Junk Mail

Chapter Nine - Falsities, Family and Funerals

Ben's colleagues were worried that he might faint on his journey back from work so decided to accompany Ben all the way home. They jokingly shoved him and bashed into his shoulders, as friends do, and Ben almost felt the nervousness in his stomach subside. Almost.

Ben was worried about what would happen when his new friends actually got to his home. Ben's family members were incredibly embarrassing, especially compared to Ben who was such a well loved, respected individual in the community and his workplace. Ben's sister Hen was a terrible flirt, and Ben knew that no one within his social circle would agree to marry her, so Hen would be embarrassed when she flirted and received no positive feedback, which would leave Ben embarrassed too. And of course Wren would eat salads in front of Ben's friends, who were burger eating kind of people, so Wren would be judged for his eating habits and that would embarrass Ben too! And then his mother, Hillary Hughes, who had given him the disease would realise she didn't actually have an illness so could not possibly have passed it on to her son, which would most definitely raise some questions in Ben's group of friends; he would be labelled a liar, which he clearly wasn't. Ben just had the ability to manipulate the truth, and it wasn't his fault that he had been bestowed such a power. He had to use it for the good of humanity and he was definitely a human, or at least that's what Ben told himself.

"Hey, guys," Ben said quietly, as his friends paused to try to bend a nearby lamp post for fun. "I can walk home from here I think. Thank you for taking me this far though. I don't think I would have been able to make it without your help, especially as my leg is slowly shrinking too like the rest of my organs."

Ben's friends all looked at each other in confusion.

"Um," Sarah, a short blond man with a scruffy beard, said. "I don't think your leg is an organ."

"It is though!" Ben exclaimed, cursing himself for being friends with such dimwits. "I can make music with it and it sounds just like an organ. I just need an organ in the background to make my leg sound like an organ which it does because it's an organ."

"Wait, so your organs... like your heart and your liver aren't actually shrinking?" James, a tall brunette woman, asked. "You have musical instruments that are shrinking, so you're not dying?"

Ben realised his mistake immediately and got to work, fixing the damage he had created.

"No, of course I'm dying," he said calmly. "Why wouldn't I be dying? I'm young, healthy and my organs are shrinking. Don't you know that all the organs in your body are meant to make sounds? Your heart goes beat-beat-beat or sometimes beep-beep-beep or just beeeeeep when you're dead. And your lungs go up and down using sacs so they make hot air balloon sounds. And your leg, which is also an organ, makes organ sounds. Did you honestly not know that? Are you kidding me right now? Are you? Kidding me, I mean."

Ben's friends wondered if Ben was high, but decided that Ben really was sick and that his brain was being affected by the Hillary Hughes disease, which seemed to be consuming Ben's body rapidly. They felt sympathy for him and began to see him in a positive light in preparation for when he did actually die, as they felt it was social etiquette to be nice to ill people and be kind about dead people regardless of whether they had ever liked that person before.

Ben wiped a sweaty hand over his sweaty forehead so he could get rid of the sweat that had accumulated during his moment of panic. He had just about managed to convince his friends that he was definitely approaching death, as they had seemed suspicious. Ben briefly wondered how anyone could be so stupid that they didn't know a leg was an organ, and also wondered why he was questioning himself and getting nervous. He had nothing to worry about. It was only people of lesser intelligence that were questioning him and he had nothing to be questioned about, especially not the illness and other lies he had made up.