WHITE
‘White light is made up of many different colours and you can see this when you spread the light out into a rainbow’— Amazing-space.stsci.edu

RED: 

“Red flag: a warning of danger”-- Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2006
“Red is a colour associated with poison…"—Aromascope
“Red sky in morning, shepards take warning…”—Old English Saying  

Justin’s POV

I felt trapped, caged in- the windows had bars and the doors had locks. There was no way out. Nowhere to run. I was shaking- actually trembling so hard I couldn’t hold onto the National Geographic magazine I was pretending to read properly. The article was about the Huaorani natives of the Amazon River Basin, and all I could focus on was how much their red facial paint made it look like they were weeping blood. The thought made me feel sick and I closed my eyes, only to have to image tattooed onto the inside of my eyelids. Blood red. Christ! I squeezed my eyes shut until the image dissipated into flashes of white light, took a shaking breath, and told myself to stay calm. I looked down at the magazine again and turned the pages to an article on Ara macao; the scarlet macaw.

I was sitting in the waiting room of an unfamiliar medical practitioner’s office, whose external door plaque bore the words; Dr. Owen Soffe and Dr. Lucille Lablanc; General Practitioners. I knew the former name was the doctor with the ‘specialization’ I required; the one whose training had been in oncology. The room was like any other waiting room- grey carpet, faded blue chairs with frayed material, low tables with an assortment of magazines, posters on the wall illustrating healthy life styles and the perils of not getting enough sleep. The room was filled with coughing, wheezing people, girls waiting to get their birth control prescriptions filled, jocks with a variety of broken limbs clutching well-used crutches, parents holding sniveling, whining children. Fuck them, I thought- fuck them all! There lives were so normal. Not teetering on the edge of oblivion, waiting to hear the all-clear or the death toll. Panic began to surge again through my body, but I savagely ordered it back down, trying instead to focus on the glossy pictures of the beautiful red birds.

“Justin Taylor?” I heard my voice called as a woman in scrubs came into the waiting area with a manila folder in her hand. I got to my feet, suddenly feeling dizzy and nauseous. Again, I told myself not to panic, to say calm. There was still a chance, still a faint hope. The nurse-come- receptionist, Nicola according to her ID tag, asked me to follow her. When we were out of sight of the people in the waiting room, she put a hand on my arm.

“Justin? Are you alright?” I wanted to scream at her ‘fuck no!” but I swallowed the rising bile in my throat and nodded. Just let this be over soon. Please God, don’t let it be cancer. Please. Please. Let it be a cyst. Or a swollen lymph node. Or one of those other benign things I’d had been told about. I desperately wished I could be somewhere else, somewhere far away. Nicola led me down a short corridor, a tunnel of florescent lights lined with small cubical examining rooms, most of which had their beige-colored doors closed. She halted in frount of the door that was slightly ajar, located second from the end, and indicated for me to go into the small room beyond it. She followed and picked up a soft, pale yellow hospital gown that had been folded on the stool next to the door and handed it to me.

“Now if you’ll just slip this on, Dr. Soffe will be with you in just a few moments. You can leave your clothes and bag on this chair by the door, out of the way. He shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.” She gave me what I interpreted as a smile of reassurance and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. When she’d gone, I stood for a moment, not moving, trying to regain control of my rampaging fear. The room was small, white, uniform- the only colour was a poster on the far wall depicting the musculature of the human body. The muscles stood out bright red against the white of the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

My hands were trembling badly again, but I managed to divest myself of my clothes and don the hospital gown, which felt cool and light on my skin. I needed something to occupy my hands, and so I folded and refolded my clothes neatly and carefully like the sales people did in retail stores, placing them on the stool by the door. When I judged that roughly ten minutes had gone by, I sat down on the examining table and waited. I thought of the one thing in my life that evovked an emotion powerful enough to overpower the sickening dread; how much I missed Brian, and how desperately I wished to be in his life again.

A soft knock on the door made me give a small jerk of surprise, jarring me from my thoughts of Brian. A slim, tallish man with white hair and beard wearing a white lab coat came into the room holding my yellow manila folder. He smiled at me, and I saw that his blue eyes were kind and mild.

“Hullo, Justin, I’m Dr. Soffe.” He had rather a strong south of England accent. He extended his hand and without thinking, I reached out and shook it, finding some comfort in the firm handshake. He didn’t sit down, but moved away from the table slightly so as not to appear to be standing over me. “Now, then, if you’ll be kind enough to let me know if I’m up to speed… I spoke with Dr. Robertson at the P.I.F.A student health clinic yesterday. She told me you’d gone there because you were concerned a lump you had found recently in your left testicle might be a cancer. Is that correct?”

I nodded, unable to speak. 

“Dr. Robertson then suggested you come to see me as soon as possible for a full examination as, I’m sure you’re aware, speed is of the essence when it comes to these types of diagnoses. I appreciate that you are taking this seriously and responsibly- denial and procrastination are very common in these situations.” What about complete, crippling, debilitating fear…was that common in these situations, too? I realized Dr. Soffe had just paid me a compliment, but I couldn’t even process it, let along acknowledge it. He didn’t seem to mind, though- may be because I was scared shitless and was taking no pains to hide it. 

