a plate of cakes

We’re talking outside the hospital about strange jobs we’d been to recently. Gary tells us about the guy with the creatures in his arm.

‘He’d already been up the hospital with it. Even a referral to that specialist place, but they didn’t find anything and wrote it all off as Delusional Parasitosis. Anyway, nice chap. Normal as you like, but his arm was scabbed up like he’d been having a real old go of it, and it was obviously a problem. There! he says. Right there! Can’t you see ‘em? I was pretty neutral about it and didn’t say anything, but to be honest it did look like there might be some tiny little black things in there. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. That’s just what I thought. He wanted me to take a photo with my camera, but I said it wasn’t good enough to pick anything out. Anyway, he said he felt sick with it all and would I take him up the hospital. He went to get his coat and I was standing there, finishing the paperwork. There was this plate of cakes on the table, French Fancies. You can’t beat a nice French Fancy. Help yourself! he says, coming back in. And he picks the plate up and holds it under my nose. I mean, I particularly like the yellow ones – but I’d started to see worms in everything, in that little blister of cream on the top. So I said no thanks.’