The Toenail

It was a perfectly normal midsummer morning when Dipak C. had first noticed a slight distortion of his toenail. Doubtless, it had been growing for some time now, and doubtless, Dipak had seen this distortion before, yet it was only now that he took notice. His toe had swollen into a red mass that bulged both upwards and outwards, and the toenail receded behind the flesh of the toe.

It seemed to him entirely disconnected from him, for he could not feel the toenail, growing beneath the flesh of the toe, nor the flesh itself, swelling further and further.  And yet, Dipak could feel the distortion itself, just by lightly brushing the flesh of the toe just below the nail. Anything more than a light brush was too painful to attempt. This struck C. as quite strange, that something so very distant from him, yet part of him, would normally grow without any notice, yet was capable of imparting such pain.

C. decided to tell his parents about the distortion of his toe that night. His father did not find it quite as curious as C. did. On the other hand, C.’s mother took it very seriously. Dipak was to wear sandals, not shoes, and in a fortnight, if it did not return to the shape, size, and color that it was before, C. was to find a doctor.

Quickly, C. forgot about the toenail. It took several weeks before it was once again brought to his attention. This time, it was by an impersonal force beyond the control of C. or anyone else: the rain. For with each drop of rain that fell came a pang of pain, though a small one. C. resolved to see a physician immediately.

Upon seeing the physician, C. was prescribed a course of antibiotics. If they had helped, their help was imperceptible to C., and certainly not enough to reverse the distortion, which remained, as large and red as ever. But C. hesitated before returning to the physician, reasoning that perhaps the effect would manifest slowly. It was another fortnight before he tried again, and was prescribed a second course of antibiotics, just as effective as the first.

After the apparent failure of this second course of antibiotics, C. decided to simply let the distortion run its course. It grew to such grotesque proportions that C.’s mother, a physician’s daughter herself, resolved to take matters into her own hands. She purchased a topical anæsthetic, then, after applying it to the toe, punctured it, and let the pus flow out. C., who was looking intently all the while, saw as the swelling  manifested in pus, and yet could feel nothing. He was relieved at the simplicity and speed of the solution; a decisive rupture. Yet the distortion lived on.

Another fortnight passed, and the distortion remained. The toe had, at this point, ceased to resemble a toe at all; if C. had not had the continuity of experience, he might have fancied it some foreign entity that had attached itself to his leg. It was decided that C. was to see a specialist. C. thought to himself that, with the stubbornness of this distortion, perhaps it would be best to simply take a knife and slice the toe off, and then perhaps continue with the rest of his life unbothered by it. But this never amounted to a serious consideration, and so C. gave over his toe to the specialist. The specialist marveled that the distortion had lasted so long, and yet had never spread from the toenail. It was an abscess, he said, and had to be cut and drained. This procedure would not take more than 20 minutes. C. consented.

The specialist took a needle and punctured the bottom of C.’s toe.  The pain was extreme, and C. almost cried out, but had managed to limit himself to merely an exaggerated wince. The specialist explained that he was administering anæsthetic, and soon the pain vanished. C. then looked on as the specialist delicately cut into his toe and lifted up the nail. All the pus and filth accumulated in the flesh of the toe, which was previously almost invisible through the obscuring lens of the toenail, was drained, and soon the specialist returned the nail to its position. C. felt nothing, even as his own body was so skilfully treated, and  could barely tell that it was truly a part of him and not a disconnected image. The specialist wrapped the toe in a gauze, which resembled a funeral shroud. C. was to wear this gauze for a week, after which he could return to a normal life.

The distortion was gone, its only scar being a sharp horizontal line on the toenail.