The origin of my trichophobia

Have you ever felt like there’s a hair stuck in your throat?
For the first twelve years of my life, my parents would take my older brother Micah and I to a remote cabin at the edge of the mountains for a month of reflection. My mother was a very spiritual woman who taught us yoga and had a vast collection of essential oils which she believed could be used to treat any ailment. We were home schooled and often warned of the dangers of the outside world, a toxic and polluted land. Our dad, while not sharing the same zeal, was nevertheless supportive of the lifestyle she had chosen for the family.
Micah and I liked the cabin’s relative proximity to the lake. A rickety dock led out into the deep water where we would sit and dip our toes if it was a chilly day and, when it was warm enough, served as a jumping point for a day of swimming.
We were at the cabin on the day when our family was, unbeknownst to us, doomed forever.
Dad had just returned from a long drive to the nearest town with brown bags chock full of fruits and veggies at the request of my mother. “Fresh from the farmer’s market,†he declared. Our mom prepared a full, colorful dish for supper.
“Can I take my plate to the dock and eat by the lake?†Micah had asked. The question surprised me. It was nearly eight. Though summer was approaching, the sun had almost completely set, basking the surrounding woods in an eerie tangerine glow.
My mother frowned, looking at my father for guidance. He nodded. With a sigh, she reluctantly agreed.
“I’ll go too,†I blurted.
“Take flashlights. And don’t be out too long past dark, please.â€
And so we went, plates in hand, to the dock. We sat next to each other, eating silently for some time. Micah snacked on a raw carrot, and looked out past the lake, as if he were staring beyond the woods, focused on nothing in particular.
“I wish we were regular kids,†he said.
I turned to look at him, confused by the statement. “What do you mean?â€
Eyes still ahead, he sighed and shrugged. “I want to go to a real school. I want to meet people. I want to have friends.â€
Everything he said to me was a revelation. I had never known he had felt that way before. It was just how we were raised. It was supposed to be good for us.
“Yeah,†I said dumbly. “I guess you’re right.â€
We spent the rest of our time outside in the quiet, the only light the moon’s silver reflection shimmering on the surface of the water.
Over the next couple of days, I noticed Micah’s mood had significantly worsened. He seemed irritated and constantly tired. I figured it was the weight of what he had said on his mind, but after the third day past, I became worried. I would crack open his door and stare into the dark of his room to get a look at him, but he would promptly throw his blanket over his face and tell me to get lost.
After consulting with my mother, she had gone into his room, sang to him a bit, and no doubt given him some tincture of her own creation to relieve whatever ailment. When she came out, closing the door quietly behind her, I asked her what she thought was wrong.
“Probably just a stomach bug,†she reassured me. “He’ll be fine in no time. Just let him rest.â€
That night, I awoke to the sound of Micah shuffling down the hallway into the bathroom. He turned on the sink. After several minutes went by and the sink was still running, I went to check on him.
“Micah…?†I called out, knocking on the bathroom door.
“Go back to bed,†he ordered. His voice sounded strange.
In any other case, I would have done what my big brother had told me to. This time, however, I was too concerned to simply leave it be. I pushed the door open and saw Micah gulping down a cup of water. He was drinking too fast for his mouth’s capacity and lines of water were trickling down his chin and on to his pajama shirt. His entire chest was soaked. As soon as the cup was empty, he ran it right back under the faucet, filled it, and began drinking again.
“Micah?†I said again, my voice barely above a whisper.
He turned to look at me and I saw that he was much more ill than I could have imagined. His skin was so pale it was as if you could see right through it. His eyes, surrounded by dark rings, seemed to be sunken into his skull and absurdly bulging out all at once.
“My mouth is dry,†is all he managed to say.
Micah’s condition only worsened. My dad begged my mother to take him to the hospital. She always refused, claiming it was just a virus and we needed to let it past. Micah lay in bed all day, never even doing so much as to lift the remote to turn on the TV. I stayed next to his bed. I tried to talk to him sometimes, but he would seldom respond. He only stared up at the ceiling, his eyelids heavy and drooping with fatigue. He constantly begged for glasses of water. He asked for water so often, in fact, that we all had to take shifts watching him and bringing water to his room for him to drink. It was clear he was critically dehydrated.
On top of that, he seemed to always be coughing and it was a horrible sound, as if he were trying to hack up something in his throat that just wouldn’t budge. He writhed around in his bed, his skin slick with sweat and complained of nausea and extraordinary pain.
“Where does it hurt?†one of my parents would ask.
“Everywhere,†he would respond.
Finally, after several days of much of the same, my mother gave in. Seeing as the nearest town was miles and miles away, she agreed to have my father take him the following day. I was so relieved. I assured Micah he would be okay. For the first time since he had gone ill, he turned to look at me with a small, warm smile on his face.
“Love ya, buddy,†he said.
The morning before Micah was to be taken to the hospital, I heard footsteps outside my room. I figured it was one of my parents fetching Micah some water. When I looked out the window, I saw it was still in the very early hours of the day. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. The sound of the front door opening and shutting prompted me to get out of bed to investigate. When I passed by the open door to my parent’s bedroom, I saw that both of them were still sound asleep, cozily wrapped in their blankets.
