the itch

a short story

It happened one morning that the man woke up with an itch.

He had never had an itch like this before. He had had itches before, like any normal person. Itches on the back of his leg, itches at the sole of his foot. He particularly despised the itches that resulted from mosquito bites, those red tiny bumps you had to scratch around in order to relieve the itch without the pain of hitting the bump itself.

When he awoke with the itch, he at first thought it to be a similar situation. It felt as though it was coming from the top of his head, and he wondered if it was that thing his wife was always going on about – dandruff. He thought back to the last time he’d properly washed his hair – had it been five days? A week? He should surely get on that after work; that would fix the itch. He would simply have to deal with it until the evening. For now it was time to leave.

He left his home barely even noticing the itch. It was still there, of course, hiding beneath the hat that protected his head and ears from the chilly autumn air. It pulsed quietly through him as he hurried to his bus stop, and then through the doors of his office, and all the way up to his tiny gray cubicle. He felt it as he chatted cordially with his colleagues about the weather they’d been having, and the state of the economy (which wasn’t good). He refrained from mentioning it to them – dandruff was not a professional look, he reminded himself – but it became quite difficult not to say anything when he returned home just after six in the evening.

His wife was setting the table, placing out their white dishes and calling for their two children to come from their homework and eat dinner. He placed his work bag on the floor and collapsed into the seat, breathing out a theatrical sigh of relief. It was just for show, really. His work was not nearly exciting or difficult enough to warrant such a display of exhaustion. But he played his role every night, the one of the overworked husband, and his wife diligently supplied the counter, the compassionate mistress.

“Long day, dear?” she asked, voice lilting and sounding of sweet honey.

“Afraid so,” he replied. “The boss is always on me about my reports, you know.” She nodded sympathetically, turning back to retrieve the meal as the children scurried into the room.

“Hi, Daddy!” said the little one as he sat down next to his father at the table. The man offered him a weary smile, leaning over to tousle his hair. Their older one, having been raised like a proper daughter, immediately trailed after her mother, helping to set out their glasses and fill them with water.

“Hey there, Junior,” the man said. “How was school today?” It was an easy escape from the perils of conversing. This question would allow his son to launch into a detailed account of everything that had happened that day, allowing the rest of the family to listen in silence throughout the meal. Normally, the other three family members would take turns intercepting the conversation – asking questions or offering opinions. Sometimes, the subject would shift away from the boy’s day, and venture into an encounter his wife had had with another woman at the store, or a recent exam that his daughter had taken and scored perfectly on. The man always had something to say, some acknowledgment to offer to his wonderful family. Today, with the itch still on his mind, he kept silent.

His wife, as most people do when something is out of the ordinary, noticed right away. As they finished their meal and she began to clear the table, she spoke.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Her question, this time, sounded more genuine. She was aware that this mood was more than just the result of a usual workday. The man shook his head slightly, making it appear that he was reluctant to share his plea. In reality, he was grateful for the opportunity to finally share the burden of the itch on someone else.

“It’s silly, really,” he said, smiling as if the issue had only just occurred to him. “I’ve just been feeling an itch on my scalp all day. I’m sure it’s just a sign that I need to get on with my hair washing.” He let out a laugh, knowing his children would do the same at the idea of their father needing a good bath. They did.

“Daddy has dirty hair,” the boy said with a giggle. It was ironic to him, of course, that the man that had spent his whole life telling the little boy to bathe was now guilty of the same offense. Even his daughter, who tended to steer in the more serious direction of her mother, smiled.

“That he does,” the man agreed, leading to more giggles from his son. His wife still appeared to be concerned, which was not surprising to him. His wife was not a child to be soothed by a funny notion.

“Let me take a look,” she told him, and the man obliged, tilting his head back towards her. She parsed through his dark hair, peering at his scalp. After a few moments, she pulled back and shook her head. “I don’t see anything wrong. I don’t see that much dandruff either.” Her frown broke for a moment as she smiled at her son. “Certainly not as much as I’ll surely see on your head if I looked right now.” She made as though she was going to look at the little boy’s head, and the boy yelped and leaped up, running away from his mother with glee. A few moments of this chase ensued, the man and his daughter watching, content. Finally, his wife caught the little boy, hugging him to her chest and tickling him affectionately. She returned to the table, holding him in her lap.

