Bibinski’s Blight
By: Ossama Kaoukji
Tags: Cozy Mystery, Fiction Writing, Conte Cruel, Short Story, Black Comedy

There was a calculated silence in the peaceful study when the resounding sneeze died.

‘1,621,’ said the stout man in the black coat.

‘1,621 what?’ said the thin man in the white coat facing the stout man in the black coat.

‘Times.’

‘Times?’

‘Times over exactly the past 364 days.’

‘Of what, exactly?’ said the thin man in the white coat, and adjusted his rimless glasses.

‘Equals an average of 4.45 times per day.’

‘Remarkable,’ said the thin man with a hollow voice.

‘Isn’t it?’ said the stout man dusting two invisible specks off his black coat’s sleeve.

‘Indeed.’

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

‘No, no. I mean yes. Yes, I do believe you. If you say so.’

‘Here,’ and the stout man took out a crumpled sheet from his coat’s inside pocket. He unfolded it with care, and his fat hand smoothed it and ironed its creases flat upon the polished mahogany table between them.

The thin man in the white coat looked at the sheet as if gazing through the French windows of his seaside cottage.

‘There you go,’ said the stout man patting his heavy palm on the paper with open pride.

‘Interesting,’ said the thin man examining the rectangular paper without touching it. ‘And what is this, exactly?’ he asked without curiosity.

‘A chart,’ said the stout man and grinned. ‘I monitored the daily occurrences over the past 364 days. It totals exactly 1,621 times,’

‘And?’

‘And the yellow columns here,’ steering a beefy index, ‘show the episodes that happened before 12:00 AM. And these blue columns there, record the ones that happened after 12:00 AM.’

‘Fascinating,’ said the thin man in the white coat denying himself the impulse to offer his visitor a more flippant adjective.

‘I have drawn all that by hand.’

‘Yeass. The minutiae,’ said Dr Rodrick W. Fish, and clicked his tongue.

‘Thank you, doctor,’ said Sagor Bibinski letting the doctor’s scientific word dart past him.

‘Mr Bibinski,’ said Dr Fish and bent forward. His manicured fingers glided over the paper with a delicate flutter. ‘All this information is … hmm… very inspiring. But what can I do for you?’

‘Well,’ said Sagor, ‘you can… you can… excuse me.’ And he threw a restless hand into his breast pocket. He pulled out a soiled and rumpled handkerchief in an unsuccessful attempt to silence a violent sneeze. They both waited for the next burst. But it didn’t manifest itself. The two men waited some more and looked dead into each other’s eyes. Then Sagor blew his nose with satisfaction and said, ‘Sorry.’ He leapt over the table and snatched the paper in front of Dr Fish, picked a sharpened pencil from his side pocket and scribbled something on it.

‘There you go,’ Sagor said with self-gratification. ‘1,622.’

‘Right,’ said the doctor and cuddled a blank expression.

‘That brings my average ratio now to 4.46 sneezes a day. Is that normal doctor?’

Dr Fish uncapped his vintage fountain pen and noted that figure down on his monogrammed peach-yellow pad.

Presently, what was normal in his mind, was the debate under which clinical categories to classify his new patient’s condition. Without moving a muscle, he penned down half a dozen keywords on his mental post-it notes.

‘How long have you been having this sneezing spell, Mr Bibinski?’

‘Oh, for quite some time. Almost two years,’ said Sagor allowed himself the elated smile of a sportsman standing tall on the victor’s podium.

‘Two years,’ said Dr Fish without taking note of it.

‘Yes. But I started logging every sneeze since one year ago to be exact.’

‘Right.’

‘Don’t ask me why.’

‘I won’t,’ said the doctor. ‘But tell me why anyway?’

‘Felt an urge. A compelling urge.’

‘And did you log any sneezing occasions before that? Before last year I mean.’

‘No. I’ve told you, I started building this chart one year ago. Three weeks after Mother’s Day.’

‘Quite so,’ said Dr Fish, and wrote the date down. ‘And do you recall having had the same daily average ratio of sneezes over that entire period?’

‘More or less I guess.’

‘Was it more during the summer? Or less during winter?’

‘No. No. I am certain I maintained my average throughout the year.’

‘Yesss,’ said Dr Fish with a slow hiss expelled through the gap between his whitened teeth. He tapped the notepad twice with the golden nib of his 1957 Waterman Special Edition.

‘You mentioned Mother’s Day Mr Bibinski…’

‘I did.’

