going to do. See a doctor.

  I’m also going to do something about Zap bloody Graphics. None of this would have happened today if he hadn’t ripped off my Fluidity designs!

  Oh yes. Andy Bellows shall have his revenge. Of that there is no doubt. I will stalk Mr Zap Graphics Andy for a while, taking careful note of how he operates – and then, when I know everything I need to know about him, I will strike!

  Aha!

  After all, as the famous saying goes:

  Revenge is a dish dat is gest served gold . . .

  Chapter Two

  DR GOOGLE

  . . . except for the fact that Zap Graphics did not rip me off in the slightest, and those idiots over at Fluidity are all comprehensively mad.

  The second I got home, I fired up my laptop and went straight to the Zap Graphics website, where I saw that he had uploaded a few of the designs he’d presented to Fluidity on his portfolio page. It’s something we all tend to do, as the Internet is the greatest shop window us gra
phic designers have.

  And for the love of crap, would you look at them?

  OK, there are a few similarities in colour and methodology, but his designs are hardly ‘exactly the same’ as mine. After all, we were both pitching our ideas for a campaign at an ultra-trendy fashion house . . . of course our concepts were going to cross over, to a certain extent.

  And, if I’m being honest, Zap Graphics Andy is very talented. In many ways, I prefer his ideas to my own.

  Grrrr.

  That’s as well as may be, but I would still have had a chance at the contract if bloody Winery Smalls and sodding Pikky hadn’t made out that me and Zap had come up with virtually identical designs!

  I would have never got as angry as I did, and probably wouldn’t have locked up my jaw!

  Which is still locked up, by the way. As I sit there looking at the Zap Graphics website with mounting frustration, I can feel the muscles in my jaw tightening involuntarily, making the situation even worse.

  So, before I end up fusing my teeth together completely, I click away from Zap’s website, and instead go on to Google to see if it can tell me what all of my symptoms mean.

  I find a reputable-looking site called Symptopia.com – which purports to be able to diagnose any illness you might have, using its extensive database and patented algorithms. That sounds pretty good to me.

  I type the following into the site’s search engine:

  Lockjaw

  Sharp stabbing pain in head

  Diarrhoea

  Irritable bowel syndrome

  Neck pain

  Shoulder pain

  Interrupted sleep.

  And press the enter key.

  The website thinks about things for a few seconds, before spewing out a list of ailments that I could be suffering from.

  There’s about two dozen of the bloody things – but I’m afraid the only ones I pay any attention to are the ones that feature the dreaded C word . . . of which there are no fewer than seven.

  Yes, the extensive database and patented algorithms are telling me that there’s a chance I have cancer, in one of seven different, increasingly terrible ways.

  Seven separate ways that my own body could be rebelling against me on a cellular level.

  Panic rises in my throat.

  I hadn’t even considered that I could have something that wrong with me. I was thinking it might be some kind of muscular disease, or maybe a problem with my brain chemistry. Those things sound bad enough, but when considered alongside the C word, they obviously pale in comparison.

  It’s only one website. Try a different one.

  Yes. That’s right. It is only one website, and its algorithms may be patented, but that doesn’t mean they’re not also a load of old shit.

  I move on to another symptom-checking site, this one called CheckSym.com.

  I type in the same symptoms . . . and get back virtually the same answers – only this time, it looks like I could have cancer nine different ways, instead of seven.

  So, I try a third website, and then a fourth.

  But each one spits out the same potential death sentences as quickly as the first. Although website number four only suggests I could die from six types of cancer, which is something of an improvement . . . I guess?

  So I abandon that strategy, and instead type my symptoms straight into Google, to see if that comes up with something more constructive, and slightly less life-threatening.

  Nope.

  If anything, it’s even worse.

  Instead of just telling me I could have one of half a dozen cancers, Dr Google lets me know that I could be suffering from hundreds of them, each one more terrifying and harder to pronounce than the last. Something called a ‘cerebrodendroglioma’ sounds particularly horrifying.

  The panic in my chest rises even more, and I can feel my jaw tightening to such an extent that the sharp, stabbing pains in my head are coming faster and faster.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh GOD!

  . . . Now then.

  There is a logical part of my brain that knows I’m overreacting.

  I have been surfing the World Wide Web long enough to know that trying to diagnose yourself using the Internet is a ridiculous waste of time. Especially when you have so many symptoms.

  Pump enough symptoms (any symptoms) into any checker or search engine, and the chance of it informing you that you have a terminal disease is nearly 100 per cent.

  You could tell the damn thing that you have a ringing in your ears, a mild toothache, a small ache in one knee, a fear of chickens and a slight sense of disappointment about your place in the world – and it’d probably tell you that you have three minutes left to live.