“In school today we learned about a man who had a worm eat part of his brain,” his daughter said suddenly, breaking the joyous silence. The little boy’s eyes widened. He looked first at his sister, then at his father.

“Is that what’s happened to you, Daddy?” He asked in awe. His sister wrinkled her face.

“Don’t be foolish,” she chastised. “If Dad’s brain was being eaten, he would be feeling much more pain than just a small itch.” The man laughed and his wife nodded.

“Now, don’t go putting those thoughts in your brother’s head,” his wife chided. “He’s little, he’ll get scared.”

“Better thoughts than worms,” her daughter replied, a tiny smile on her face. That was her father’s smile coming through, the man thought, warmth filling his heart.

“Yeah, better than those worms Daddy has,” their son said, laughing once more. He leapt up from his mother’s lap and raced off through their home, shouting about: “Daddy has worms in his head! Daddy has worms in his head!”

***

For the first few weeks, he only noticed the itch in the quiet moments. When the world around him was loud enough, the itch faded into the back of his consciousness. It was always there, of course, but it was easier to ignore it. It only bothered him in the in-between silences of his day – waiting for the bus or the moments between commercials on the television. It was difficult to read his book before bed without thinking of the itch, but he didn’t mind that much.

He wasn’t extremely keen on reading; he never had been since he was a child. He only did it to exercise his mind, and perhaps his brain was getting too old for exercise anyhow.

After those weeks, however, he began to feel it even more as he fell asleep. This was when it began to pose a real obstacle in his life. He would lay still in the sheets, watching as his wife doused her face in water, applying her various lotions and oils, and then climbed in beside him, smelling of clean roses and vanilla.

She would lean over, kissing him once and murmuring a good night. Then she would lay down, and within five minutes, like clockwork, she would fall asleep. Under usual circumstances, the man would follow suit in no more than three minutes. Once the itch had appeared, however, he lay awake for what felt like hours, unable to drag his mind away from the sensation stabbing through his skull.

The first night that it kept him awake, the man lay in bed for about ten minutes, attempting to forget about the itch. But in the quiet and darkness, there was nothing else for his mind to focus on. Once he couldn’t stand it, he began to scratch his head.

He had often told his children not to scratch at mosquito bites – “it only makes them last longer.” He didn’t know if that was even true or if it was just something that parents told their children to stop them from scratching their skin raw. Either way, he had told his children this warning so many times that it felt true to him too, and he felt as though he was breaking a rule by giving into the itch. But perhaps this was the sweet relief he needed.

He scratched his head, fingers digging into his scalp, trying to follow the itch to find where it was coming. Soon, he had combed through all of his hair, and the itch was still there, completely untouched.

How was that possible? The man wondered. He was not a doctor, had never had the desire to be one. But even he knew that if the itch really was somewhere on his scalp, it should have been gone by now. Or at least, it should have changed when his fingers brushed the site.

The fact that the itch was still pulsing through his head meant that it wasn’t on his scalp at all.

It was inside of his head.

How did one scratch an itch that was inside of their mind? He wondered this question at least a million times in those sleepless nights. The discovery that this itch could not be scratched made it all worse – the few hours of sleep he was able to get dwindled down until he was up all night, unable to rest.

At first he got up, walked around or turned on the television, so at least he wouldn’t have to think about the itch in his head. The worse the itch became, the louder he turned the volume up on the television, trying to drown out the hopeless feeling. But then, his wife and children began to wake up, and he felt so bad about it that he resolved to stay in bed instead of getting up at all.

One night, his wife drifted awake in the early hours of the morning. She rolled over, and upon seeing that her husband was still wide awake, she let out a sad sigh.

“What’s going on, dear?” she asked, voice low so as not to break the delicate balance of nighttime in their home. “Why can’t you sleep anymore?” The man considered what to say. He had mentioned the itch a few times before, but his wife had not seemed to understand the gravity of it.

“It’s that itch I keep telling you about,” he told her, watching her eyebrows raise in something like disbelief. “It won’t leave, honey. It’s breaking my mind apart.”

“It’s just an itch,” she replied, a corner of her mouth tilting down. “Why can’t you just scratch it?” He shook his head, feeling the itch jolt as he did so.

“I can’t! Don’t you think I’ve tried? It’s like… it’s like it’s in my mind. I can’t get rid of it.” His wife didn’t appear concerned or sympathetic. She simply nodded, as if she was acknowledging a child who was complaining about the monsters under his bed.

