Homo Sapiens

Homo sapiens have 78 organs. Homo sapiens have 660 skeletal muscles, 206 distinct bones, and 50 trillion cells. Homo sapiens have human skeletons. Homo sapiens reproduce internally through sexual intercourse. Homo sapiens have a head, a neck, a torso, two arms, and two legs. Homo sapiens have pubic hair. Homo sapiens have the ability to understand loneliness. Homo sapiens have friends. Homo sapiens drive different cars and live in different cities. Homo sapiens build satellites. Homo sapiens are able to experience both sadness and love, sometimes at the same time. Homo sapiens frequently work in office buildings and may spend up to eight hours each day sitting in office chairs.

Daniel finds blood in his underwear on a Monday. It happens in the eighth floor men’s room, during a restructuring meeting. The meeting has something to do with “capitalizing on human potential,” which is a phrase, after three hours of PowerPoint presentations, Daniel still does not understand. Daniel works in Human Management, a department that used to be known as Human Resources. But now everyone, everything, the entire office is being reoriented. Before another hour of odd explanations passes, Daniel has to go to the bathroom. And so he stands and hurries out. The bathroom smells like a distant pink forest, the kind of smell that exists only in a laboratory. When he looks down, he sees a faint spot in the white folds of his underwear. He does not know what it is at first, and then, staring at the off-redness, he understands what it is. It is blood. Is it blood? It is blood. Blood. Daniel is thirty-seven, single, tall, blond. Blood is definitely not what he wants to see when he looks anywhere near his penis. He inspects his genitals carefully, poking among the matted hair, his penis looking like something that has never been exposed to light, but there is no sign of harm. Only the single red dot soaked into the white fabric. It could be anything, or maybe nothing.

But it is. It is something. Because there have been other indications as well: a ringing in his ears. Apparent hair loss. A frequent urge to urinate. An inexplicable pain in his right side. A dull throb in either or both of his testicles. His sink has been gurgling up some unknown black substance. So has his shower. Some of it may have gotten on his toes.

As he drives to the doctor’s office that afternoon after work, he sees mile after mile of used car lots. Of manicured cemeteries. Of abandoned elementary schools. And graffiti that seems to be reading his mind. It’s like modern life has become so modern it no longer actually resembles living. The blood, the spot in his underwear is the only thing that seems remotely real. It’s the first time he can remember feeling alive in some time. This is what he tries to explain to the doctor. His doctor is a baby-faced Indian American, several years younger than Daniel, who refers to himself as Doctor J. This nickname gives Daniel reason to pause. Does he understand the joke he’s making? Daniel does not think so. The doctor also has a woven, purple friendship bracelet on his hairy right wrist. Daniel finds the bracelet more than a little unnerving. It’s the kind of thing people make for each other when they are twelve, in summer camp. Daniel tries to ignore the bracelet and goes on describing his symptoms as best he can. The young doctor nods. Then there is the moment when the young doctor snaps on a pair of white rubber gloves, and Daniel stands, fixing his eyes on the penumbra of the fluorescent lights overhead, and the doctor leans over, adjusting his glasses, poking at various organs below. Seconds later, Doctor J. makes a soft, surprised sound, tilting his glasses up to get a closer look. “Well, that’s not something you see everyday,” he grunts, poking at an awkward bump protruding from a spot somewhere Daniel can’t see. “What the heck is that thing?” the doctor asks out loud, just as surprised as Daniel. “It looks like . . .”

“What is it?” Daniel asks.

“I don’t know.” The doctor snaps off the white latex gloves, tossing them at a small black receptacle—the left glove landing on the floor, the right one hanging on the rim of the trash can like the fading gesture of some dismissible starlet. He asks, “Have you lifted anything heavy recently?”

“Like what?”

“Anything heavier than a dictionary.”

“Maybe. I mean, I really don’t remember.”

“We should probably run some tests. How does that sound to you?”

“What do you mean, how does that sound to me? I’m not a doctor.”

“Right,” the young doctor says and quickly looks away, jotting something down in Daniel’s folder.

“Hey. Who gave you that bracelet?” Daniel asks.

The doctor looks down at it, a little shocked, and then says, “No one. I bought it.”

“That’s not how friendship bracelets are supposed to work,” Daniel mutters, and the appointment is then over.