Short Fiction
THREE
Points of view for the delusional and the broken-hearted.
ONE
I-ME-SIENNA
Purple-red spots three in a triangle, splatter-patterened between the two biggest of my-Sienna's ten bare toes. The floor is warm and heated as always, the walls are sponge, the table is tilted behind me-Sienna hard against my back as I-me list like a shaken ship, and the three purple-red spots smear beneath an errant foot, turned into lines.
I-me wonder about the state of the place outside, through and beyond the sponge and Eye and whitemen. Are the clouds still spiral-spinning above the house I-me once owned? Green grass and pickles and spices in jars inside white walls? The sun would bounce off that whiteness, Equatorial sun that reddens-curls skin in ten minutes, twenty maybe. Wonder about the state of Jack-JohnPatrick outisde. Is he still my-Sienna's love. Is he. Three purple-red spots the mark the end of one thing and the start of this.
The table is upside down. Legs in the air like the Portuguese once down the street. An area of mine and his that was our house of white. Next to the table crouches a glass made of plastic and a bottle wrapped in foam. Treated well though the whitemen don't like I-me-Sienna.
He can wonder about the place inside. Jack-JohnPatrick who placed within a speciality, a gift but not so profane as a gift, not a present or bargain but life, and he know's what that is, knew and cried when the spots first came.
The Eye of the whitemen watches. A grey cigar with wires and a single, round eye. It whirrs like only electric things whirr.
The wind made the shaken ship list. First of all, it puffed up the sheets. Then Jack-JohnPatrick slipped fingers like warm fishies around my-Sienna's belly, saying BROWN BELLY in a whisper in my right eye, BROWN BELLY, I ALWAYS LOVED YOUR BROWN, SUNKISSED BELLY. Real fishes had jumped out of the water, actually out, beside the ship. When rain fell the sheets tore. Only a holiday boat. To take us curling around the cold grey coast to the place where the big ships left for home, for his United State where there would be fewer pickles growing but we could grow pickles if we wanted. The houses are grey with glass instead of sun-reflecting white. IT GETS COLD IN ATLANTA. And the ship had listed, toppled, and there was salt in my-Sienna's hair and under my-Sienna's tongue and his fingers slipped like cold wet fishes around my-Sienna's shoulders and pulled, swam and pulled, deposited me-Sienna he said afterwards, put in air of his own and made my-Sienna's heart beat again with his hands, with his very own hands! And the spots had followed.
Three purple-red lines in a triangle, making me-Sienna cry. DON'T CRY SIENNA BABY. Purple-red spots in the bathroom soon after. DON'T CRY BABY THE DOCTORS ARE COMING. Wasn't used to doctors, he said it was a FUCKING TRAVESTY that I didn't have doctors in Portugal. They did but I'd been talking about back home. THEY did but after I moved there wasn't much point. It costed money and I-me didn't have money. But when the spots came he said they were coming to the apartment and would park outside in the ambulance and would come up and fetch me-Sienna. -DRIVE BUT I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER TWO- because of a ticket, he said, the straw that broke the camel's back.
The Eye whirrs. Whitemen clustering outside the round window where they look in from time to time. The Eye whirrs when they come in. Take two arms and take two legs. Stick it in. Calm me down. Clean up the purple-red spots that made it happen and take away the bottle. Shouting from one of them in the form of WHO GAVE HER WINE SHE CANNOT TAKE ALCOHOL WITH THE MEDICATION SHE'S ON.