I Woke Up Today With No Face

Swinburne students enrolled in the Diversity in Australian Literature unit engaged in discussions about current socio-political issues and how writing can express perspectives and ideas gone long unheard. Brad Whittingham writes on the physical manifestation of crippling depression with I Woke Up Today With No Face.

Content warning: References to depression, gore.

Sometimes our deepest sickness expels itself. (Image: Zane Lee, Unsplash)

I woke up today with no face.

I’d be lying if I said I only noticed it in the bathroom mirror—admittedly, I woke up most mornings (or afternoons) grasping for it; cutting to the punchline. Still, the red-white bone and distant, unblinking eyes never failed to chill me to my core.

I tried to start the day right, I really did.

The all-too-hot water scoured through my tattered flesh—thin ribbons and congealed worms of blood mingled with the liquefaction and bile, and slipped down the shower drain. I could barely stand for the first few minutes: scalding water poured across raw viscera and bone, and grotesque muck leaked from the twisting caverns and tunnels that tore through my body like a war zone—I wondered if I’d be a tragic victim or the crazed monster in a horror movie: probably both. Call me Frankenstein’s monster.

I almost snapped something in my knee as I got out of the shower, and noticed a distinct click with each step as I scampered to my bedroom. 

I tended to get antsy after a week—let alone a month—without seeing for myself if it had gotten worse. I opened the camera app on my phone— And tore a tendon in my neck with how fast I recoiled, throwing my phone at the wall to distance myself from the brown-yellow bone and shrivelled, beady eyes. I practically collapsed into myself as I clattered to the ground, receding into myself as I decided that today was too much—that was enough trying for today.

The next day, I woke up with a storm in my veins and wildfire in my brain. It was noon by the time I could sit up without feeling like I was going to throw up, and another hour before my body had calmed to a bearable tremor.

My phone buzzed with birthday messages, emails, and an invite to a housewarming party later tonight—two birds, one stone? Trying to allow myself to fully feel my frustration only flared the fire in my head, and I was quite the psycho-arsonist. 

My daily shower expelled twice as much putrefaction as usual, and forced me to my knees as I writhed through the wracking agony of it all. I stepped out of the shower half-stunned, struggling to catch my breath.

Suffice to say, I avoided reflective surfaces for the day.

Regardless of my condition, I forced putty and clay onto my body, spending hours meticulously forming myself into a simulacrum of a distant memory. I dressed myself nicely—with two pairs of singlets underneath and twice the bandages just in case—and used up the rest of the deodorant I had to hopefully mask the fetid haze that clung to me.

My phone would occasionally buzz, my friends teasing me about some guys they were inviting: broad-shouldered, friendly, confident, and for sure a straight ally—a gay man’s worst nightmare. But I wouldn’t dare pursue anyone in my current state. My ‘league’ was graveyard workers, morticians, and pseudo-necrophiliacs—not my type.

I was dropped off right before 8 with a few guava Cruisers already flushing my cheeks. Friends greeted me warmly at the door with far more enthusiastic birthday wishes than they gave on Facebook, and set to work introducing me to the people I didn’t know already. Some were playing pool or beer pong with those red college cups.

There were the guys that my friends had teased me about, and for good reason, as they were some of the kindest men I’d ever met. There were work friends who were much older and far less progressive in their beliefs, who spoke openly about how the world was turning to shit—we would’ve agreed, just not on the specifics. One of them I recognised from a previous party, who had asked me if I used a dildo, and who the ‘woman’ was in my relationship at the time.

She intercepted me and we immediately picked up where we left off.

‘Oh my god where’s the guy you were with last time?—Oh shit did you guys broke up I’msosorry—was it like Heartstopper where he wasn’t out yet—wait are you bi or pan or gay or like, —wait you’re not a trans are you I feel like I’d be able to tell—Hang on does it make you pan if you’d fuck a guy who has a vagina?’

She proceeded to go on about genital preferences for five solid minutes before one of her friends came over. I mouthed a thank you and received a wide-eyed, hurried nod in response.

As the hours went by, I hadn’t realised how fast I was drinking until a friend swept over and saved me from a very one-sided, deep, and meaningful.

