Greetings—A Woman's Perspective or a Room with a View of Everything but You

The light hesitated briefly before coming fully on. White splashed the room's forgotten corners, and—like a pie to the face—the memory of the night we practiced cart wheels on our knees was the first thing to greet me. I don't know why. Maybe I felt a little inept; a little chopped at the knees. The next thing was his scent. It must have clung for life, that month in solitude, to the inanimate furnishings pushed calculatedly into place to best illustrate to guests how we are visual, how we are wily and deranged.
It must have jumped for joy, the scent, upon being stirred by my presence (because a scent without a nose is like a memory without a heart to break: a useless hanging sort of thing). I hadn't been in here since, strangled by panic, I limped to my parent's front door, silently begging to be taken care of—because taken care of is what people need when they don't know what they need—and that was nearly a month ago.
I talk myself through the story of my life quite frequently this way. Sometimes, I even talk to an imagined version of him. I say, "How dare you?" He says, "It just happened."
I wonder why he never says the things I want him to say. I always make him respond just the way he actually would were he here. What does that say about me?
I finished separating my things from his at about 7pm. I didn't cry once. I accomplished this by removing all emotion from the actions. Instead, I was practicing a technical skill. Like taking apart a lanyard or cable rope, strand by strand. I was a master of deft maneuvers. This could not be done by just anyone. One epileptic seizure is all it would take to blow this whole operation. So I concentrated on not convulsing.
The day after I finished extricating my material possessions from his, I was at the laundromat washing his scent off of my things. The clothes were easy enough to handle, but it was the bed sheets that were my undoing. I lifted a sheet from the basket, and our smell grabbed me right by the nostrils. There was nothing subtle about it. It just came leaping at my face, screaming "You will pay attention to me." So I did.
I looked at the sheets. And right there was our entire story.
There was our hair, tangled and inextricably entwined—an impossible rope no master of deft maneuvers could unbind. Then there were our eye lashes, staked into the fabric like mile markers in a race we knew we couldn't finish. And finally were our stains—of love or misery, of ecstasy or lament—serving to punctuate the story of two people who belonged to each other for just a little while.

Faces

"What's so funny?" Dr. Nrwal asked.
"Everything," I said, "sincerely, everything."
"That's a lot to find funny, Mr. Johns."
"I have a great sense of humor, Doctor."

Riding home on the N47, I couldn't shake loose this tiny cluster of giggles that had lodged itself in my throat. Every so often, a bit would break off and escape as a clipped, spasmodic snort, but for the most part, the giggles just sat there simmering like a slow-cooked mash somewhere between my chin and chest. An elderly black woman smiled at me from across the aisle.
It was my 30th birthday and the doctor had just informed me I was—wholly, utterly, dismayingly—healthy.
The bus stopped and lurched forward at regular intervals. I let my body go limp when the driver hit the brakes and I bounced around like an unstrung marionette. The elderly black woman smiled a little more weakly. I found the skin around her mouth to be exquisite.
Outside, the snow was still falling. None of it was sticking. It was too warm. The snow instantly became whatever it is that it becomes between ice and water—a great big slush that permeated the stitching of your boots, slowly freezing you from the ground up. It inevitably ruined your day one precious calorie of heat by one.
I rested my head against the cool glass of the window and let my breath fog up the outline of my face. Just then, I became so intensely nostalgic for the tiny crater where my nose now was, that I imagined the bus suddenly skidding off the road, swerving to miss pedestrians before finally flipping over onto its side, disfiguring me once more. Possibly, the crash could tear the flesh of my nose off my face. At very least, I could pop an eye, its gelatinous innards running a satisfying streak down my jawline.
Still leaning against the glass, I let my vision focus on my reflection. So blue, my eyes. So smooth, my skin. So flawless, and yet so vile. I banged my head against the glass a little more furiously than I had intended. The elderly black woman shuffled her feet under her.
"Excuse me, young man?"
"I'm sorry, did I disturb you, ma'am?"
"No, I don't mind. God knows I feel in my heart like banging my head against the wall for days sometimes. I just mean, are you okay? It seems to be that nobody's ever asking anybody if they're okay these days. It's like you could be walking down the street on fire and people would say, 'Oh, that old schtick,' and they'd keep on walking just the same as if they hadn't seen anything at all. But, young man, you look distressed! You really do. I know you'll probably say you're okay, but I can see for myself. You are certainly not okay."
"You're right ma'am. I've just been feeling a little out of sorts for the last seven years."
"Oh dear. Seven years, you say? Forgive me, if I'm wrong, but are you involved in..."
"Yes, ma'am."
"My God. I've never seen one like you. You're stunning."
"Yes, ma'am. I know. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
The bus stopped abruptly.
"This is my stop, ma'am."

