- It happens the morning of the 31st.
His bed is warm, but cramped. There’s Chai—his beloved cat—and there’s the new cat that he picked up from the haunted house (He had dwelled on the perfect, er, purrfect name all night). After much deliberation he had dubbed the tiny black kitten Nosegay (Nosey, for short), though in the morning after he… regretted that decision. Slightly.
Regardless, it’s a fine morning all things considered. He wakes up at six on the dot and hauls his miserable corpse out of bed to feed his pets. It’s like every morning; and then he crawls back to bed for another hour or two. Chai does figure eights around his legs and Nosey is a tiny bundle in his hands. It hasn’t happened yet. He sets down the plump kitten and pulls out Chai’s food dish and he reaches into the pantry—that—that’s when it happens.
He grabs the can of cat food, but it isn’t temperate; it’s cold. It’s freezing. It’s iron on his tongue—metallic like a split lip—except the sensation is on his hands. It’s like he’s tasting with his fingers, except it’s all texture. It’s so strange, so pure, so unfiltered that he drops the can to the ground, and it lands with a dull sound. Chai offered a sincerely confused meow. Nosey startles, shrinking into the counter.
The clock ticks (tick, tick, tick) like nothing is really wrong. The cats are still hungry and the bowl is still very much empty. Oliver composes himself and stoops down to try again.
And the sensation is very much the same. His fingertips have always felt smooth to him—always—because he took such immaculate care of his hands. It was a habit that started when he was very young. He realized one day that the music he played and the things he wrote would be impossible without the dexterity of his fingers, and it all spiraled into unnecessary anxiety from there. Paper cuts were the end of the world and hang nails were so absolutely revolting that they made Oliver physically ill. Needless to say, they were perfect, they were trimmed, and despite all the work he did his hands would never reflect it. His hands made it look like he never worked a day in his life.
So it's contrary when his fingertips, this time, do not feel smooth. They feel ridged and rough like his fingerprints are filled with thousands of deep ravines. They feel like hooks catching on the side of the otherwise smooth can, the distinction between the cheaply manufactured paper and the aluminum is absolutely unreal. When he smooths his thumb over the lettering, it’s like he can feel the insignificant raise of the ink printed there. It’s overwhelming and it’s nauseating.
Popping the can open isn’t so bad, he finds out, because his fingertips aren’t involved in the process of hooking his hand into the tin tab. It clicks open with a refreshing sound, and Chai looks all the more pleased. Nosey has never smelled something so gourmet in her short little life.
And the rest of the experience plays out much the same. He picks up a metal spoon and it feels like he’s smashing the cold metal against his teeth instead. He feeds them, they’re happy, he washes his hand and it just makes the feeling worst—exponentially worse. Never before has he known true suffocation. The water that looped over his hands and blanketed his skin felt like an unrelenting wave—a pillow smothering his face—a noose snug around his neck. When they’re removed from the stream he breathes. These things aren’t actually happening, but the stimuli from his hands is immense.
Chai meows again, full bellied and purring. Petting her feels like dragging his tongue along sandpaper, but he does it anyway, because he can't deny her. It’s enough to make his breath hitch. It's the straw that breaks the camel's back and makes him realize this isn't some weird daydream.
Gloves. Gloves aren’t enough. It’s six thirty-four and he’s digging his winter gloves out of his drawer because he’s desperate and trying not to panic, but picking through his clothes is torture on his senses. He has a stunning revelation at six thirty-nine, and salvation comes to him in the form of finger tape stashed away in his bedside drawer. It’s left over from high school band, months old and past its prime but when you grow up poor, you don’t throw s**t away. Things always prove some use sooner or later; some people might call that hoarding, but Oliver thought of himself as resourceful.
The sensation is initially disgusting because the tape is textured against his skin, but once the first layer gets applied it’s… bliss. He feels nothing but pressure when he places his hands down against things. It doesn’t feel like he can pick apart every crevice. It doesn’t make every ridge feel like a concave valley and it doesn’t feel like he can pick up the overt subtle nuances in everything. He feels like he can breathe, and he does, and it’s a relaxing sigh. Course, now he can’t bend his fingers past the first joint, but that’s okay. It’s worth it for this sanity check.
He goes to sleep with a lot on his mind. It's unfortunately nowhere near the end of his troubles.