lump in my throat

 

There's a lump in my throat and it won't go away. I gulped down three glasses of water, sucked on a lozenge, and smoothed some Vicks over the base of my throat. The stupid lump wouldn't budge.

As the days went by, it grew larger and my speech grew shorter. My sentences shrank, and I grew smaller, backing up against an invisible corner. 

One evening, tired of it all, I even tried picturing it as a lump of salty water that had somehow frozen in the middle of my throat, clutching my Adam's apple like a stubborn child's chubby fist. I cried, begging for the lump to dissolve and flow down my cheeks, but it stayed. It grew roots that night. 

Soon, those roots made their way around my veins, intertwined, cradling each other unwillingly like Siamese twin babies. Before long, I had forgotten any other way to be. I lost all capability of speech.

Countless doctors, I saw. None of them could make me talk. And then one day, I saw someone on the street who looked just like you, with your rough hair and straight line of a beautiful, beautiful mouth. 

I saw you about to turn a corner, turn away from me forever and I knew I couldn't bear to have to turn away from me once more. I felt like my painful lump would crush my larynx into goo inside its tight palm. 

"Stop", I whispered. Then, louder, "Stop! Please. Turn around. Please." You didn't hear me, you went your own merry way. My lump was gone. 

That night, you woke up with a tiny lump in your throat.