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lydiamoved · 4 years ago

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“the mycologist” is a short story influenced by a 2021 news story of a man who accidentally sends himself to the hospital after injecting himself with shrooms. in this story we follow anne, a mycologist who becomes obsessed with the idea of injecting herself with the insides of fungi - an obsession that costs her her job, as well as some of her humanity. you can read it below - i hope you enjoy!

She knew the risks, as did everyone else. Hell, she could still hear them warning her against what she was planning to do, the way their faces contorted in some strange disgust that was foreign to her – and her line of study.

Mycology – that’s what the glass paneling of her building said, proudly and in large bold letters. Mycology, and here she was, the head of the department, the dictionary of fungi for all the others who worked underneath her and couldn’t be bothered to remember certain names or attributes. Really, it moved her, the number of doctors and specialists she oversaw day-in and day-out, who paled instantly in comparison to her; everyone who watched her and clapped for her and worshipped her, all turned to cardboard cutouts whenever she opened her mouth, their own words made into a slurry of syllables until she left and allowed them to go back to their meaninglessness. But also, it annoyed her, how these soup-mouthed, so-called specialists, stared at her when she announced her plans. How they all, every last one of them!, managed to wipe the smile off her face with the way they gawked and waited for her punchline.

“I’m going to inject myself with a fungus,” and? Must it always be followed by an and? It frustrated her, the need for clear-cut results and outcomes, and for once, for once, she would kill to experience a project with a bit of danger! When their reactions greeted her, she became even more determined, the days slowly bleeding into each other as she worked every hour she could, until every hour felt and looked the same. A month had passed, and she had not yet discovered that her eyesight had begun to dim, or that the cramp in her hand was permanent. Her working days, which was every day, were now accompanied by the grumbles of her coworkers, the way they said her name – Anne, in that sighed out way that meant pity. Their sympathy, she knew, was false and forced, a little lie they hoped she wouldn’t detect out of her own desperation.

She saw through all of them, and they knew.

Naturally, after the condolences had gone around, she was asked into the Dean’s office for a short, friendly conversation. The request made her feel cold, and the walk to the office chilled her to the bone. She stared at pale yellow walls that fell into a mossy, moldy green. The chair she sat in scratched at her legs when she shifted, the fur feeling more like torture than comfort. The air felt stiff, the discomfort building in her arms and chest until she needed to scream. She felt her jaw unclench, forcefully, and her mouth pry itself open bit by bit, until her tongue went cold with a flood of fresh air, and –

“Anne?”

Reality flooded back to her, and she looked up. “That’s me,” and the woman in front of her nodded and gave her the go ahead, a shaky smile. Anne got up from her seat and went into the office, where another scratchy seat waited for her. This time, she didn’t sit; her nails slid into the wooden frame of the chair as if they belonged there, and she stood tense.

The Dean was an older woman, kind in her voice and kinder with her actions. She sat behind the desk that shielded her from acts of passion, but she welcomed any warm response, often initiating the hug or bundle of tissues. Today, she hoped, there would be reason to celebrate, and so she began with a smile.

“You’re one of our top professors. I hope you know that.”

She knew. She nodded.

“We don’t want to have to let you go,” and the Dean paused, taking a breath and looking down at her notes as if she forgot something. But, “But, you’re scaring some of the other professors.”

Anne’s chest tightened.

“I can’t begin to tell you how many reports we have, detailing the same behavior.”

Anne’s hands began to shake, her own words slow from her mouth.

The Dean continued, “if you resign, I’ll write you a recommendation letter to anywhere. I will make sure you get an outstanding position, I promise you –” and the rest of her words sounded like background noise. Anne’s ears flooded with static, her nails digging into the chair until they splintered instead of the wood. She heard very little afterwards: something about being transferred, the promise of being remembered, a very short you just can’t work here anymore, and all she could do was nod. The Dean waited a moment, and then stood from her seat behind her desk. “I hope you understand,” and when Anne nodded again, “we’ll be in touch, okay? All you need to do is secure another position and leave the rest to me.” A hand touched Anne’s shoulder, a little slow to deliver the comfort it was supposed to give, and then it was gone. Anne was shuffled out of the building, the door closing behind her, as quick as she had arrived.

