Brenda Moguez

Flash Fiction Friday – August 5, 2011, 2011

“You look tired,” Lila said.

“I am. I want to go home,” Ray said.

“Not yet Dad, Dr. Sanchez said four more days, at least.”

“They shaved my head, drilled in it, and left a hole. Look at me.”

“You look like a holy man on a pilgrimage.”

“Didn’t you hear me? They drilled a big hole in my head, and shaved it.”

“But they took out the tumor.”

“I want to go home, take a shower, sleep in my own bed, and go to the bathroom. Make
them take this tube out of me, and take this smelly bag away. It smells, I smell. My
scalp itches. I think there are bugs crawling around on my head. Do I have bugs?”

“You don’t have bugs on your head.”

“I can feel them all over my head—it itches. Will you check, please?”

“OK, I’ll look.”

“Well?”

“No bugs.”

“Why is my head tingling?”

“Because they drilled a hole in your head, remember?”

“How could I forget, I look like a holy man now. A smelly holy man with a big hole in his
head with bugs, lots of bugs.”

“At least you still have your sense of humor, Dad.”

“Lila, help me up. I want to go to the bathroom. Call the nurse and have them take this tube out of me.”

“Not yet. Dr. Sanchez said after physical therapy and you’ve walked up and down the hall a few times then they’ll take it out.”

“When is that going to happen?”

“Tomorrow, today you rest.”

“I can walk now, I’ll show you. Untie the straps so I can get up.”

“You’re not tied down. The after effect of the morphine is making your thoughts fuzzy.

“And the bugs?”

“Yes, and the bugs.”

“And feeling like a magnet is holding me hostage on this bed?”

“Yes, it’s the morphine. It’s why you are loopy.”

“Not the tumor?”

“No more tumor, only drugs.”

“Bring me some water. My tongue is growing fungus. My lips are cracked and peeling
away. What’s wrong with my lips? They’re sticking to my teeth.”

“Here, let me rub some Chap Stick on your lips. Better?”

“I’m thirsty, bring me some water.”

“No water yet.”

“But my throat, it’s like cut glass down there, when I swallow it’s bringing up the blood; it tastes like copper.”

“You can have ice chips. Suck on these for while, and you’ll feel better.”

“Thanks honey. I still want to go home, take a shower, and use the toilet.”

“I know Dad.”

“I think God is giving me a second chance.”

She didn’t want to have this conversation. He’s all she ever had, but sometimes she’d joke after two glasses of wine that had she a choice she rather have been a foster kid.

“Dad, you need to rest.”

“Lila, I might not wake up. I want…”

“Later, there is time aplenty for words.”

“I owe you more than words, I want to try…”

“Dad, I…I can’t say what you want to hear, not now, not yet, maybe not ever, I’m not
ready. I’m here now, and will stay with you, that is all I can promise now.  Rest.”

Lila sat with her Dad until he fell asleep before sneaking into the bathroom. She unzipped her jeans and slid them down her almost solid thighs, sat on the cold toilet seat, and folded her body in half until her face was flush with her open palms that were resting on the tops of her knees. She let loose what she had been fighting so hard to keep contain—her composure.

With one exhale, it burst. She sobbed. Her tears bypassed trickling, and slipped through her fingers. She watched them dodging two day’s worth stubble on her legs traveling without interruption until reaching the tops of her black and white striped socks before disappearing into the plush cotton.

Even though she had finished crying, she remained folded in half. It was restful, womb like. The tears had dried, but the tops of her knees and fingers were still warm from the tears. She thought about what Dr. Sanchez had said. “If it goes as I expect, Ray has a good chance of full recovery. Still there are no guarantees.”

After a while, she peered through the space between her fingers and took visual inventory of the floor. Everything was white except the grey grout, and a small portion of pipes behind the toilet. For a few seconds, she considered praying. A bad idea—she had given up faith for Lent. No point in giving God three more reasons to strike her dead; praying, which might turn his ambiguity into wrath, the sudden surge of compassion for her father she had hoped would pull through, and there was that glowing red heart she had tattooed on her right butt cheek.

“Lila, where are you?”

“Coming Dad.”   She stood up, pulled her jeans over her curvy hips, zipped them up and took stock of her reflection in the mirror. He wouldn’t notice the missing eyeliner she cried away, and turned to leave her temporary sanctuary with her composure securely in place.

“Lila what do you think?”

“About what?”

“My chances?’

“Nine lives, you have eight left.”

“God will have expectations.”

“Yes, and..”

“And?”

