Johnson tried hard to ignore the tube and most of the time he managed to. He chose not to look at the tubes of his family. He chose not to see the tubes of his colleagues. He ignored the thick cables that showed above every cubicle in the office, cables that extended upward.
The pulling, however, he could not ignore. Every subtle twitch drew his attention back to his discovery. The temptation to touch his tube was strong but the desire was mixed with disturbing feelings of fear and revulsion. What if someone saw him do it? What if he hurt himself?
Other questions followed like plague rats; did anyone else know? Was it something normal that he just hadn’t noticed until now? Why did the kids never ask about it? Was it something that everyone knew about that remained an impenetrable taboo? If so, why didn’t anyone talk about it? Why were there no books about it, no medical information? What was the public’s opinion of it and where was the legislation that related to it?
He surfed the net for hours trying every combination of words in every search engine he knew. He found no data at all.
There was one other question too, of course. The one that scared him most. The one he never asked himself.