“Maybe you should go see a doctor,” she said half-heartedly, as though even as she suggested, she thought it would be a waste of a doctor’s time. “At least he could give you medicine to help you sleep.”

“I might,” he replied, but he knew he never would. With the state of the economy, and the office job salary they lived off of, it was important to only go to the doctor for absolute necessities. He didn’t need sleep, not any more than his children needed their yearly visits or emergency stays that might arise.

His itch would just have to be a part of him, and he was okay with that. He was the man of the home, an adult. He had to deal with his own problems, especially those that were in his own head.

***

It turned out that he really did need sleep.

Without the rest at night, his days stretched ten times longer. His mind drifted away from him in his tiny office cubicle – not into sleep, but into a half-dreamlike state where the only thing he could focus on was the itch. It was a horrible, endless cycle. The itch meant he could not sleep, and the lack of sleep clouded his mind to the point where the only thing breaking through the fog was the itch itself.

He thought about the itch nearly twenty-fours a day, and yet he had no idea how to describe it. An itch was such a strange feeling; that was the only word he could ever think to use, strange. It wasn’t painful. Or perhaps it was. What was pain, really? It was something that caused you strife, that impaired your ability to function. His itch was doing just that. But it didn’t physically hurt, he supposed. It was like someone was shooting a bullet through his head, but without the pain. Just the feeling of something out of place within his skull.

Eventually, he had brought up the itch to nearly everyone in his life, save for his children. He didn’t want them knowing that there was anything wrong with their father. Every time he told someone; the first thing that was said was always the same: why don’t you just scratch it?

This was perhaps the worst part of it all, the fact that if he could just scratch it, it would all go away. He found himself dreaming about it, about being able to scratch the itch. He kept fantasizing about the all-consuming relief that would come afterward. He thought it would be more pleasurable than anything he’d ever experienced in his life.

It was this thought–the thought of finally releasing himself of the itch–that finally broke the man in two.

One night, as he lay next to his fast-asleep wife, thinking about that moment that never would come, he began to scream. He didn’t even realize he was screaming until his wife started awake next to him, and began shaking his shoulders.

“Dear, stop,” she cried. “Stop, what is it?” His screams folded over onto each other, collapsing into sobs.

“The itch,” he managed to choke out. His wife’s face tightened, almost resembling anger. The concern dripped out of her expression.

“You’re going to wake the children,” she said, stone-faced. Then she laid back down and turned her back to him. He felt tears streaming from his eyes, and he closed them in a vain attempt to sleep.

All he could feel was the itch.

All he could think about was the itch.

All he was was the itch.

He felt like there was nothing left inside of him.

***

The man never slept through the night after that. He would always wake up screaming in terror, the itch burning through his dreams and jolting him awake. Eventually, he began screaming before he could even fall asleep, and without even being aware that he was doing so.

It took about a week of the screaming for his wife to finally leave him.

She sent the children away while he was at work, so that they would not ask questions about why Daddy was crying as they left. He returned from work on a cold rainy evening, finding the house just as quiet and melancholy as the weather outside. His wife sat in her lonesome at the dining table, staring down at her clasped hands, a single tear on her cheek.

When he walked through the door, she didn’t look up at him. Instead, she spoke, voice steady.

“I’ve sent the kids to my mother’s home. I’ll be joining them tonight.” The itch pounded in his skull, and the man fought to listen to his wife’s words through the sensation. When they finally reached his ears, his mouth fell open.

“You’re not leaving.” It wasn’t a question nor was it a statement. It was a resigned desperate cry.

“I have to.” His wife tilted her head up finally, meeting his gaze. Her eyes were glazed over with tears. “The children are frightened. I can’t sleep at night. And you won’t get help.”

“I don’t think a doctor can help me,” the man said. He was still standing in front of the door, which was still open behind him. The sound of rain filled the silence between them. “I don’t think anyone can.”

“That is on you to believe,” his wife told him. “But I can’t raise my children like this. With you.” She stood then, walking briskly past him and out the front door. She carried no umbrella. The rainwater washed over her hair, mixing with her tears. The sky was crying for them too.

“Oh.” It was all he could say through the itch in his skull. If only he could scratch it.

“If you ever get better.” His wife swiped a hand across her cheek, trying in vain to wipe her face clean of rain and tears. “Find me. Come back to us.” And then she left.