–––

The position she was promised came within a month or two of being asked to leave, and within this month Anne had found herself once again. This job wasn’t based around fungi – her old Dean had recommended something less science-based, for fear of Anne becoming knee-deep in her obsession once more, and so she had traded in her laboratory space for a cubicle, the goggles and lab coat for a nice suit and ballpoint pen, and she settled down once more for an occupation that made her fingers cramp and her mind shrink with disinterest. But the obsession never left her mind; it left a stain between her brain and her mouth, forcing itself between every other interest and her work. She found herself sketching down her plans, her desktop now full of searches of the easiest growing mushrooms, of the fastest growing, the slowest, and so forth. Orders were made, buttons clicked, and boxes shipped to where she lived, and her obsession slowly came into fruition. Her home was now a laboratory in its own right, a little makeshift in design, but it worked all the same: in one corner, a long table held six different bottles of various lengths, each filled with some strangely colored liquids; near her door, the lab coat she threw on whenever she got home, waited patiently for her arms to run through its sleeves; on the kitchen stove and counters, where food should have been, were boxes of that were labeled “FRAGILE” on their sides.

Anne got home from work a little later than she had wanted and got to work immediately. First, she was to pick which fungi she would use. Lion’s mane was too loose and willow-like, it would be irritating to touch, she thought. Mealy tooth, Hydnellum ferrugineum, was too ugly for her to even consider. Slowly, she went through a list, Amanita franchetii, Calocera cornea, until she finally found the one she wished to take and inject. A beautiful thing, more beautiful than the others she had liked, Hydnellum peckii, Devil’s Tooth, with droplets that exuded from its pink and fertile undersurface. Not poisonous, but not exactly edible, it was perfect – something safe, something that won’t kill her, something that would change her body, but leave her virtually unharmed and unscathed. The other fungi were unpacked and planted in their own respective pots, and the Devil’s Tooth was left in its packaging, where it would wait until its time had come to be poked and prodded.

Second came the experiment itself. Her hypothesis was written out, I predict that when injected with fungi, Hydnellum peckii, I will gain some attributes of this fungi, and now all Anne needed to do was prove herself right. She grabbed a tourniquet from her table, wrapping it around her arm until a vein was visible. Then came the sterilization of her skin, a little gauze drenched in rubbing alcohol, then her skin was made shiny with the new cold dampness. A syringe, fresh and sterile, was brandished against one of the fungi's droplets, and she pulled the handle towards her. Red, strawberry-blood liquid filled the syringe almost immediately, and she smiled to herself, a mutter of finally on her tongue. Finally, finally, finally, the needle was steadily pushed against her skin, into the vein – Anne winced, a little bit of ache worked through – and the contents were emptied into her bloodstream.

Immediately, there was calm. And immediately, Anne bent forwards over her table, the empty syringe dropping to the floor and her hands slamming on the wood. Pain coursed through her body, uncomfortable, and yet it felt as if it belonged there, and then settled. Her mouth was open, as if waiting for a yell or scream to leave, but it never came. Slowly, she straightened out, and began to clean up.

–––

Three days had passed since her experiment, and disappointment was beginning to set in. There had been no results, or anything visible, so to say, from the fungi, except for a bit of nausea that came and went. Anne had gone to work, the same as any other day, and returned home to check her face, her arms and legs, for any sign of change, and then - same as always: nothing new to log. Quickly, she became frustrated. She considered giving up her profession altogether and committing herself to her new mundanity. She thought heavily about throwing away her syringes and beakers, her notebooks and experiment notes, and for once in her career, she felt uneasy. This failure, if she were quick to call it that, felt wrong. Anne checked her notes. She checked her measurements and rechecked after that. Everything was correct, everything was done in the right order, with nothing left behind or overdone, so why was there no change?

A week had passed since her experiment, a week of mundane living. Nothing but a few aches here and there plagued Anne, and nothing was written down as interesting or special. However, on the beginning of the new week, the normalcy broke. It started faint and almost as nothing, with a bit of red pus oozing from her neck in the shape of a burst pimple. Immediately she was excited for this - something new, something fresh! It was underneath her jaw, the red river that flowed from her skin and stained almost everything she touch, and proved itself to be more of a nuisance than anything. Then the aches and pains started again, this time a bit stronger than before. Soon, she was unable to stand for longer than a few moments without being attacked in her side by a sharp jolt. Within the week, the red oozing spot grew larger, and the pains more frequent, often knocking Anne off her feet and sending her to lay in her bed, where she felt most comfortable and relaxed. Beneath her sheets was warm and soft, the perfect place to house her body just in case any other effects decided to come when she least expected them. Her occupation was forgotten, her mind taken up with how her body finally reacted to the fungi, how her hands shook when she attempted to write in her journal, how her eyes watered when she managed to stand for a mere few moments. Despite these changes, and despite the pain she felt, Anne enjoyed every moment of it. She reveled in the fact that she, herself, had done something deemed impossible and – more importantly – proven her old coworkers wrong. Now, Anne was correct in her experiment. She was correct, and she knew herself to be better than those who shamed her.