Micah.
I jogged to the front door and left the house. I caught a glimpse of Micah disappearing into the treeline, heading towards the lake. His movements were unnatural- his limbs drooped limply and his neck fell forward. He seemed to be in the final moments of removing his shirt, which he let slip off behind him. I quickly followed after.
Micah had left a trail of discarded clothing. When I reached the end of the trail and saw the lake stretched out before me, I froze in confusion and fear. Micah was completely naked, skin jaundiced, standing at the end of the dock.
I called out his name. My big brother’s name.
He turned and looked at me, and I could see his gut was severely distended. His eyes were so yellow.
He spoke coarsely, “Water.â€
I watched in horror as his body slumped into the lake. My legs finally kicked into gear and I ran to the end of the dock, kneeling over the edge. Micah was flailing around wildly and gasping for air as his head bobbed below the surface and over again. He seemed to have lost the ability to swim. I uselessly held out a hand to him.
For a moment, it seemed like he was heading towards the dock, extending his own arm to grab mine. Then, his head wrenched back and he let out a deep, painful moan. His nose wrinkled like one’s does before they’re about to sneeze. He lifted his hand and inserted his thumb and index finger into his mouth, pinching at the back of his throat. He loudly gagged as he pulled what appeared to be a thick, dark hair from his gullet. I was stuck at the end of the dock, observing the sight in terror.
As the hair-like strand was pulled farther and farther from his mouth, it began to resemble a clump of hair that you would see snaked from a drain, wet and matted. Micah’s hand slipped away and the strand whipped around, clinging for a moment to Micah’s face. He was making a horrible gargling noise, clawing at his own throat as I noticed the “hair†was moving on its own volition. The clump pulsed and wriggled, untangling itself into a thin thread several feet long. It continued to extract itself from Micah’s mouth.
He stared at me, mouth agape, his eyes begging for help. He was wailing in pain, a sound more like that of an animal than a human being.
I couldn’t move.
The end of the hair-like creature finally escaped Micah’s throat and his eyes slid shut. The length of it had to be nearly thirty feet long, impossibly long. I watched as it knotted itself into a single mass and drifted away into the dark depths of the water.
All was silent except for the sound of the waves splashing at the dock. Micah’s body swayed lifelessly at the surface. His belly looked like a deflated white balloon. My brother, my big brother, was gone.
I screamed. I screamed until nothing more could come.
I don’t remember much of what happened after that. My parents came running down to the lake. I vaguely recall my mother’s mournful cries as my father pulled Micah’s naked body to shore.
The official cause of Micah’s death was listed as cardiac arrest. When his corpse was examined, they found that Micah had an extreme infestation of a rare parasite. It was likely he had ingested the larvae from eating unwashed produce from a garden. Very few humans had been diagnosed with the parasite prior to Micah’s instance, and their afflictions were much less severe. In 2009, in Kyoto, an older woman felt she had something stuck in her throat and rinsed her mouth with a saline solution, the creature spat into the sink below. Another boy had the parasite plucked from his mouth by his own mother.
The parasite is known for its tendency to fill cavities in the body and to entangle the organs. Micah’s had wrapped tightly enough to cause a tourniquet around his innards, meaning that even if he had survived the ordeal, his organs would have been so damaged that he wouldn’t have lived much longer afterwards. An aquatic being, it must direct its host to a body of water in order to expel and keep itself alive.
We weren’t able to have a funeral for Micah. A prestigious university’s laboratory kept Micah’s body to examine and conduct tests, meaning my last vision of Micah was of his pale, bloated form swaying in the water.
My mother changed after that. Her strict, natural lifestyle was tossed away. She didn’t talk to me much anymore, let alone keep up with my health habits. I could finally do what I wanted. I was able to hang out with anyone I chose and eat anything I dreamed of. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t want it. It felt wrong.
Dad found me in a manic state once, three-quarters through shaving my head. I had seen one of the locks of my dark hair in my peripheral vision, and for a moment I imagined that it was wriggling out of my scalp. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Still, even years later, I keep my head completely bald. Any loose hair drifting across the ground is a thirsty worm looking for a suitable host. Every floor in my home must be tile or hardwood, not carpet. Psychologists tell me that I have trichophobia, an intense fear of hair and all things hair-like. A wariness of medication instilled in me at an early age by my mother leaves me too scared to seek out treatment.
I’ve changed my brother’s name in this passage to keep his memory intact- there are case files drifting around online with his real name and I’d rather people not see the invasive details.
Why am I sharing this information? I don’t know. Much of it is an expression of my own grief. I suppose part of it is a warning to the masses. It’s unlikely you’ll ever contract this parasite. The cases are few and far between, and never, to my knowledge, to the extent of Micah’s suffering.
Still, if you ever find yourself impossibly thirsty, or have that gnawing feeling that there’s something lodged in your throat that you just can’t seem to cough up…
Well, perhaps it’s best to err on the side of caution.


Source.

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