"A Feather"
Back to Where I Started
Cali enjoyed going down the bridge. She felt harmonious with nature as the world bragged in colors and designs. Wind flew through the trees as they shook each hand as if making a deal, “I will stand with you.” The waves slid across an infinity of sand. Already, she could see the teenagers building a bonfire and laughing, dancing right before the coming sunset.
Soon, so soon…
Cali remembered when she was a youth. The world seemed to have been a xanada in the past, touching her for a moment. She recalled her friends spitting cheap red wine into the fire, creating vibrant flames, knocking each other over and running in the sand to the ocean that sparkled in front of them, be it day or night. Even the clouds couldn’t cease their joy.
She felt unsturdy and grabbed a rail, pulling herself up. Her mind went blank. Under the sun, she saw her white skin, the kind that cannot be absorbed. It beat her in a way, and the tears chilled her brown eyes. She sat down.
“Oh, how I wish I could be free and not just a body waiting until the end. I’ll go where I began. Grab the time, my dear Lord.” She felt better when she sang. She picked herself up and looked at the kids again. The deep red colors of the sunset told her what she didn’t want to know but knew.
As soon as she reached her car, she saw the keys and her phone on her seat. She cursed and turned around. Unfortunately, the Pop That Lock people are not open until seven the next day, “Leave a message.’
“Do you live around here?” The woman in a white car asked. Her skirt dripped with cheese and sauce.
“Yeah, thanks, down on Robert Street. I’m sorry, but I am very grateful. Old women like me shouldn’t drive alone. We bring disaster everywhere really.” Cali let out a sigh. She knew her husband would scold her the moment she came in, the damn dog would betray her.
Damn dog.
Cali loved her husband, and he loved her. They bickered in their old age in a playful way. Both were old bones waiting to die in the company of Old Arthur. She croaked and let out a moan as she got out of the car and walked into her small apartment. Sure enough, Willis barked and barked and barked, not caring about her prostration.
“You just like getting me in trouble, don’t you?” She patted his head, and his drooling mouth and tongue slipped out. Old mutt. In a weird way, she loved him. When Alan brought him into the house, they’d fought.
“I don’t want a hound dog.”
“I do.”
“Well, one of us is going to be right. Gotta dig stuff up on each other for
the judge.”
“I’ve got plenty of dirt on you, buddy,” Cali said. “I know where you live.”
They both chuckled and hugged the whining dog. A feeling of tranquility rippled between them as it did during their marriage. Unlike other couples, they stayed together by the grace of true love.
Alan jumped up, frightened.
“You scare me, woman. And where’s dinner deeeeeeearrr?”
“Cali,” he questioned. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m in my prime!” She replied but began to vomit. Willis ran up to her, trying
to help her. She coughed heavily.
“You’re so intransigent,” he said.
“You’re using big words now?” She smiled with a light green ooze out of her mouth. “You’re always trying to sound smarter than me.” She coughed again.
Alan picked her up. Cali felt her bones under her clothing and Alan’s still strong arms cradled her. They’d married in HS, Cali pregnant with his daughter, an oops that turned out true enough to be good, no, wonderful...
Once they were in the bedroom, Alan slowly undressed her, put a robe on, and tucked her in with her favorite blanket. The vomit and her face were angelic as always. Her brown eyes shut.
“You know, I’d like to make a bonfire, dear,” Cali said. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “We could dance and spit our finests wine we keep for that “someone” who never comes, so we wouldn’t be embarrassed.”
The moment passed between the two.
Alan thought for a minute. He went into the living room and lit a log in the fireplace. He knew the summer’s heat would come into them both, a fanatic fever forever.
Alan put Cali in her wheelchair and they danced, and they sang.
“The wine,” Cali whispered. He got it out of the small kitchen.
“Ah, yes, for that someone. You go first. I’ll hold you.”
“Blues and purples responded as she spit. She giggled like a school girl and grasped Alan’s hand.
“It’s time,” she said.
“What?”