Through his haze, the man thought how strange it was that she told him to come back, when she was the one doing the leaving. The door closed behind him, and the man sunk onto the floor, resting his godforsaken head on his knees.

That was it then. His children, his wife. His family was gone.

He had driven them away and he had never meant to. He never wanted to. He couldn’t control it, but he couldn’t fix it either, and that was just as much his fault. It was his fault he would never see his children again.

Those words tortured him almost as much as the itch did: his fault.

He sat like that, in front of the door for hours. Or perhaps it was days. He couldn’t move, couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t do anything in light of the itch in his skull. He could barely think of how to stop the itch. If it was a pain, he could see a doctor about it. But he already knew what a doctor would say to his plight.

He didn’t move – didn’t think. He only rose when his stomach threatened to tear itself apart, and he only slept for minutes at a time when his eyes felt like they were going to crack. He felt his mind slip away from him – succumbing to the itch that was tearing his life apart. That already had torn his life apart.

Weeks of living like this passed. He stopped going to work. If he could think straight, he would’ve figured that his boss had likely terminated him. But he couldn’t think straight. He forgot about work, and he forgot about everything outside of his home.

Outside of his itch.

It was a small thing that awoke him out of this state: a knock at the door. That particular hour he had been sitting with his back pressed up against the door, and the knock sent vibrations all throughout his body. He shot up, answering the door out of instinct. The post-man stood before him, looking down at a pile of letters that were on the porch. When he looked up, meeting the man’s gaze, his eyes widened.

“Damn, you don’t look so good. You should get some sleep.” The man forced his mouth open, his throat sore for not speaking in weeks.

“I can’t.” He couldn’t say anything further.

“You should see a doctor, then. And take your mail inside.” With that, the postman handed the man a stack of letters and turned back to his truck. Of course, the postman knew nothing about his situation. But perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was time to see a doctor.

What did he have to lose?

***

When he arrived at the doctor’s office, he only spoke a few words to the woman at the desk. He told her his name. She told him that the doctor had no visits available, but upon seeing the state of him, she said she would check if he could spare a few minutes.

Before he knew it, the man was sitting before the doctor. He felt like he had arrived there in a haze.

“What seems to be the issue, sir?” The doctor asked.

“I have an itch. It won’t go away.” The doctor nodded, writing something on his paper.

“A pain, you mean?”

“No.” The man said. “An itch. My head.” He pointed, unable to even complete the thought. The doctor stood, gesturing to the man’s head. The man nodded, and the doctor inspected his head, just the way his wife had done months ago. Then the doctor sat back down.

“I don’t see any issues. If you were in pain, I could suggest scans and medication. I would be quite concerned. Lucky for you, an itch is harmless. It’s just in your mind.”

“That’s the issue.” The man murmured, and the doctor – the nerve – let out a chuckle.

“Believe me, sir, there are people dying painful deaths right now. You’re much better off than them,” the doctor said. “Thank you for coming in, but you have nothing to be worried about.” Then the doctor left.

The man stayed completely still in his seat. Was it any worse, he thought to himself, to die a painful death than to live a painful life?

As he left the doctor’s office, the woman at the desk called out to him. She handed him a sheet of paper. He looked down at it, and through his haze, made out the word BILL printed across the top. He pulled out his wallet and placed it on the counter in front of the woman. Then he left, ignoring her voice calling out after him.

He arrived at the train station, searching the signs for the train back to his home. When he found it, he made his way to the platform, waiting on a bench to hear the train coming.

Sitting on the bench, the sounds around him faded. There were children and parents, wives and husbands, friends and coworkers. Talking and laughing and planning and just… being. How lucky they were to be able to exist in the present world so freely. How much he longed to go back to when he was able to do the same.

The sound of the train whistle jolted the man out of his reverie. He stood, stepped closer to the rails and peered out at the train. It was almost at the station. He turned around, looking one final time at the crowds around him. He closed his eyes, feeling the itch in his mind one last time. He stepped forward, onto the rails. He laid on his back, head towards the oncoming vehicle.

And he waited for the train to scratch his itch.

—

This is a story I wrote earlier this year, planning to submit it as part of an application for a writing program. I ended up not applying, and instead plan to put this story inside a short story collection I’ve planned and desperately want to write. I thought I would share it here on Substack someone might at least read it.

Let me know your thoughts and subscribe for more posts!

~ Alya Solace