The Blockage
A story about imposter syndrome and snot
Theo’s wife nudged him in the middle of the night. “Blow your nose. Please. The whistling is driving me crazy.”
Blearily, Theo reached for a tissue. His left nostril was almost completely blocked. He blew sleepily, achieved nothing, and fell back asleep.
#
“What’s that whistling?”
Theo’s coworker, Julia leaned over their joining cubicle wall.
“My nose is stuffed. I can’t shift it.”
“Your nose?” Julia looked amazed. “But … there’s a tune.” She shook her head. “It’s kind of pretty.”
#
Theo’s wife made him sleep in the spare room. He dreamed of staring into the mirror, his reflection playing the pan pipes and dancing wildly while he stood watching in confusion.
#
Theo’s nose whistled on his commute to work. People hummed along. Someone whistled a call and response in time with his inhalations. They smiled at him. He smiled back.
#
At work, Theo found he was being invited to more meetings. He was often called into conference rooms. He usually found his role tangential or poorly defined. Everyone else said he was “essential” to projects.
#
Theo tried to tell his wife how uneasy it all made him feel.
“I’m not doing anything,” he said. “It’s just my nose is stuffed.”
Theo’s wife blinked. She looked thin and pale. “Please,” she said. “Make it stop. I just need to sleep.”
#
A man stopped Theo in the street. “That music,” he said, eyes shimmering with wonder.
“It’s just…” Theo said. “My nose whistles.”
The man was an A&R guy for Pacific Records. He gave Theo his card.
#
Theo had given up complaining that he couldn’t get any work done because he was always in meetings. No-one seemed to care. They just seemed happy he was there, humming along to the whistling of his nose.
#
Theo’s wife moved out. She had collapsed in the supermarket. She went to stay with her sister. As she explained it to Theo on the phone, her voice took on the tune of his whistling nose.
#
Theo went to see a doctor.
“I can’t shift the blockage,” he explained. “It’s been weeks.”
The doctor just closed his eyes and hummed along with the tune.
#
People started to follow Theo in the street. “It’s like I’m some sort of Pied Piper,” he said in an alarmed email to his wife. She never replied.
#
Theo tried to photograph the inside of his nose. He probed it with his finger. There was sharp pain. When he withdrew his finger, it was bleeding.
#
The A&R guy knocked on Theo’s door. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He put Theo on stage. Theo stood there breathing in and out through his nose. The crowd swayed, caught in their own rapture. Theo felt stupid and wanted to go home.
#
“I think the blockage is getting bigger,” Theo told the doctor.
“Shhh,” the doctor said. “I’m listening.”
#
Theo’s wife came back to him.
“God, I missed you,” he said, as he folded her into his arms.
“And I missed you,” she said, but when he held her, he could hear her humming along to the sound emanating from his nose.
#
Theo held his breath on stage. The audience blinked blearily at him. Just before he passed out, Theo saw anger and disappointment curdling on their faces.
#
When Theo looked, he could see the blockage almost emerging from his nostril. It was small and dark, something folded up on itself. He picked at it and almost blacked out from the pain.
#
The birds in the trees sang along with the whistling from Theo’s nose. The wind in the tree branches beat to its tempo. Insects vibrated to its rhythm.
#
Theo couldn’t leave the house. There were people gathered all around it, all whistling back to him, and the sound was deafening.
#
The blockage protruded from Theo’s nose. He seized it, screamed, pulled, blacked out. When he came to, he grabbed it again. Howling, blanching, vomiting, he pulled and pulled. It came free with a burst of blood and he pitched face first into the floor.
#
When Theo came to, a doppelganger stared down at him. He smiled Theo’s smile at Theo.
“I’m free now,” he said. “And I don’t need you anymore.”
Theo lay gasping on the floor, listening to the doppelganger that had been trapped in his left nostril walk out of the room and down the stairs. It whistled jauntily as it went, and Theo found that, yes, it was a catchy tune.
Theo heard his wife greet the doppelganger, her voice bright and merry. The doppelganger replied, the words lost, but he sounded happy. Theo heard them open the front door, whistling together, and outside the crowd roared in joy.
Theo lay on the floor, and everything was very quiet. When he put his lips together and blew, there was no sound at all, and he wondered what exactly it was that he had lost.