“And now you’re a Holy man with a hole in his head, with a second chance.”

“Indeed.”

Man-Ripe

Dear Lover ~

I am tangled in hotel sheets with your scent fresh upon my body writing another letter in my head and you haven’t even finished dressing.  My letter will begin by telling you about a new study.

Dearest Lover it will start.  I read an article in the paper today about the brain hooked on love.  It stood me still, at last a name for my illness.  Be still my beating heart, all good things come to those who wait I will say to you.  Lover of mine I read with haste, devouring each word, one by one, then two by two, and then full sentences in one inhale, greed replaced patience.  I reached the end of the article disappointed to find there was no known cure, no studies at the Mayo Clinic, no clinical trials to volunteer for.  It was early days in the study.  You will read my letter as you do all of them, smile knowingly, and whisper to the wind; absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence my dear, and read on.

Lover I will say, this is one of many letters to you regarding the state of my heart.  Mine is a cursed heart hooked on love.  Lover, you are the first person I wrote my inside thoughts to, the first person to see the world through my eyes, hear my tears fall, to love me hard, you are the first to receive my love letters.  In my letters, I gave you a million reasons to love me.   Do you, I wonder.  Lover, I will tell you of my plan to self cure my cursed heart.  My plan entails rereading all of my letters to you.  Surely, nothing can mend an addicted heart faster than reading copies of old Love Letters.

Lover’s letters are wrapped in tissue paper, bound with kite string, and stored in a cast off shoebox, placed at the top of the closet and found the day after your funeral by grown-up children.  Where do you store my love letters I wonder?

You are smiling because I am saying for the 650^th time this is positively the very last Love Letter you will receive from me.  I suspect there is some doubt and if I were you, I would harbor similar feelings because even I am not certain this will be the last.  Still, I am from strong breeding, taught by wolves and gypsies, and pray that I will find a thread of dignity one day and leave you at the side of the road.  Lover, you know it’s not your honey kisses, your strong arms, or even that lanky body of yours that is sending me to Coventry seeking asylum.  There are no logical reasons that explain why I stay, or why we love as do.  It’s our anniversary of seven years this week can you believe it?  Seven years ago, in passing, I mentioned my burning desire to kiss you, a mere slip of an inside never to be shared thought, and here we are tangled in sheets of passion – still.

Lover, reading the letters I wrote to you made my skin tingle, little tremors exploded throughout my body reminding me of our first kiss, holding hands, and how well our hands fit together, glove over hand, second skin, and knowing your hands belonged on my body.  It was that sort of fit, we were waiting for that moment, also terrified how we both felt the rush the instant we touched.  I ran.  As I read my letters to you last night my skin grew hot, smoldering, and eventually my humiliation burned the skin right off my body as I read each and every pathetic word.  My soul howled “HOW COULD YOU?”  I myself wondered  the same, and thought perhaps someone had stolen my identity and written those letters, using my voice, my font, and my email address because surely I would never do anything so utterly stupid as to write someone all those inside thoughts I keep tethered tightly to my soul.

Lover, we have reached the seven-year mark and show no signs of ‘settling’ into companionate love, you continue to leave me undone and breathing into a paper bag.  Mine is a cursed heart.  I want out.  I want to feel the ground beneath my feet when I walk.  No more, love is for the strong, and hearty, I say.  I yearn to return to my romance novels where there are strapping Irish lads of days gone by who rip away the bodices of red haired, buxom women.  I want to live vicariously.  My love, I know by now you are bemused by now, but will read to the end.

Our union is big I will tell you, but nonsensical.   Lover I know you will shake your head as if to remind me there are unexplained moments in a life, some are not measurable or definable.  You will want me to remember that on rare instances when words cannot be found for an occasion, acceptance is readily available if your choose it.  You will me to conclude that the forces of attraction are in many ways mysterious and return to your work.

You will work for weeks on end before feeling my thoughts rip at your body, and with a rush, you will ache for my touch.  You will think to yourself, this is not good for either one of us.  Still, you will reach for the phone and call me.  You know as I, logic is never around when you need it.

Lover, I will say, mine is a cursed heart, and you will say, we are all cursed by something.  Such is our love of seven years. I will remind you that I will most likely send more love letters, to which you will say, of course.  Later after we have made love, you will ask me if re-reading the love letters I wrote to you helped me with my cursed heart.  To which I reply NO!  Reading old love letters is not for the faint of heart, worse for a cursed one, and then I will tell you about the new study, lovers hooked on love.

Yours, until there is a cure for hearts such as mine.

