Bartholomew (Part 3)

“Where is the restroom in this such a humbling home?” I ask the host, the prosperous owner of a wholesale grocer that supplies every retailer in a hundred miles. He points me to the hallway, visibly upset at my having humiliated him in front of the Pope himself. The vessel of God on Earth! I further bow my head and shuffle my feet to and then down the hall; flowing on both sides are graceful heirlooms and works grander than my own. At the end of the hallway is a gaping vacancy that screamed failure in the eyes of an artisan. I realize it is my own.
The bathroom is at the far end and at the moment I disappear from view I sprint to it, the steaming soup slugging down to my wrist, to the palm, to the knuckle. I burst through the door and frantically dunk my hand in the basin; cool water glazing wound and pain, and as I watch in isolated horror, the water runs red before my eyes! I stifle a scream as the pain suddenly comes searing through me and all but tear my hand from the water. By God, how ugly is the finger, skin shriveled and red where the soup triumphed and the little flab of skin bordering my pinky…. Or what had used to border my pinky- now nonexistent-- in its place a gruesome emptiness that mortified the very complexion of my finger! I bring my appendage down on the ceramic sink, finger hanging precariously over the ledge. In a moment brought about by fear and brazened by pain, I lift a pen knife from high above my ear and bring it down upon my braced hand and chop the entirety of my 1st knuckle! Disembodying it from the remaining finger itself! Blood splatters and sprays on the glass mirror and against the pearly white of the sink and I SCREAM! SCREAM! as the joint topples and rolls and tumbles and spills down the drain!!! There is a sickening magnified mind-numbing squelch as it lands in whatever it is the things that fall down drains land in. Footsteps come trampling down the hall and I frantically look for a way out of the humiliation to follow. Only one remains obvious. The footsteps come closer.
And closer.
And closer.
I tug on my glove and burst through the door.
“RAT!” I scream maniacally as I crash through muscle back down the hall. My body breaks free from the last grasping arm but I don’t stop for a second. The wind of speed pressures the blood on my shirt to cloak around my abdomen, enshrouding a heaving stomach; my nausea remains unshielded. The words of my witless excuse needle in my head. I blow through the ceremonious door and tumble down the concrete steps to land on my back, looking up at the dead sky, looking down at the man who cries. It is raining hard and I shiver with wet even as I stumble to my feet in vain, for my foot catches on the water stretched leg of my pant and I fall to my face once more. Blood explodes in my face and my head feels like grinding stone. Crawl to and down the street, leaving a thick puddle of diluted blood in mucus and spit where I stop to rest. Eventually, surrendered, I call a carriage. My head slumps unconsciously to the glass of a window with a temporarily blinding crack, yet the pain is not to register for I am asleep before either can last. I am jostled awake by each bump in the road yet comfort reclaims its stake quickly and I sleep once more. The infinitely finite periods of dreamless wander melt time and feeling, and pain. and then I’ve given the driver four lire, for my bills are too soaked in be it water or blood. I am reminded of the first plague of Egypt.
Did they all die?