Itch Witch

Bex O’Brian

Bex with allergy swollen eye.

Word Count 900

Moments after babies are born, they bloom into soft, adorable, dewy things. I also bloomed except into red scabby riot of eczema. Covered from head to toe. Word was I would outgrow this unfortunate phase, and soon enough I would be the irresistible bonny baby who made people want to blow raspberries on my rounded tummy.

Never happened.

Not only was I red and scabby, but my eyes, lips and throat, though you couldn’t see that, would swell at the slightest provocation. A breeze through a tree I was allergic to, the smell of fish frying through an open window would swell my eyes shut. My poor mother, how many baleful looks did she get wheeling a daughter around who looked like she had gone ten rounds with Jake LaMotta? Good thing there was no such thing as social services back then.

I was a pretty popular kid but that didn’t protect me when I had an outbreak. “Don’t touch her, she’s a leper!” My loyal friend, Claire, trying to help used to say, “It’s not catchy!” But none of that mattered because deep down I knew I probably belonged in a leper colony with all the other unsightly creatures. 

I carried the shackles of eczema with me well into adulthood. True, it had receded to the nooks of my arms and the back of my legs, and with steroid creams, it was mostly kept at bay until it finally disappeared.

Recently, to my horror and in my sixties, my eczema has come roaring back. Once again my fingers are constantly seeking out the next itch. It’s a Sisyphean task and as unsatisfactory as playing Whack a Mole. 

The only thing that really kills the itch and prevents me from scratching myself into a bloody pulp is extremely hot water. My morning shower has me offering up parts of my body to be scalded until the pain becomes unbearable. But I live for the few seconds when the pleasure of that pain is ecstatic, close to orgasmic, as the itch is killed.

Naturally, living in a small French village, and one that seems thick with energy healers, I’ve gotten plenty of advice. It’s my own fault. I can’t resist pulling up my sleeve or yanking down my collar to show my ravaged skin and joking that I’m like Benjamin Button; the older I get, the more I’m reverting to my child-like form. No hair! Eczema! The desire to live on cucumber sandwiches!

It was a bit of a shock, however, when, out walking my dog, I came across a woman who is a healer as well as a massage therapist. She had worked on my body once and found all sorts of centers off center, all manner of energies running east/west rather than north/south. 

On cue, I pulled up my sleeve and showed the latest hot spot, which having scratched at it all morning, was an unsightly mess. 

“What is wrong in your life?” she asked.

“Nothing. Other than being bedeviled by this bloody itching.”

“No, no. You are in stress. You are in crisis…”

Before she could declare anymore about my life, of which she knew nothing, I cut her off at the pass.

“This is not new. I was born with eczema.”

She regarded me for a long moment, then frowned.

“Your mother did not want you.”

It’s a shocking thing to hear, even if it might be true. In my case, it isn’t. I was conceived in the five minutes my parents were crazy about each other. It was not uncommon for me to brag to my sisters that I was the only one conceived in love. 

“Au contraire,” I cried. 

“No, your mother was in crisis, in distress.”

The village is small enough that you have to be polite to everyone. So I had to fight the urge to say,  “Fuck off. I was loved. I am love, motherfucker!”

Instead, I took her hand and said, "Peut être, Madame, peut être.”

After we parted, I started to think about what she had said. Yes, my parents were in love. But they were both married to other people. My father had a young daughter at home. My mother also. To get divorces in Canada in the late 1950’s you needed a parliamentary decree. Accusations had to be made. My parents needed to be caught in-flagrante. Detectives were involved. While, from this modern perspective, it sounds like a fun high jinx, a bit of a laugh. I can only imagine what havoc it caused. The stress. 

After all my bragging, perhaps it’s better not to have been conceived in the heat of an affair. One is better off springing into life during a boring roll in the hay on a Saturday morning.

Finally, I decided to go to a local doctor. He ordered some blood work and then informed me that I am allergic to pretty much everything, which I already knew. “As for your eczema,” he said, raising his hands in the air,  “that’s often due to stress. Perhaps, Madame, you should go on holiday.” I had to laugh. I live in an incredibly bucolic village. My days are spent cooking, writing, and walking the dog. How stress-free can one get? Anymore, I’d be a puddle of human on the floor. 

And really? Is there a place on earth where one can escape their skin?  

Bex lives in France with her husband and their dog. She is the author of the novels (Under Bex Brian) Promiscuous Unbound and Radius. At present, she’s working on a new novel entitled, The Last Lover.