  Intellectually and logically, I know that sitting here at my laptop trying to self-diagnose is a bloody fool’s game – but I’m not thinking intellectually and logically right now, I’m thinking with my gut.

  Another twenty minutes goes by of me feverishly hunting for any website that will tell me that I’m going to be fine, and that there’s nothing really wrong with me – but such a thing does not exist. It’s all doom, gloom . . . and please make funeral arrangements as fast as you can.

  The panic is now clawing at my very soul.

  I need some kind of reassurance. Some kind of sage advice from other people that will help me climb off this ledge of fear I’ve placed myself on.

  I know . . .

  To the forums!

  If ever I am unsure of something, and I’m not convinced that Google knows the answers, I turn to my friends on the various forums that I belong to for advice. They rarely let me down, whatever the subject matter.

  I belong to forums that cover every single facet of modern life. If I have a DIY issue, I go straight to HandymanForums.com. If I need advice on something electronic or technological, I pop over to DigitalSpace.com.

  If I want to book a holiday and can’t decide between the three four-star-rated hotels I’ve found, then the people on the TripAdvisor forums are right there and waiting.

  And, if I have a health issue, I go to HealthSpace.com to get advice. It’s there that I discovered how to syringe the earwax out of my ears at home, meaning I could hear properly for the first time in years.

  With this in mind, I jump into the forum’s general advice section, and compose a suitable post about my latest potentially life-threatening problem.

  The replies I get over the next couple of hours range from heartfelt to piss-taking of the highest order. This is to be expected. You can be guaranteed that whatever the topic you talk about on the Internet, you will receive replies that vary from compassionate to stone cold. It is the way of things. It’s just important not to take either to heart, and to sift out the actual practical advice from the sarcasm or overblown sentimentality.

  And the practical advice I’m getting – whether it be in the gushing response from Trixie1986 or the ‘hilarious’ reply I received from MrBigTrousers telling me I’ve probably got Ebola – is that I need to get off the bloody Internet and go to see a doctor.

  I chew a fingernail as I read down through the replies, all saying more or less the same thing.

  I’m not happy about it, not happy at all.

  I know that I have to go and see a proper doctor, and that Dr Google is not the way forward, but I was really hoping somebody on here might at least give me a hint of what I have wrong with me. You know, something along the lines of: Oh yeah! I had all of those symptoms a couple of years ago! Turns out I had Bob Bobbins syndrome. The doctor put me on antibiotics for a month and it cleared up, no problem!

  That would have stopped me feeling quite so panicky. Nobody wants to suffer from Bob Bobbins syndrome, but if you can solve it with the right pills, then it’s not really much of an issue.

  The key thing is, at least I would have known that I didn’t have anything that serious. At least I wouldn’t still be thinking I was about to drop dead at any moment.

  But nobody has told me I have Bob Bobbins syndrome, and
in fact, nobody has really tried to guess what I might have wrong with me at all. This cannot be good.

  If nobody on this forum wants to venture a guess, then it means it’s probably something rare and awful. Nob Nobbins syndrome, for instance – which kills you in a week, but not before your eyeballs start bleeding and your bum falls off.

  I compose a short thank you to those who have responded to me on HealthSpace, and surf on over to the newly created digital appointment platform that my doctor’s surgery instituted a few months ago. Much fuss was made of this wonderful, new, convenient way to book a doctor’s appointment. The local Facebook page has an entire thread dedicated to it.

  It’s been terrible, needless to say.

  Public service websites are invariably terrible in the UK. It’s just the way things are.

  I have a feeling that the day you can seamlessly communicate with any government or public service organisation of your choice via the Internet, will be the day before artificial intelligence finally takes over and murders everyone.

  I cross my fingers and attempt to book an emergency appointment with my doctor for tomorrow morning. When the entire web page freezes and boots me out of the submission form, I sigh deeply and reload it to have another go.

  This time it tells me that the next available emergency appointment I can book will be on Thursday, 19 September 2097.

  I fear that this may be a tad too late to help me, so I reload the page again, and have one more attempt.

  Hallelujah!

  This time around I successfully manage to book the appointment, not for the distant future after the machines have taken over the planet, but for Thursday morning at 8.30 – a mere two days away. This still doesn’t really constitute an emergency appointment, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth here. There’s every chance that if I reload the submission form and try again, I might not get another appointment until four days after the earth has been consumed by the sun going supernova.

  Thursday will just have to do.

  And I will just have to cope until then.

  This shouldn’t be too hard. As long as I can stop myself from obsessively looking up my symptoms on the Internet, I should be fine.