“To go back to where I started.” Alan began to cry, and he peacefully placed her rigid body back into the soft bed, where he cradled her for the last time.
The dark clouds slowly rolled over Maria hid a bright sun, but it gave Maria an excuse to close her eyes again. Her favorite android made her a strong brew of coffee. It traveled through the air on a special disk to Maria. She enjoyed how the hot sand soothed her desire to lie back in the covers and not get anything done.
She focused on her surroundings in her small unit with one large window and stair escape. She believed the hard rails would drop her down to the street below, oozing with blood and having a crappy grave on the moon.
Don’t get me wrong, she thought. I would like a fancy grave, as I would love a fancy
wedding with the man of my dreams.
I’m kidding myself, myself, she thought. Who would want to date Mari? Her pallid face and boring green eyes, the color of swamp water no Planet 2, did not entice men. Not only, but she owned the title of being a criminal, as she tipped the scale at two hundred pounds. The fact she had avoided fate for so long was lost to her as well.
She looked at the beautiful women across the street, a giant full of light, beauty, and love.
You know, she thought, that picture and I have something in common. We aren’t real.
“Maria, you’re going to be late,” Becky said as she hit the door. The metal door sounded like a trash can gong on an old movie channel.
“Becky!” Maria put her coffee down and ran to the door. The cold floor grabbed at her petite feet. Her long, blonde hair caught the light.
Becky’s sober eyes met Maria’s green and ugly gaze.
Becky could have been a movie star, Maria thought. Her jet black hair and height made a bold statement wherever she went. The two mirrored each other, much in the way life does opposites.
She did have a past. She went to a disciplinarian school as a kid and rebelled in every degree against the heavy wooden doors with angry spikes on them.
“You can’t hold a soul,” she once told Maria. “A soul only owns a soul. That’s the problem. Only a few people possess souls.”
“You have to feed a soul or it becomes emaciated and dies.”
Maria enjoyed listening to Becky in the breeze and harsh climate. In their generations, dusty amd crippled, people tried to control the weather and the world gained a frosty layer of oppression as punishment.
“So are you ready?” Becky asked.
“I don’t know. What if I fail?”
“Uh, I don’t think you will. Remember to take off everything, bra, underwear, it all.”
Maria’s eyes let go of a tear.
“Don’t worry so much. What can we do about it now? We have to do the best we can.
Maria arrived at the clinic, a sterile place with yellow and red walls. It reminded her of adipose tissue.
Oh, please, any invisible being, don’t let today be the day.
The doctors wore loose clothes to help with their flexibility.
And one boy still ate an ice cream cone. His mother sobbed. She put her hand on the boy’s flabby tummy. His eyes met hers, and the blame jumped back and forth.
“Ms. Stone, are you here?”
“Yes, sir,” Maria said.
“Come on back.”
They strolled through two electric fences and to his room. In the chilly place, Maria’s fear came up and sweat rolled down all over her body, as if the tears knew. She remembered what Becky said. Her crime was so much less than Maria’s, as she wasn’t responsible of such a sin.
Maria pulled her bra off, her azure underwear off, everything, she folded her arms and each moment carved her emotions.
Well, if I die, at least it’s for a good cause, she thought. Someone else will have
a chance.
The doctor came in with big eyes, taking in her fat rolls and rough, blonde hair.
Meanwhile, Maria let her life flash before her swamp eyes. The doctor’s gaze dropped away.
You can’t steal seconds, Maria thought.
“You are 200 pounds, Maria. You haven’t made your quota, and I must say, you have denied so many with your gluttony. Now you must pay the price of eating too much food.
Maria cried as he opened the back door. Four small skin and bone children came down, in pain, so small, all hungry.
The first one slowly walked over to Maria and carved her breasts off, the delicious fat filled him up. The other children came up and inner fluids splattered all over them like the devil’s finger-painting. Some dropped their meat and ate her eyes.
Maria screamed as she died, begging the children for forgiveness. Her tongue came out, and her eyes closed for the last time.