I agreed and he agreed that we would remain friends and that was all we could be, but when the invitation came across to come see him, I said yes without hesitation. What did I think would happen when I was standing alone in front of him that we would discuss the price of tea in China?  I made excuses to my office, I don’t recall what they were, but it was bland and believable.  I left in the middle of the day without ever having to explain why.  No one questioned me because I had never done anything remotely dishonest, and if I said I had to go home to water my tomato plants and catch worms, no one would think to challenge me.  (Now if asked where I am going, I respond, ‘I’m going to see my lover’.  It’s the truth.  The question-asker shakes their head and laughs at my response, thinking I am joking.  I smile inside and remind myself when in doubt the truth is sometimes the best answer.)

That first afternoon I drove like Batman through Metropolis, as if death were on my heels, and wondered the entire journey what we were going to discuss once I arrived and what would happen when I was standing within three feet of him.  In my head, I rehearsed our conversation or at least my side of it, at last eighty-nine times.    It went something like this, ‘I thought about what you said, and agree.  We are a mistake, and what happened the other night was just ….?‘  Just what had happened between me, the flighty artist, and he, the rocket scientist, was not explainable to me back then, anymore than it is now.  It’s one of those questions in life that is better left on the top self of the closet collecting dust.

I never cemeted the part about what had happened to us perfected.  Each time I researched my lines in my car on the drive over that afternoon when it came for me to insert a reason for the rush of emotion into my script I’d come up with something different.   I’d say it was the Tequila, and then the next time I’d say it was the crimson sunset standing on the edge of the Bay with the sound of lapping waves echoing in my ears, and on and on it went.  Nothing quite fit, so each time I went through the script of ‘just friends’, I couldn’t find a reason for the explosion of passion that had erupted and consumed us when we kissed. (Upon reflection, I’m sure if I had locked on a reason and stuck to it that moment when we were alone in his office that first afternoon, I might have sideswiped a love affair, but then I would not have a story to write.  However, I am not entirely certain.  I have a feeling that regardless of paths taken, or choices made, there are some events in a life that are inevitable.)

Once I arrived, I stood outside his office twenty minutes before turning the knob and walking through the doors.  I knew he was alone, and knew as sure as the breath that was stuck in my chest at that instant the wise move would be to turn around and leave that door unopened.

Instead, I passed GO and collected.

My not yet, but almost, and very soon to be, lover tells me, I have commitments, another life that is full, too full to add more.  This…, us, isn’t a good idea.

I read his words, which arrived in an email, a million times at least. Where was this logic the previous night when your hands were traveling across every inch of my body, I asked the empty room, the brick walls of my office.  There was no answer, only the question hanging in the void, which is a question that I come back to and have from the start of our love affair.

In a life, there are memories painted on a canvas in vibrant watercolors, the images not defined leaving the edges to the imagination, but other memories are photocopies of days long since gone where there is no room for interpretation.   This is one of those memories.  I remember, and sometimes I wish I did not, the moment I whispered across the table to this man, I only want to kiss you, the email with the words’, I’ve no time, and the exact moment my heart betrayed me.  Mostly I remember agreeing with him that he and I were not a good idea. (Before the kiss, before the confession, before I realized there were unexplained connections between two unlikely souls, such as him and me, I knew that falling for someone that belonged to another was not a choice I would have made. With the wisdom of years and heartache, I’d swear before the world, yesterday, today and tomorrow, that some choices are made without a person’s conscious consent.)

I read his email; disappointment filled me from the lids of my eyes down to the tips of my toes.  He was right and I agreed.  There was no room in my heart for a lover that belonged to a bigger world, one where there was no room for me.  I replied in kind with all the bravado my traitor heart could muster, I agree that you and I are a bad idea.  I blame it on the Tequila, the sunset, the sea mist wafting off the Bay.  It was only a kiss.  One endless stream of electricity flowing from me to you, you to me, and back again, it was just a physical connection of skin and soul, of bodies that fit–fit as a pair of lamb leather gloves fit a medium sized hand, snug and precise.    Friends?

He agreed, I agreed, and we two settled on a suitable connection.  I knew that this would only work if we maintained our entire connection virtually.  I had no faith that if he were within twenty-four inches of me that I could fight the pull he had over my physical being.  This magnetic connection was and is intoxicating.  In all the days before him, and since him, the electric connection of attraction is the reason I get out of bed every morning.  To know that there is one feeling that defies gravity, lofty spiritual pursuits, and perfectly brewed Jamaican Mountain Blue seven days a week, is reasoning enough to keep breathing.