After another week, these effects had stopped. The oozing went away overnight, as if it had never happened, and the pains had subsided. She was expected to be at work once more, a duty neglected over the last few days in favor of her own experiments and thoughts. Returning was a dreadful deed, unwanted and frankly unneeded, but she did it anyways. She could barely focus to the words of anyone, to her customers who called or the coworkers who spoke to her or in her general direction. Curiosity had overtaken her, and slight disappointment had replaced the excitement she had felt once again. Why had the fungi’s effects only lasted for a week? She thought, both to herself and to any coworker who would allow her to tell them of the events. Why did they not continue? Why did they stop so suddenly? These questions puzzled her and even troubled her, making Anne scratch her head with a fierceness. Then, a curiosity overtook her: what if she injected herself with too little of the substance? What if she needed more, in order to experience full, more robust effects? Then another thought overtook her: what if she mixed the fungi with another, different specimen? What would happen then? Would she remain as human as she was now, or would she transform entirely into some pain-filled, oozing mess?

Once work had ended, once Anne had reached home, the curiosity took hold of her once more. It seeped into her bones and sat in her skull like some old friend, banging against her brain - the interest, the intrigue, made her dizzy until she returned to the boxes of fungi, returned to the putrid and smelly things, and grabbed the first one that caught her eye: Hygrophorus eburneus, Cowboy’s Handkerchief. Because of the other fungi packed along with it, this one smelled putrid, the scent filling Anne’s nose and making her cheeks bulge. She wretched and gagged as she removed it from the box, the waxy head brushing against her hands and adding more to the discomfort she already felt. But here she was, consumed with curiosity, with want, and so she pushed through it. Again, she remade her laboratory in her home. Again, she sterilized a syringe and needle, and again she wrapped her arm with tourniquet and carefully, slowly, watched as the syringe inhaled the waxy substance inside the fungi. Then, she watched as the needle-syringe expelled the substance into her ready vein. This time, the effects hit quicker than the first. In an instant, a burning sensation filled her arm, and the wound where the needle penetrated spewed some red-white goo. Anne bent over once more, a pain filling her abdomen and then slowly crawling through her entire body; she opened her mouth and spittle dripped from the side of her lips. She screamed, silently, then lowered her body to the floor, and then, something strange happened - she laughed.

Anne laughed, gentle at first, then a bit louder as she gripped her stomach. Her nails dug into her skin, adding to the pain she already felt, and to stop laughing felt worse than anything she’d ever felt. Anne laughed, and from the needle-syringe wound, still spouting red-yellow ooze, grew a new plant. This intrigued Anne, just as the original oozing had intrigued her. Once again everything else was neglected, and this new plant became her only priority; she watched over it, cared for it the same as she would care for any plant. Once again, she found herself sinking back into bed due to pains that afflicted her, and once again the oozing returned, her own humanity thrown away for the fungi she injected herself with. She found herself calling out of work too often, and her supervisor calling her home even more so.

“Anne,” she would always begin with a sigh, “you cannot just abandon your desk.” And she would rant on how good workmanship was required for this position, and she would question if Anne actually wanted this second chance at a normal, mundane job. Anne would laugh at her, sometimes under her breath, sometimes aloud.

“I’m doing great things,” she would tell her supervisor. “I am doing things you can only dream of doing, and I won’t be persuaded into coming back there.”

Her supervisor sighed again, then would hang up the phone without another word or thought. Within the week, Anne received another call that she had been fired, and would be required to pick up her things sooner rather than later.

Finally, Anne thought, she was free to focus on her mission. Finally, she was free to document her fleeting humanity, the plant that grew from her side growing stronger and healthier and more beautiful each day, the oozing becoming almost unbearably putrid as it gushed from her neck. Soon more syringes found their way inside her veins, filled with puss and ooze and gushing stuff from other fungi. She digested the leaves of raw plants, even split them open and drank the water from inside them. Anything she could do to consume them, to speed up the effects, Anne would try, until finally she realized she could no longer. When the pain had become too great, when the way she doubled over caused a permanent stitch in her side, she stopped. When the plant that grew from her broke off and attached itself to her foot, where it grew multiple different children, she stopped. When her humanity had found its final leg, and she was bedridden due to the pain, to the way bile rose and down in her throat whenever she stood up and tried to walk, Anne’s experiment was complete.

Still, she laughed. When she vomited red and white ooze, she laughed. Underneath her warm sheets, covered in a thin layer of sweat and puss, she laughed to herself, until new plant matter and fungi grew inside her throat, and she could laugh no longer.

#my writing.#short stories #black writing on tumblr #this is only the first draft if i hate it i'll edit it but i wanted to share it !!!#black writers on tumblr

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