‘…could it be a spring allergy of some sort? A sensitivity towards pollen?…’

‘No, no. I love spring.’

‘…Trees? Grass?…’

‘Green is may favourite colour, doctor.’

‘…Carnations?’

‘Now that you’ve mentioned it,’ said Sagor looking towards the ceiling, ‘Yes. Come to think of it. You are right. I did build an allergy.’

‘Aah!’ said Dr Fish in a tone of someone on the brink of a breakthrough.

‘I am allergic to red,’ said Sagor Bibinski.

‘To red?’

‘Red. Yeah. Red. I am positive.’

‘Red? As in red carnations?’

‘As in the colour red doctor,’ said Sagor in a candid assertion.

‘Carry on Mr Bibinski.’ This is finally moving in the right direction thought Dr Fish.

‘56.’

‘Yes. June 1956,’ said Dr Fish looking askance at his patient’s still unopened file. ‘Your birth date is recorded in here.’

‘No, no doctor,’ said the stout man a bit cheerful. And tightened the knot of his black tie around a bull’s neck that bulged its flesh over his shirt’s collar. ‘I used to have 56 ties.’

This just keeps getting better thought Dr Fish and noted down the number in his pen’s Blue Bahama ink.

‘37.51 per cent of them were of a single colour. 32.14 per cent had stripes. 17.86 per cent had floral patterns. And the remaining 12.49 per cent displayed fauna prints.’

Dr Fish hurried to jot down the hurled percentages but hastened to abandon its futility. He wished to keep hold of the vital line. The one that might tackle the pressing matter of untangling the mesh of his knotted thoughts.

‘I discovered my collection had, in total, 31 ties which contained the red colour in them,’ said Sagor.

Dr Fish was now facing the vicious difficulty of critical choice. Should he follow the thread of his patient’s dimensionless numbers? or pluck others to start weaving the canvas of his patient’s blooming dementia? He opted for the latter.

‘And how did you find out you had this propensity…’

‘Allergy.’

‘…to disliking the colour red?’ asked the doctor unmindful of the medical opinion defined in the singular form by his patient. This is unravelling itself as a budding rose on Mescaline, he thought.

‘After I burned them,’ Sagor said rather contented, ‘my collection declined by 44.64 per cent. And, guess what doctor? My itching disappeared.’

‘I see,’ said Dr Fish as unable to see as someone trying to find his way out of a hedge maze in a dense fog.

‘Yes. You see doctor because whenever I’d finish tying one of my red ties on,’ and Sagor Bibinski mimicked the knotting gesture, ‘a strong burning sensation would erupt around my neck here. And the itching would come back and creep down the length of my arms. And both my hands would turn blood red. And start itching and itching like mad. And no scratching, no cold or hot water, would flush out that…that irritation.’

‘You burned all your ties?’

‘No doctor. Only 55.36 per cent of them. The ones that had red in them.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Dr Fish and immediately dismissed his rash question. ‘Mr Bibinski, are you under any medication at present?’ asked Dr Fish and held his fountain pen on his notepad pointed towards Sagor Bibinski’s neck. He was ready like a veterinarian braced to administer a double dose of human diploid cell vaccine into a mad dog with rabies.

‘Funny you ask that,’ said Sagor. ‘No, none, apart from the odd Aspirin to fight off my persistent migraine. But I found that only drawing charts was a better soothing sedative.’

‘But you showed me no chart for your tie episode?’

‘I didn’t need any. It’s all logged in here,’ and Sagor Bibinski patted his right temple. ‘I came to realize that my allergy to red was causing my skin to flare until I discovered that fire was a superior healer. You see, if you’d come to my house now you would not find one spot of red anywhere. I burned all pieces of furniture. Curtains, carpets, lampshades, you name it. Even things I wore: pyjamas, slippers, shirts, socks, boxer shorts, everything that had a trace of red in them. I built a gigantic spring cleaning bonfire in my back yard,’ said Sagor Bibinsky with inexplicable mirth. ‘It smelled like a summer barbecue. Especially with all that red meat, I had in the deep freezer.’

‘When did your allergy start?’ said Dr Fish without the slightest intention of even considering his patient’s house invitation. He thanked the Lord that the colour of his vintage fountain pen was obsidian. And that he opted this morning not to wear the deep claret tie with its exotic sunset rays.

‘Last Mother’s Day. That’s three weeks ago.’

