Only once Greg had bustled his way along the spine of the campus, dark with the winter moonlight, and was back in the warm haven of home did he realise what exactly had happened to him. If only he could have known as he pulled his long coat around him upon leaving the library after an evening session of coursework and idle people-watching. If only he could have known the liberties that the baltic weather would take with his person.
He could have fashioned a rudimentary mattress on an aisle floor out of thick textbooks on psychoanalysis and back-dated journals of structural engineering. He could quite happily have sought refuge in the warm hive of the campus library, and could have encouraged his fellow students to do the same, all of them huddled together as though hiding from an air raid in the underground.
But no. He was stubborn and eager to get back to his own traditional bed and not face the guilty morning walk home like some sort of promiscuous bibliophile. Besides, he said to himself, it’s only a winter chill and a bit of snow for fucks sake.
So Greg went stumbling out on the icy route home, the snow falling practically horizontal into his flinching face. He battled on along roads flanked by desolate halls of residence, every window aglow with habitation. He was like some sort of arctic explorer, abandoned by his faithful huskeys, consigned to pushing on to the destination alone.
It wasn’t until he passed the abandoned students union building on the fringes of the campus that he acknowledged the sensation of his face being completely numbed by the bracing cold. He tried to rub his nose but his gloves were too damp and no help at all.
The heat hit him as soon as he opened the front door of the semi-detached shit-heap he shared with three friends. He had made it! Blissful warmth enveloped itself around him as he slammed the door in the face of the cold’s hostility. He leant up against a burning radiator as he tried to wrestle some feeling back into is raw fingers. His face was still throbbing with the cold and it was only when he began to check his facial features with shivering hands that he realised something was badly wrong.
He let out a whimper like a punctured air bag as he peered in the microwave’s reflective door. His whole nose had gone! Completely fallen off. All that was left was a patch of toughened pink flesh. His face looked flat as though someone had punched him so hard that his nose had caved in on itself. This was a cause of considerable distress to Greg, who had always thought of himself as being a handsome guy, certainly never deficient in the girlfriend-department. With his coursework deadlines looming over him, this was really the last thing Greg needed.
Josh, one of his housemates, entered the living room, wrenching Greg from his frozen reverie.
“Josh mate, look what’s happened. My fucking nose has fallen off!” Josh was stoned and barely took his eyes away from the TV screen as he spooned cornflakes into his mouth from a bowl empty of milk. He took a momentary glance and chuckled to himself. “Serves you right for going to the library”, was all he could offer.
“It’s not funny Josh, it’s gone! It must have gotten so numb on the walk back or something.” Greg had learnt not to expect much by the way of sympathy or support from Josh over the years he’d known him, but he was more than a tad pissed with his amused reaction.
“The same thing happened to someone off my course the other day” Josh said slowly, eyes practically soldered to the TV images. “The cold weather just made his nose drop off.”
“So what did he do?!” cried Greg, becoming more frantic.
“He had to go back the way he came and he found it eventually.”
“What use is finding it? It can’t be reattached!”
Josh carried on speaking in a calm, flat tone; ambivalous to Greg’s mounting frustration at the way the evening had panned out for him.
“Nah listen. Just take out a glass of milk and put the nose in that. Take it to the doctors tomorrow and they can mould it back on. Just like they do with teeth.”
Greg took several deep breaths, mentally trying to prepare himself for the hardship of the night’s search that he would need to embark on. He had an inkling that Josh was talking bullshit but there was no time to waste verifying his theory, he knew he had to track down his fugitive nose before the snow buried it from sight.
He went to the kitchen and drained the last of the milk into a glass. It was this that finally provoked a reaction in Josh, as he came staggering to the kitchen with a pained expression. “Oh cumon man, I need that milk!”
“What the fuck for?!”
“My cornflakes”, he said, brandishing his overflowing bowl as evidence.
“You were happy eating them dry a minute ago.”
“Yeah but it’s wrong really, I need some milk on them, just gimme a bit of milk!”
Greg pushed him away from the glass which he held above his head like a valuable heirloom. “No way. I need this otherwise how the hell am I gonna save my face!?”
Josh knew this was one argument he wasn’t going to win and sulked off from the kitchen battleground back to his room. With the adrenaline energising his blood Greg threw on his layers once again, grabbed a small flashlight and headed out into the harsh uncompromising night. He retraced his steps, easily done in the snow, scanning a wide radius of the prints for any sign of a rogue nose.
For two hours he must have marched the mile-long stretch through the campus, it was exhausting and desperate work, and twice he almost spilt the glass of milk everywhere, but for the sake of his own dignity and self-respect he knew he couldn’t give in, he’d be out here all night, he’d freeze to death if he had to. He was already in his bank overdraft and the thought of having to ask his parents to bail him out and pay for facial reconstructive surgery spurred him on in his fevered hunt.
When the torch flickered over the nose he thought it was his over-eager mind playing tricks on him, a cruel mirage. But no, there it was, peeking out of the snow by the side of the pavement; thankfully just on the periphery of a streetlight’s orange reach. He sank to his knees and scrabbled at the nose, tears threatening his eyes, he was so grateful. He checked meticulously to be sure it was his, which it was – the slight bump on the bridge, the result of a school rugby injury, giving away its identity.
Quickly he dropped the nose into the milk and headed for home, practically skipping with satisfaction through the biting breeze, catching snowflakes on his tongue just like a child. So delicately he placed the glass in the fridge before succumbing to the warm pit of his bed, asleep in seconds, his mind at ease.
He allowed himself a drowsy lie-in before rubbing the sleep from his eyes and shuffling down the stairs where he could hear his housemates watching TV. He ignored their mocking laughter as he traipsed through the living room and pulled open the fridge door.
To his horror he saw the glass. Empty! Actually it wasn’t quite empty. Horrified, Greg took out the glass and let the fridge door swing shut. He held the glass up to eye-level to examine the mound of rotten flesh and cartilage at the bottom, barely hinting at its prior nasal structure. It was mottled and grey, clearly beyond any reconciliation.
Josh’s voice called from next door, “oh yeah sorry man, I used that milk last night. I’ll buy some more today. It’s just that I realised, I fucking hate dry cornflakes!”
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