Bioindicator by Claire Carroll

The side effects are minimal. There are ten in the packet. It’s perfectly safe; the best way.

The pharmacist hands them over in an unmarked bag, whispers about how he takes them with no worrying consequences. His skin’s luminous; undeniably beautiful. He smiles and says: It’s my last day.

I take the first tablet on the walk back. It’s still early. It tastes of lychees. Back in the house, I get very close to the mirror by the front door. There are visible pores on my nose. How do you get rid of those? The taste of lychees is still there at the sides of my tongue. Max is calling; I mute him. I look at the skin on my arms, the small hairs. Completely normal. Anaïs is calling; I mute her.

I boiled it down ages ago. It’s about clarity. When we strip everything else away, this is what we are left with. A desire for clarity. There were other problems in my life, sure, but I don’t need to worry about those now.

The side effects are minimal in comparison to the benefits. I’ve used it for weeks and the results are there already. It’s actually much better if you don’t read too much about the side effects!

The hallway of this house is dark. The walls are damp. Mould blooms flamboyantly across a ceiling-bulge. Drips. I’m the only one here. In the hallway mirror, an outline creeps from the hemline of my shorts, and the shape of a thin leg appears under the skin of my own.

I haven’t experienced anything bad at all, but we all have different body-types. You’ve got to be careful, but nothing is risk-free these days!

This was my parents’ house. We were meant to be renovating it, but it’s too late. Max is trying to call. Anaïs is trying to call. I touch the skin of my leg, where the shadow of the other leg is growing, ever so slightly. Or maybe it’s just the light. I turn to the other side, but my right leg is normal. The pores on my nose are growing. I haven’t slept properly in weeks.

The playroom, as it was, is stacked high with removal boxes. The ceiling leaks here too. The cardboard covering the holes swells, dries out, swells again. Some of the boxes have my name on them, some have Max’s name. The window has a crack in it. A bird has made a nest in the window box. A grey wagtail, Max said when he was here last. The nest is empty.

Great if you know what you’re doing. Go for it. Make sure you get plenty of sleep though. That’s the best thing for skin!

Downstairs is cooler than upstairs. The kitchen table is covered in used cosmetics. Cleansing wipes, mascara tubes, cream blusher, retinol, hyaluronic acid, hair masque sachets. All mine. I find a rubbish bag under the sink and—with a wide arm—sweep everything inside. I run the tap, fill a glass, swallow two more of the tablets and put the side of my head on the clean surface of the kitchen table.

A dream opens up in the centre of the kitchen floor, the decades-old linoleum peels back and a dark pool deepens. My parents are down there. I remember a pond, a pool, a monochrome day in autumn. My father’s face, howling and invisible in the nest of his fingers. Other people –party guests, or doctors—smoking, pacing. It could have been a bad day or a good day. Max is calling. The leg under my skin throbs, then shudders free, tipping me sideways. My parents are muted by the water. Their faces tremble. It’s hard to tell if they’re laughing or crying.

Absolutely fantastic results! Best thing I ever did for my skin!

I wake to the sound of knocking. I swallow the fourth tablet on my way to the door, peer through the spyhole. The worried moon of Max’s face peers back. I creep away and sit back down at the kitchen table. The tap drips. The clock ticks. The sounds step in and out of time with one another; a heart murmur. I remember running out of the back door of this house, and down to the end of the garden. Running so fast that my chest felt like it would crack open. I remember sitting with my legs stretched out before me in the long grass, a caterpillar ploughing through the hairs that stood up on my shin. When I return to the door, Max is gone. I sit down again. My hips hurt. My side stretches away, muscular. Sexy. When I look down, I see contours, silt beds, marshes fizzing with life. My left leg is redundant now, my new leg stronger. The right one hasn’t appeared yet, but something buzzes at my neck. A frill. I crawl over to the sink where I left the packet. I pop the last four tablets from the blister pack.

Lay them out ready for the later stages. In a pill organizer if you have one, or on a large plate.

The outline of the right leg appears. With it, an unbearable urge to clean. The frill at my neck lengthens and shortens with the temperature, so I open the windows and draw the curtains. The kitchen glistens as my new right leg slides out from under the skin. A juvenile piecing an egg case, shaking itself free. I balance by the sink, shifting the weight between my two new legs. Two more tablets. I take one, pocket the other.

My parents moved here and renovated the kitchen. A side-return extension, a loft conversion. They pulled back the carpets to reveal the original wood floors. The garden was landscaped by a neighbour who was doing a horticultural degree. I don’t know why I know this. It feels important to remember their legacy. It was a building, a set of choices, an expression of taste. A moment in time. Gone now.

The rooms are mostly empty now, apart from the playroom. I shut the door on it, the sour smell of wetted-and-dried cardboard is too much. My phone rings. Max again. My phone feels sour too. It’s too hot—repellent—I drop it on the floor; it thuds but doesn’t break. I kick it through the bathroom door, turn on the taps.

After the last one, the process is complete. Then it can take anything from six to forty-eight hour to fully take hold. Be sure to be near a water source.

The bath brims over, drenching my phone. Max has called so many times that the phone is glowing, red-hot. I hear Anaïs’s car pull up outside. She’ll be coming in to clean any minute now. The mirror is water damaged and cloudy. My old legs have withered to almost nothing, but my new legs are strong. My neck is much longer, streamers of frills like musical notes shimmer away from my jawline. I can see everything; I can feel everything. The air, the cycle cool and warm, the damp and dry, the singing in the reeds, the ache of the moon. I hope Anaïs isn’t too upset. I like her. I’ve always liked her. When mum and dad were really in the thick of it (and they were really in very, very deep, really up to their eyeballs, you know?) she would come every day and check up on them. Max didn’t. I didn’t. I feel bad about what Anaïs had to do for them, in the end. I hope she sees the note pinned to the front door. I hope she knows I appreciate her.

I climb the stairs; it’s hard. My hand traces the curve of the bannister as it has a hundred million times. This will rot away too. The roof has holes in it that widen like screaming mouths in every storm. Those holes will leak water, and the wood will swell, and the timbers and joists will eventually buckle and fall inwards. Nothing is permanent. Everyone knows that. I lower myself into the bath. The pores on my face are huge—sinkholes—reflected in the curve of the taps. The biggest pore, on the tip of my nose, widens to become the pool that contains my parents. They are there, right there at the bottom, waving to me. It’s a well, a deep well, I see that now. A thousand miles deep. My parents are laughing, but it’s not a kind laugh. Max is calling. There’s a knocking at the front door, a rising crescendo. I take the last tablet.

…………………….

Claire Carroll is a writer based in Somerset UK, whose work explores our relationship with nature and technology. She has recently finished writing a collection of experimental short stories that deal with loss, desire and the anxiety brought about by the climate crisis. Her work is published in Perhappened Magazine, Reflex Fiction, Lunate and Dust Magazine, and she is the recipient of the 2021 Short Fiction Journal & University of Essex International Wild Writing Prize.

Twitter: C_CRRLL