‘Interesting,’ said Dr Fish noting the date down for the second time. This is getting worse and worse he thought. ‘And I presume your daily sneezing persisted?’ asked Dr Fish pretending to note down a drifting fragment of his puzzled mind.

‘Not at all.’

‘Do you have any family Mr Bibinski?’ ventured the doctor deeper into the misty maze.

‘Married for twelve years. No children. Recently widowed.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ A touch of warmth might dissipate the thickening fog.

‘No need to be doctor. Martha was a good woman. A simple, yet a good woman.’

‘I am sure she was Mr Bibinski. Going through life sneezing at an average of…,’ and Dr Fish looked at his scribbles for help, ‘…4.46 sneezes per day must have been neither easy for you nor for your good spouse I suppose.’

‘Martha was 17.36 per cent peaceful, 22.41 per cent annoying, and 60.23 per cent of cow inertia. If you’d permit me the parallel,’ said Mr Bibinski and conceded a sneer.

No trained medical breeding, such as Dr Fish possessed, prepared him to measure the significance or impact of the bovine comparison Mr Bibinski had just supplied.

‘Mr. Bibinski, I don’t understand.’

‘At first, my sneezing was of small amusement to both of us. Then, its constant occurrence became a major source of petulance to Martha. Strangely, I grew fond of my sneezing bouts. I even was looking forward to their manifestation. How can I explain it? It was like waiting for one’s children to come home from school. Their rushing forward to hug you, to embrace you, to jump all over you and then fade away into their own space. Sheer joy doctor! I felt exhilarated every time I sneezed. Martha became more and more irritated with me. Snappish, waspish, and at times, downright aggressive. We could no longer communicate. She stuffed her ears with wax plugs. Wax plugs doctor! She blocked me out. Totally. So, I took to logging my sneezing on a sheet of paper every night before going to bed. And in the morning, I would start anew thinking I had misplaced my sheet of the day before. Finally, I discovered Martha was destroying my daily logs. I found some torn to pieces shoved into an empty vase. Others, crushed into tiny balls tossed under the sofa. Or just disposed of in the rubbish bin I usually took out after dinner. I salvaged a few and started to fill my new entries in hiding. Especially when she’d go out for her gardening. Or when she’d go for a nap. This went on for almost a year.’

‘Then what happened Mr Bibinski?’ This is getting quite profound, thought Dr Fish. And directed the golden nob of his fountain pen precisely at his patient’s external left jugular vein.

‘Three weeks ago, I came home in the afternoon with a small gift to Martha. As I usually did on Mother’s Day every year. This time, I got her a spa voucher. Tell me doctor, what cow would not appreciate a bit of pampering, hey? A relaxing massage or a full facial might bring harmony back. I found Martha bending over my desk, ruminating upon my chart, this very chart. She was agitated. I could sense the convulsions of her body. She was about to tear it to shreds.’

‘What did you do Mr Bibinski?’ said Dr Fish in a dry voice as he tried with extreme difficulty to suppress its quaking pitch.

‘I placed the voucher on the mantelpiece, untied my tie and knotted it around Martha’s neck. And I squeezed. And squeezed it tighter as firm as my resolve was to stop that mad razing cow. No more grazing on my charts, I told her.’

Dr Fish’s sand-stuffed throat was too dry to swallow air. His face was now the mirror of his coat.

‘9 cuts in total, doctor, excluding the head, hands and feet. 26 per cent chuck. 9.5 per cent rib. 8 per cent short loin. 9 per cent sirloin. 27 per cent round. 6 per cent brisket. 4 per cent shank. 5.5 per cent short plate. And 4 per cent flank. The remaining 1 per cent, of course, is not comestible,’ said Sagor Bibinski like an overconfident candidate for admission to a premium butcher shop.

Sagor Bibinski then leaned forward, elbows over the table. He clasped his chubby fingers together. And with the serenity of a believer in the act of contrition, he whispered: ‘I performed with extreme accuracy the Angus Beef cuts. In total accord with the chart we had in the kitchen, hung right above the deep freezer.’

The thin white man in the white coat kept his unblinking eyes fixed into those of the stout man facing him. And after several agonizing attempts, his frenetic ashen finger finally succeeded in finding and pressing, long and hard, the alarm buzzer discretely hidden under the mahogany table.

‘Be frank with me doctor,’ said Sagor Bibinski his back straightened. ‘With my allergy gone, is my sneezing average on the normal side?’