Zipped

11-15-06
Kelly Tinker

Zipped.

I discovered something, just a while back. A small, sore spot on the very top of my head, right where the axis would emerge should you run one through the exact center of my body. It is undetectable to the human eye, and no raised or irritated area is distinguishable by touch...it's cover was only compromised when an ordinary itch sprung up too close to the site, and a clumsy hand fell where the secret had been hidden.
An interesting find perhaps, but at the time was of little concern. It is nothing new that in my haste I could have stumbled or bumped some unseen obstacle, bruises and nicks are discovered almost daily, and in the most random of spots...their story lost in a rush against the clock. This was just another small casualty of too much to do, with less time then is needed to do it. Easily forgotten.
5 days later I found it again, just as tender and just as localized as when I had first happened upon it. It was such a unique pain, and in such a small area; it felt as though someone had ever so lightly tapped a nail with a hammer, its point nestled snugly on the crown of my head.
I decided to investigate further...what incident that leaves behind such a distinctively isolated zing could possibly go undetected? It were as though someone was twisting a shish-kabob skewer into my skull, slowly but never letting up. My wife was called in for questioning.
"Feel my scalp."
"What? You're disgusting. Get away from me."
"Not until I get some answers. Go ahead, feel it. Don't be bashful."
The Feeling commenced, albeit reluctantly. I guided her hand to the afflicted area.
"And such a lovely scalp it is. What am I feeling for?"
"Shhh. Wait a sec. It's like right...there..."
The spot sent it's newly familiar ZING.
"...do you feel anything?"
"I feel absolutely nothing."
"Nothing? It really hurts right there."
"Let me see."
She firmly wrenched my head around under the light until I was partially headlocked.
"I don't see anything. No red, no bump, no bug bite."
"Really? You're sure?"
"No, I am lying to you. Are we done?"
"Yeah."

She released me from her half nelson and went back about her business. You would think this would be good news, but I was less than comforted. Nothing? How could there be nothing? It was now that the curious little wonderings crept around my brain, posing quiet but disconcerting explanations of my newfound condition. I dismissed my paranoia induced scenarios to the best of my abilities, rationalizing again with less threatening justifications. A careless whack from one of the kids? A miscalculated bump when exiting the car? A parasitic worm boring it's way from inside my skull?
Okay, so the rational thoughts were hard to come by, and I have seen too many movies. Still, I tried to ignore my increasingly aggressive hypochondria, but I kept nervously prodding the area waiting for signs of improvement, some sliver of positive enforcement. Another 2 days passed with no change, and the worrying was affecting my work, my ability to focus.
I guess I was always worrying, come to think of it. Maybe this was just a physical manifestation of the same old everything. Would the mortgage check clear this month? Will next months presentation go smoothly? Smooth enough to land me the position? Will my engine's transmission be able to hold on long enough for my next quarterly bonus? What about my family? Am I too much "hard-nosed dad" and not enough patient, loving father?
It was this same kind of anxious worry that was permeating my very being, and my new physical pain was just testament to that fact. I am not a hypochondriac, or least I never was when I was younger. 5 years ago, this wouldn't even show up on my radar, barely a detail in the landscape that is life...and now it had consumed me, almost completely, until all I could think about was this potentially malignant addition to my already unsound core.
I tried once more to extract some comfort, some gentle sensibility from my wife one morning on her way out the door to a day full of meetings and errands, but to no avail. I don't blame her though, here she is working just as hard as I to make sure that the life we created for ourselves was not done so in vain, and my incessant whine had surely reached decibels of an ear splitting proportion. Her only suggestion was this, as the door closed behind her:

"Call the doctor and schedule an appointment. Maybe they can get you in this morning, after you drop the kids off."

She was right, of course. I don't like doctors very much, and the idea of one either confirming my worst possible fears or overlooking some crucial factor and falsely issuing a clean bill of health does little to ease the anxiety. Then again, I couldn't possibly be faring any worse then I was in dealing with my own devices. Quackery or not, no peace of mind had, or would, come from my finger tracing my scalp for days on end.
Seated on the foot of our stairs, I made the call. A last minute cancellation presented the opening, and I could come in after dropping the kids at their schools. I was on hold for a confirmation, still circling the spot with my finger when my 5 year old son laid his hands on my shoulders. He had heard my conversations with his mother, and now with the doctor's office, and was here to offer his expertise on all things "owie". I let him search around while I sat on hold, his little fingers navigating through my short hair and his eager eyes focused hard in his examination. Within seconds my daughter had caught wind of his investigation, and a new pair of hands, those of a 3 year old, were also combing my head with a careful and gentle scrutiny.