‘Hey man, are you good?’ he pointed at me—to my drink, I thought.

‘Yeah, but I’m almost empty’ I swished the can next to my face with a wide smile, and felt something move in my false-face more than it should have.

He paused and choked out a nervous chuckle. ‘Hah; yeah, I meant that?’ He lowered his finger to my stomach.

My blue shirt was dark and sodden. I felt my face sag.

I ran to the bathroom.

My stomach rebelled as I got to the sink, and a murky pitch forced itself out of me. My stomach ached with a cocktail of alcohol and cheap Woolies party pies, my head all-too-hot as the wildfire returned. I barely managed to pry my shirt off without tearing it; the now black fabric that was once two singlets had begun to intertwine and fall apart. My false face cracked and crumbled; any attempts I made to work it back into place just made it worse.

The bathroom door slammed open as the woman from before rushed in and bumped into me, before staggering backwards in abject horror.

‘What the actual fu—’ She swung around as she emptied her guts into the sink.

‘Woah, that’s… what?’ Her friend from before stood at the doorway, eyes wide and mouth agape.

Others began to pop their heads in, first on them and then me. Each had a similar response.

‘Dude, holy shit you need to go to the hospital.’ I heard a friend say.

‘Fuck what the fuck?’ Another said. A true poet.

My eyes burned. Everywhere burned. I was drunk on lightning and wildfire.

I practically fell out of the doorway as I stumbled out into the brisk morning air. I shut the door behind me, but it stopped short—one of the broad guys from before had squeezed halfway through. 

‘Hey man—’ He almost tripped down the stairs, his beer bottle firm in his grip. ‘Did you want to talk about it?’

I refused to turn around—it would be an insult. ‘No—uh, thanks, but maybe not tonight.’ My legs brimmed with static; I swallowed the instinct to run.

The guy closed the distance between us. ‘That’s fine, man, I don’t know your situation or anything, but I know when I was struggling, speaking to someone helped.’

What was it about alcohol that turned all straight guys into fonts of sappy wisdom?

I dared to face him. He gave a strained smile—the kind that a friend gives you when you’ve just told them deeply confronting but vulnerable—and plucked his nose from his face. I stared for far too long.

‘Sometimes it's a bit messier but… Just remember you’re not alone, yeah?’ He patted my back and gave a warm smile before returning his prosthetic nose to his face and walking back up to the party.

I tried to take the wisdom on board, but to be honest, I just felt bad for wasting his time—and vulnerability. When I got home, I decided that today was too much—that was enough trying for today.

Liquid death seeped from my body and fused my back with the fibres of my bedsheet. I swallowed and choked back blood and bile, my lungs roared with each breath I took, like I was breathing shards of glass. My legs sloughed below the knee, like roadkill in a slow cooker left far too long.

The only thing I was thankful for was that my olfactory nerves had disintegrated, but I still gagged and retched black viscous sludge whenever a functional sense registered a new grotesque experience being produced by my living corpse.

I refused to touch my phone—doing so would topple the intricately curated narratives I had constructed; I held on to them dearly, because I knew the truth was much simpler. Instead, I drifted in and out of consciousness, barely comprehending my waking hours.

I woke up Friday—the same, but I did hazard a look at my phone: messages and missed calls filled my notifications. The wildfire had receded and given way to shame as I realised the propaganda I had constructed—I had believed.

I woke up Saturday and messaged a few friends back. They asked me how I was doing, and how long all of… this had been going on for. I decided that it was too much to answer, and indulged in my sleep.

Because the truth was always the most embarrassing thing to admit. That this had been happening for years now, and that the routine had become so ingrained that I had forgotten that I have survived this time and time again. I had forgotten that, despite how my body ached or fell apart, that in a day, or a week, or a month…

There would come a day when my legs would be back and without that annoying click, my chest bruised but whole, my brain quiet and cold.

And maybe. Just maybe. If I remembered that courage is not action without fear, but action despite it.

That hope is not an ephemeral grace but inexorable tenacity.

That vulnerability is not guiding a blade to your heart, but shouting full-chested that when it strikes, you will survive.

That I may wake up, one day, with a face.