Vlad in the Shit

"That's quite a big game to be talking, for such a little guy. Do me a favor? Keep talking."
"I will."
"Good."
"Your mother's a whore."

For a moment, neither Vlad nor the much larger man moved a hair. They stood there by the beat-up wood of the bar, with the sounds of the place just cascading over everything. This place was dirty. How we ended up squaring off against the Irish boys in this place, I don't remember. It was that sort of place. It soaked into your skin, made you act a certain way. It made you feel dangerous. And we were drenched in it. Especially Vlad. He looked tough standing his ground against this sandpaper-faced brute, but a second later he was on his back. At least four flannel clad individuals were blurs of fists and elbows coming up and down again at his shape. Somewhere between the jukebox and the rest room is where he ended up. A John Mellencamp song came on, and I decided I was going to do something stupid.

"Hey. Fucktart."
The Irish boys turned toward the sound of my voice.
"How about a fair fight? Or are you all going for a quick bathroom break together, maybe play with each other in the stalls a bit?"
Now, in my not-quite limited experience with barroom brawls, I've found that a well placed quip can do wonders for disarming the bomb of an ugly situation. This is why I was surprised when none of the Irish fellows cracked the edge of a smile. It was just rage in their eyes. I thought to myself, this is a huge mistake. A smaller guy, about my size came right for me. Possibly, he didn't notice I was holding a glass mug in each fist. Possibly, he just didn't care. I got him right in the temple with the mug in my right, and it didn't even break. There was a satisfying thud that sprung the other boys straight into action. Now there were five.
What these guys didn't realize is that I've much more experience in getting the piss beat out of me by multiple parties than singly. I find that the more people there are trying to get a piece of you, the greater the chances are that not a one will really be able to put too much power into it. Arms get tangled, fists get deflected—it's a much uglier thing to watch than to actually be at the bottom of. When I dropped, the mugs in my fists smashed against the cement floor. Now they were a jagged mess of thick angular glass. I cut, slashed and stabbed their knees and thighs until they backed off. One of the boys got it real bad. The blood flowed like a burst pipe on the inside of his leg.
"What the fuck did you do that for? What the fuck is the matter with you? Somebody call a fucking ambulance!"
"Go fuck your mothers, you fucking pussies!" I yelled.
"Geez Christ, man, calm down. Get your buddy and take a fucking hike, huh? Before the cops show."
It was then that I remembered Vlad. I scanned the floor before seeing him sitting at one of the tables near the entrance. The bastard was just drinking a beer, gingerly as anything. As if he were waiting for me to finish up in the rest room or something.
And that's the way the sonofabitch always was. He had a knack for the setting things into motion part of things, but he was always ducking out mid-shitstorm and leaving the mess for some poor moron who happened to call himself a friend that day. It was impressive, really.

Andres

Andres stepped into a tangle of light, looked above him to the sparse canopy of trees for a moment, and then sat down. He pitched his wide-brimmed hat back onto the crown of his head. Behind him, he heard the dogs tied to the cement wash basins snoring loudly in the shade. He cocked his head toward them for a minute before looking ahead to where the trees stretched out toward the inevitable meniscus of the valley.
Just past the useless palm and bursera trees, the land sloped gently down, seemingly forever, spanning acre upon acre of coffee fields before settling into the cradle of the valley. There, a small stream carried an endless brigade of leaves and twigs off to the river.
Andres sat there, illuminated in patches where the canopy allowed, and wondered aloud, "Where are you, you little fucker?"

All Night

All night, sleeping, I push unreal creatures off my chest. They're wild things come to lick the salts from my skin. I smile at first as a corrugated tongue sweeps my collarbone clean. Then, becoming aware of the danger of fangs, I attempt to scream the raw tones of human distress. The sound reaches my ears as a muted grunt, the same low groan that escaped my body as a boy writhing in the sand beneath a dock with a girl who was more woman than child. Now, I am hyper-aware of the weight on me. Its expansiveness feels as large as the dark behind my eyelids. Mercifully, I'm able to break the hold of sleep. The scream that I wanted is finally released. And I look around only to find the bedroom still and quiet as the slivers of moonlight that paint my legs gray.