The hold music must have been remarkably effective, or perhaps it was the combination of Tenor Sax and toddler head massage, for soon I was drifting euphorically through walking bass lines and Kenny G sax licks. Their little fingers didn't even know what they were supposed to be looking for anymore, and had just begun rubbing along at their Daddy's fuzzy head by the time the nurse came back on the phone. She was offering a 9:30 appointment confirmation, but I wasn't listening...one of the hands on my head had discovered something, something new. It was my son, and I knew by the way his hands slowed, and the way he felt at only one place that something was...different. His tone was curious.
"Daddy..."
The woman on the phone was still speaking, trying to illicit a reaction before disconnecting the call, but still my focus was elsewhere.
"Yeah, dude..."
He didn't respond, just kept feeling, and I heard his breathing change as his fingers wrapped under a little lip, a small fold, just behind my right ear. As he applied his curious pressure, the fold gave way to a small seam, and the line traced all the way back up to where my little sore spot was located, separating slightly as he followed along. The sensation resembled the way it feels to peel a sticky arm off of a desk.
"Daddy..."
His voice was shaky and unsure, and in his initial reflex he lifted his hands, taking a step back up the stairs. My daughter, aware of these new developments, quickly filled his place. Somehow, my little girl is this fearless explorer, eager to investigate and perfectly comfortable with bugs and slime and anything out of the ordinary. My son, meanwhile, maintains a much more squeamish demeanor and is this adorable little chicken of a boy. This was no exception, and he watched uneasily as his little sister worked confidently to explain this unique turn of events. Bright enough to know that this was worth identifying, still young enough to not quite understand the magnitude of the situation’s implications.
Her little fingers slid easily under the fold in the skin, and as she pulled, leaning with most of her 35 pound body-weight, the seam separated and revealed a large flap, about 3/4" thick and resembling the wing of a small stingray, tucked into the right rear portion of my scalp and sealed together, it's seam virtually undetectable. As she was pulling, the soft doughy skin still separating, I could feel this strange pressure…I suppose the way you would imagine it would feel if your outer skin shell were being stretched and ripped like a piece of latex, or like rolled out pizza dough.
Her pulling and intrigue gave way to something very peculiar, something very...new. Once we had separated the seams, exposing the ray shaped flap of "extra" skin, we came to a new milestone...a much more, shall we say, inorganic one. By this time I had picked them both up and hustled back up the stairs, my skin flap dangling terrifyingly within my peripheral vision, and I was inspecting the area myself, in my bathroom mirror. My initial reaction was one of unbelievable fright, I mean, I was looking at myself wearing a poorly attached skin mask of...myself. But what the fear gave way to was something different, something deeper. Somehow there we were, my two small children and I, witnessing some strange confirmation of my pre-pubescent and adolescent notions that I was different, I was special. It didn't occur to me at the time that perhaps "special" might only mean deformed and potentially damaged retarded goods, but even if it had... here I was, different all the same.
I was holding a handheld mirror directly over my head, kids on both sides of me on the bathroom counter, when we found it. Hard to see at first, it was tucked about an inch into the corner where the seams ended,(incidentally, the very epicenter where I had first felt the pain) and it was flesh colored. My son was the first to identify it, as he was responsible for holding open the area while I tried to maneuver the little mirror into a position that could help present some much needed answers. When he spoke, all the hesitation and uncertainty in his voice had given way to a much more confident, curious tone, and it was oddly comforting. At least someone was behaving maturely about all of this.
"Dad...It's a Zipper."
Those words will ring out forever in my head, I can hear them today just as vividly as if he were saying them now...

It's a Zipper.

I started trying to diffuse the situation, quickly working to rationalize the irrational to whom I assumed were going to be two very distraught little beings, but the words that were coming out of my mouth were unintelligible at best. Things like "well, when you get older, these things can happen" might have made their way into my ramble, and soon my frantic justifications dissolved into little more then a whispered confusion, and I was lost, thoughts reeling. My head began to spin and my knees were just about to give way when my little girl gently took my face in her tiny hands and, looking straight into my eyes with an intuition the likes of which I have never seen, just said "Shhhhh".
She kept right there with me, head in her hands, eyes in mine, while the blood returned to my brain and extremities. I could feel my son's fingers grab hold of the zipper tab, and before I could protest he was pulling.
Jesus, he was pulling! I hadn't even had time to think, to deny the severity of the situation to them, or perhaps more importantly, to myself. What would they discover? What would they see? In seconds they would expose one of a myriad of potential horrific outcomes, and I hadn't even had the opportunity to digest the situation, to attempt to save face on any level. I was vulnerable and exposed for them both to see.
He started slowly, carefully pulling and revealing more and more of the zipper, which he traced from my head on down my spine like a child’s pajama suit, stopping just before my buttocks. When he cleared the nape of my neck he began to pull harder, faster, until he came to a stop at the base of my spinal chord. All three of us were completely silent for what felt like a full minute, and by the time my son spoke my head was hung low in disbelief and an odd sense of shame.
"What does it feel like?" he asked.
I hadn't even bothered to pay attention, honestly. My son just unzipped the zipper that ran the length of my body and I hadn't even begun to process it. I reached behind and placed my hand on the small of my back, now open and forming a fleshy V. My fingers slipped inside and felt what seemed like another smooth, dry surface, surprisingly. As I lifted my hand further and the zipper opened wider I felt a cool chill run up my body as though I were removing a jacket that was put on backwards. In the mirror, I could see my skin gathering around my shoulders and neck, my little one's staring on in awe.