He just smiled again, and began to ask me the kinds of questions I’d been expecting and had been prepared for. Could I describe the size and feel of the lump? Hard, about the size of a pea, painless. When had I found it? Three days ago. What the longest possible time I may have been there? I wasn’t sure- I tried to remember to do a self-examination about once a month…may be three weeks. Did I notice any change in the consistency, shape, size or tenderness in my testicles or scrotum? No- not that I’d noticed. Did I notice any pain in my back or heaviness in my lower abdomen? No. Did I know if there was a history of testicular cancer in my family? I had an uncle, my father’s brother, who’d had it was I was really little…I didn’t remember much about it.

Dr. Soffe acknowledged each of my clipped responses with a nod of his head, writing each down in what looked like short hand onto a piece of paper inside the manila folder. As he finished up with the notes, he told me a little about testicular cancer, as if he wanted to transform it from a frightening colloquial term into a natural, treatable condition. I tried desperately to focus my thoughts to take in what he was saying to me; most tumors formed in the germ cells where sperm developed and were called germ cell tumors. There were two kinds, seminomas and non-seminomas; each grew and was treated differently, but each could be treated successfully. It was his voice, his calm voice devoid of any panic, any negative emotion, which calmed me the most. Putting down the folder and his pen, he took the stethoscope from his neck and asked me to lean back. 

“I believe you had some blood taken yesterday at the clinic- is that right?” he asked, putting his gloved hand with a stethoscope through the arm hole of the gown to listen to my heart. I nodded again, as I felt the cold metal pad against my bare chest. Dr. Soffe was smiling gently when he pulled away. “You’re a bit tense, my lad. Your heart rate is almost 110 bpm.” I gave a weak smile at that- tempted to tell him that the adrenaline had been coursing through my body non-stop for the last three days…since I’d found It. He took my blood pressure which seemed, miraculously, to be normal (I considered that I’d been through enough stress lately to triple that particular systolic measurement).

“Now, I need to relax as much as you can for this next bit. I want you to lie back with your knees up and feet flat on the table…just like that. Good man. This may be a wee bit uncomfortable.” I closed my eyes, preparing myself mentally, my arms at my sides, my hands subconsciously curling into fists. After a few seconds, I felt Dr. Soffe’s gloved fingers on my left testicle, probing for the lump. I know he’d found It almost immediately. He continued the tactile survey for a few moments, briefly examining the right testicle as well, which I assumed was for comparison. I sensed him pulling one hand away and a few seconds later, I felt the cool mental of a small, sharp instrument which I later identified as a set of calipers. The sudden pinch and slight pain made me give an involuntary jerk. I felt Dr. Soffe put a hand on my knee.

“Alright, hold still for me…there’s a good lad.” His soothing, but commanding voice stilled my movements, and I willed myself to remain motionless until he’d finished. When he pulled back and told me I could sit up, I pulled myself up and curled my arms around my legs. Thank God that was over…what the fuck was I talking about? Over? It had barley begun.

“Well, Justin,” he addressed me when he’d finished writing something in my chart, “I’m afraid that this lump is almost certainly a tumor of some kind- it doesn’t move like a swollen gland might, and it’s too solid to be a fluid-filled cyst.” My heart lurched. I’d known it, of course I had, but having a said like that, out in the open, those terrible words became solidified. Concrete. Real. I felt to blood drain from my face and suddenly felt faint. Dr. Soffe was immediately beside me, telling me to put my head between my legs and to take deep breaths. He rubbed a hand along my back and I pretended, just for a second, that it was Brian’s hand. The dizziness subsided, and I raised my head again. The doctor’s hand moved from my back to my shoulder, squeezing it gently.

“Justin, if it is a malignant cancer, which it may not be, you are at a definite advantage because you found it and are dealing with it at an early stage.  Your chances at a complete recovery following treatment at this point are very good. This is certainly not a death sentence.” The fear that had began to pulse throughout my body like hot boiling water began to slow it’s pace. But there was one more thing I had to know.

“Will they have to take it out?” I asked. The doctor squeezed my shoulder again.

“I’m afraid that that’s a very real possibility, yes. There are other, non-invasive, methods of detection such as digital imagery, but with this kind of a tumor, the only way to tell if it is malignant or benign is to do a biopsy- that means the testicle must be surgically removed. The operation is called an orchiectomy. However, the good news is that testicles are similar to kidneys in that we can get along just fine with only one. Losing one shouldn’t greatly affect your future ability to have children or to experience sexual pleasure.” The fear, which had began to surge again, ebbed slightly. I felt numb and tingly and suddenly completely exhausted. 

“Now, I’m going to request that you make another appointment here with us as soon as you possibly can. Today is, let’s see, Tuesday, so we can have you in again by the end of the week. I’d like to have a CAT scan done of the tumor to give us a bit more information. Then I can explain to you, and anyone who you care to bring with you for support, where we go from here. Your blood results should also be back by then, as well.” Blood. Blood red again. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”

I shook my head, feeling too weak to form any words. I had questions alright, but none that Dr. Soffe could answer. It felt like the end of the world, the apocalypse, the end of all things. And all I could think just then was how much I wanted Brian to fold me into his arms and hold me. Please, God, let him forgive me…let him take me back…