A man receives a call from his sister-in-law. She tells him his brother caught lazy eye at work. Immediately thereafter, the man develops a hole halfway up his forearm. Curious, he explores the hole. Too small to fit his index finger into, he probes it with his pinky.
“I wonder where it leads,” he muses, still digging with the pinky. He removes his pinky from the hole and smells it. The odor is only moderately disagreeable. Something similar to a sweaty navel smell.
The next day at work he brushes some of his arm hair over it and, luckily, no one notices. When he gets home that night, after showering, the hole’s smell wafts up to his nostrils. It smells much worse than before the shower. Nearly pungent. His sister-in-law calls again. This time she tells him his brother’s lazy eye has turned into a cataract.
“I’ve got problems of my own,” he growls at her and hangs up the phone.
He returns to the bathroom and scrubs the hole with great rigor. Finding a sliver of soap, he works this around in the hole until it disintegrates. It doesn’t help. In fact, the man is quite sure it smells even worse.
“Shit,” he thinks. “This is the worst smelling hole I have.”
The next day, fraught with embarrassment, he stays home from work. He breaks apart a stick of deodorant and places a piece in the hole. After a few minutes, the deodorant is gone and he puts another piece in there. If ever his vigilance declines, the hole reminds him with a scent more powerfully chilling than the worst flatulence he’s ever smelled. That evening his sister-in-law calls to tell him his brother went to the doctor. In order to solve the problem with his brother’s eye, the doctor shot it out with a slingshot. Now his eye is fine—better than before, even. The man asks his sister-in-law for the doctor’s name. He calls and makes an appointment.
The next day he goes to see the doctor.
The man forgets to bring his deodorant and the nurse directs him to a room, pushing him into it and quickly shutting the door behind him.
A few hours later the doctor walks in. Upon opening the door, he is visibly taken aback, hours of stink greeting his nostrils.
“My God that’s horrible,” he gasps.
The man points to the hole on his arm.
“Oh. I see. You have a hole.”
He pulls out a cotton swab and swabs the inside of the hole. He pulls it out and smells it, visibly suppressing his gorge and bracing himself on the bed.
“Jesus that smells. Let me write you a prescription for that.”
“Thanks,” the man says. “I’ll be happy to get rid of it.”
“Here’s a prescription for two grapes and a piece of tape. That oughtta do it.”
Skeptical, the man goes to the store, selecting the grapes and tape. He gives the cashier his prescription and medical card. She nods and hands him a receipt, suspiciously eyeing him. Once home, he inserts the grapes into the hole and applies the tape over top of it.
The next morning the hole is gone. The man breathes deeply. He feels reborn.
