Elephant in the Room

Benton Shultz had a big nose. Everyone said so. His kindergarten classmates called him Big Nose Schnoz, and his high school peers called him worse. His co-workers didn’t say anything, but it was written in their sidelong glances.

All that would change, thanks to this flyer he had found beneath his windshield wiper.

Want to look perfect? Smaller letters followed: No surgery required. Then this back alley address.

The office consisted of one room, fake plants, a wall of drawers, a desk, and a man in a doctor’s white coat.

“What can I do for you?”

“Can’t you tell just by looking at me?” Benton asked, and sure enough, the doctor’s gaze caught on the hooked honker in the middle of his face.

“It will cost you.”

Benton didn’t care. He wanted this beak gone. He didn’t understand the explanation in the brochure the doctor handed him, nor did the doctor’s lecture make it any clearer. He took away only one point: This would make his nose perfectly normal.

He signed all the papers.

“When do we make this happen?”

The doctor closed a drawer, hiding an object behind his back. “Now.”

“Really? There’s no blood work or any—”

The doctor pinched Benton’s nose, jerked his head back, and poured a vial of clear liquid down his throat.

Released, Benton coughed. “You couldn’t have just told me to drink it?”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“I can take my medicine without it having to be shoved down my throat.” He patted his nose. “It doesn’t feel any different.”

“You should notice subtle changes throughout the week.”

Thus assured, Benton went home, checking the mirror as often as he blinked. This eagerness was childish. He wouldn’t be able to watch the changes happen. Turning off his selfie camera, he promised he wouldn’t check again until morning.

All night long, his nose throbbed.

When daylight came, he faced the mirror and performed a thorough inspection. Yes, his snout might have been a smidgen smaller. Throughout the day, nothing could erase his smile.

The next day, he convinced himself that his proboscis was even more minute. Yet, the third day, he noticed something else.

“My nose is great,” he told the doctor as he entered the alley office.

“Then what seems to be the problem?”

“Well, now that my nose isn’t so huge, don’t you think my ears stand out too much?”

The doctor steepled his hands. “I can fix that, but again, it’ll cost you.”

Benton still didn’t care, and this time he drank the dose just to prove he would, even if it was nasty. The momentary discomfort was nothing next to the years of teasing and judgement.

A month later, his mother came to visit.

“Notice anything different about me?”

She hugged him tight. “Of course, my elephant in the room. That is a lovely haircut.”

“No, well, yes, I did get a haircut.” He pulled back. “Anything else? About my face?”

She shook her head.

“Mom, do you seriously not see it? I’ve shrunk my nose down to a normal size!”

After a silent moment, she held in a chuckle. “Benton, your nose was never big. We only said it was because you had a bad habit of sticking it everywhere it didn’t need to be.”