She coughs rankled liquids while slurping English breakfast tea, cream and sugar on the side just in case she feels like dessert. Her body edges into mine. A television in the corner flickers hints of holidays coming soon. Pupils burrow into my cheek. She wears all green. From the scarf layered over a sweater, tugged to the hip of her skirt, covering the knees of tights shoved inside floppy soled shoes. The only absence of green is the shock of white hair that stands in knots, stiffening away from her ears. Say, I think I need some postage stamps. There’s a letter she wants to write to someone not too far, just up north a few miles from Galway. Sure she can borrow a pen. She can’t remember the last time she saw them. Oh they’re going to be so happy when they get this. She just knows it. Dear someone. She thinks they run some sort of food store. What do you call that? A drawing of space uninhabitable, a sign above the door reads SUPERMARKE. No T. She’s positive there isn’t a T. That’s that. My pen drops to the table. The envelope slides across her tongue. She confirms its seal with her fatty palm. Thanks for helping me. It’s Christmas. Everyone gets a Christmas box for Christmas. So she says as she hops up off the bench and waddles into the other room. I hope she doesn’t come back. Her smell festers, one part domesticated rodent, two parts gum infection. I sip tea in the winter glow of indoor lamplight, in the beam of a waning moon. If I want I can open my presents. They stack in a small pile on the table. A toilet paper roll and an advent calendar wrapped in yesterday’s obituaries. She nudges my shoulder, rubbing her hands together in maternal delight. I’m grateful for the insides, half eaten chocolate and a broken keyring made in China. Impressive no? Thanks I say, thanks and thanks and thanks. I won’t be home for Christmas. What a perfect substitute. So now you can let me have a drawing. But no I say. The drawing is part of this story. She coughs wiping the back of her hand on her knee. She coughs, spraying phlegm into the air. She coughs aiming for my face, my cheeks blister with her spittle. She coughs. I’ve had this cold you see. She coughs again. And now you have it too.
Ms. Multnomah County
What did she want to be when she grew up? Not this. She plucks a gray hair from her pubis. Compares her legs to other legs, longer, leaner varieties. The lady on the cover of the art catalog looks firm and impressionable. She’s only interesting once, after the right hand is shaken. What have you been doing lately? Grilling chicken, bedtime routines, scouring mold from the bathroom drain. Pushups on knees. They say days pile up onto other days. They begin to go faster and faster. But she thinks, days, if they are filled properly, if they contain vivid color, wild sound and nuanced flavor, they will obliterate the illusion of slow-or-fast time. She’s working on this. Today she will go into the office and observe it like a performance. Cubicles and vacuum sealed lunches in the refrigerator. Meetings about meetings about meetings. False smiles. The disappointment of summer’s sun bidding us all farewell. Talk of rain to come. She considers answering questions about weekend plans using the horn of a narwhal. The flop of blubber on the Pacific coastline. The hollow ring of gargantuan bones. We didn’t fuck this weekend, but I did sniff packs of wild humans in malls. Her new favorite pastime. There isn’t a need to share. Or is there? Trees share sound. Psithurism. Trees drop leaves. Abscission. It’s not happening, she says to herself as she sees the greening of the leaves still affixed to their branches. When they fall will they still consider the branches theirs? The Korean future teller holds her head in her hands. You think very much. Maybe you can soften these thoughts a bit. Cotton candy and clouds, memory foam, rabid froth. She used to write letters to a long ago lover, but now they are buried inside a machine she no longer has access to. Watch what you say. Endings can happen faster than beginnings. The spirit lady sends her an email with hearts and prayer hand emoticons and she can’t help but think the spirit lady is concerned about her well being. So she drives with added space between herself and other cars and opens her eyes like she’s underwater on the lookout for predators.
photo by Seth Lawless
Sue
I see her at the grocery store hunched inside the bodycare aisle, squinting against the fine print on shampoo bottles. Flip flops and cut off shorts, a Warrant t-shirt, hands clutching a carton of Marlboro Lights and a six pack of Diet Pepsi. Vices that she once announced were the toxins of humanity. Soda and smoking are just cancer waiting to happen. So I quit. Smoking and beef and cheese, corn syrup and transfats. I learned the roast beef we shaved into paper thin slices for our customer’s American sandwiches was flayed from the hind quarters of innocent bovine. You don’t want to see what they do to those poor cows. She scrubbed her face with coconut oil in the employee bathroom. Her shiny ponytail bounced as she cantered between the fry and salad stations. The Eurythmics hummed while sopping up grease stains with a mop. Books on astrology, feet up on the table, yogic stretches between preparing curly fry orders. This isn’t my forever place. One day I’ll leave. Right now I’m here for the mountains. I follow her through the store from a distance, observing the shape of her petite body from behind, somehow thinner, more frail than I remember, hair stringier, duller. I call her name, once, twice, three times. She limps a little on the left. A car accident, a ski accident, death accident. Trauma keeps us from remembering our names. My hand taps her shoulder. Her ruddy face turns to me, scarred and cracking under florescent lights. My body attempts to hug hers. She recoils, opens her mouth, chipped tooth protruding from red gums. Sorry lady, you’re mistaking me for my twin sister, happens sometimes.