Here we go...

I brought my arm back around front and reached up slowly, watching my skin loosely bunch and fold like a man-suit. I grabbed hold of the upper left side of my chest and, gripping hard, began to pull. My skin seemed to slide forward effortlessly, pulling easily off of my shoulder. I reached up and grabbed my forehead and pulled again, unsheathing quickly whatever new layer lie underneath. Turning away from the mirror, I began to pull at the rest of my shell, unwrapping my flesh from my body. My arms slid out from their tube sock like covers, leaving them inside-out and empty, like a deflated balloon. There I was, standing in my bathroom, pulling off my skin, my soft, spongy exoskeleton, like a wet suit.
I noticed my new hands first, they were small, fragile...like a child’s. My shoulders were bony and narrow, and my chest was thin and under developed. I was running my hands over a new body that was virtually identical to my 5 year old son’s, except that they were my hands, on my body, and my son was still seated on my bathroom countertop, speechless and unable to move. I turned around and saw the pile that was my original body, lifeless and crumpled like a wet towel. One leg was still cuffed to my real body’s ankle like inside out blue jeans, and I kicked in disgust until it shook free. The idea of me, my 25 year old flesh, lying soggy and mushed on the linoleum floor, was nauseating and overwhelming. As I moved to turn away I caught my reflection in the mirror.
The person in the mirror was me, but a me that had been a long time gone. I was looking at a new old version of myself, as young as 5 or 6, standing beside my 2 small children. My head barely cleared the tile back-splash of the counter and sink, and I could see myself only from the neck up. My skin was soft and new, without wrinkles or sun damage, my hands were uncalloused and clean. I looked to my chest, and my body was hairless and pink. I could recognize my 25 year old self only in my eyes, the one indication that I had any experience beyond T-ball and Fraggle Rock. Did kids even watch Fraggle Rock anymore? What was going on?
I peeled my eyes away from my reflection and met back with the inquisitive stares of my children. I was scanning for an explanation, some sort of answer or consolation, but it was them who consoled me.
“Daddy!” came the cry from their mouths. Arms open and all smiles, they hopped off the counter and embraced the now miniaturized version of their father. I had so expected them to reel in terror or disgust, repulsed by the thought of a skin shedding human, but I guess I had overlooked some fundamental rules of childhood. I suppose it is only through learned experiences that one determines the “real”, the possible, from the “fantastic”, the impossible. Everything is new when your experiencing it for the first time, and being a kid is so full of new experiences that the brain is still formulating it’s own perception of reality, one that is subject to radical change. Another rule of the little guys is simply that so long as their loved ones are okay, are alive and unhurt, the rest, all the details, can fall by the wayside. My son, who obviously had experienced enough in life to know that I probably should not be shedding my skin, was so preoccupied with my well being, my safety, that I was able to emerge from the whole thing 20 years my own junior and he was willing to let it slide. I was still okay, I was alive, and he could still see me in my eyes.

Our first order of business was simple. Hug it out. I don’t know how long we locked in our triangulated embrace, but I do know that we didn’t let up until we were all feeling a great deal better about the current status quo. When we let go, it was my daughter who decided to guide the beginning days activities...she proposed a tea party. There we were, Father, Daughter and Son, aged 5, 3, and 5, respectively, sipping imaginary tea in a table big enough to accommodate us, and enjoying our new lazy morning. My son threw out the second idea, and we spent the next hour hiding and seeking in spaces only big enough for 50 pound bodies. We dressed in child sized costumes, made paper airplanes, built blanket forts and got lost in marathon sessions of Lego’s and Linkin’ Logs. The morning flew by, eating, laughing, playing, and by lunch we had just settled down for some much needed Star Wars when the phone rang. I had let the day go, forgetting life and responsibility, and it was only now that I snapped back to some shred of reality. It was my wife, on her way home for her lunch break, curious as to why the kids had missed school, and why I was still at home. She would be home in less then 10 minutes…

I hadn’t even hung up the phone before we were charging back up the stairs and into the bathroom, hoping only to find that my adulthood would slide on as easily as it had come off.