Chapter 1
Frank woke up one morning and couldn’t shake the idea that something was wrong, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was but he felt like something was missing. Something important. He felt it while he was on the train to work, but he hadn’t forgot his briefcase. He felt it when he walked through security at his office but he hadn’t forgot his employee I.D. He felt it in the morning meeting but he had everything he needed. When work was over and he made his usual pilgrimage to the pub he had an overwhelming sensation that something was very very wrong, he just could not for the life of him figure out what it was. He sat down at his usual stool, and ordered his usual pint of piss quality lager, he even had the same flirty banter with the barmaid but there was something screaming in the pit of his stomach ‘there is something very fucking wrong’. Suddenly the idea occurred to Frank that this feeling of unease had appeared on the same day that the large scar on his side had, perhaps the two were linked.
Perhaps I should get this looked at Frank said aloud. To no one in particular. Because Frank was alone. And had no friends. And was hated by everyone. Including his mum. They all thought he was weird. This may or may not have been because he did things like not panicking over large surgical incisions appearing on his side over night.
Frank arrived at the doctors surgery and discovered that it was closed. This should have been obvious, It was eleven thirty at night. So Frank did the only thing he could think of that made any sense and got a taxi to A&E. He sidled up to the counter, at this point feeling rather weak, and said ‘excuse me, I don’t know if you can help but I have this large incision up my side and I feel that that might not be normal’. Frank revealed the wound that looked like it had been sewn up by a heroin addict in the wilder stages of withdrawal. The receptionist looked at it in much the same way one might look at a child who had shown you the same shit magic trick a hundred times. ‘Take a seat, someone will see you shortly’ she drawled before turning her attention to the lady behind Frank who had what appeared to be a nail embedded in her left eye. He took a seat next to a kindly old man who had nothing visibly wrong him with except that every now and then he would punch himself in the side of the head.
Two hours and forty two minutes later a doctor was finally able to see Frank. The doctor was young and introduced himself as Dr. Shinjen, he asked Frank to explain exactly what was wrong.
‘Well, im not sure if this is important but I appear to have had some kind of poorly administered surgery at some point in the past 24 hours’ Frank said, pulling his shirt off in order to show the doctor.
‘Hmm, yes that looks like it might be relevant’ do you remember what the surgery was for?’
‘To be honest doctor I don’t particularly remember undergoing any kind of surgery.’
‘This is most irregular.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Frank and the doctor talked for another five minutes before the doctor suggested doing an ultrasound to determine whether or not anything was missing. Frank thought this was probably a good idea. The ultrasound revealed that Frank’s kidney had been stolen and in its place was a paper cut out of a kidney that read ‘I O U 1 kidney’.
Frank breathed a sigh of relief at the revelation ‘thanks doc, that’s been bugging me all day’, and with that he got up got dressed and went home. The doctor thought about stopping him but then decided that anyone that oblivious to the dangers of illegitimate kidney removal probably deserved to die. Frank passed away in his sleep. I’m not a doctor but it was probably due to the illegitimate kidney removal.