06-06-2017, 08:48 PM
From There is no emergency, by Conchitina Cruz. Note that each paragraph occupied an entire page. The two dashes there are as is, and not my usual substitute for an em dash.
Arrest
She held the sentence against the open window. Sunlight passed through abduct and attack.
Behead settled below a cable line, on which perched a trio of birds. A pedestrian's head
We woke up and she didn't, was all he said in a letter about the child they brought home
and buried two weeks later. With the letter came a photograph of M--, five days old. Over
dinner years later he said he still woke up each day seized with terror, as if he would walk
to the next room, bend over the crib, and find his child dead. Shouldn't the worst already
be over? he asked. There was no child in the next room. He was no longer a father. He was
not a father.
The rain arrived without warning and it swallowed every sound. She touched each machine
in the house to feel it humming. She touched her throat to feel the words out of her mouth.
There was someone at the door, she could tell, by the knob that kept turning. No knock, or
click, only the sight of it, turning. The rain was at the door. Someone was at the door. She
watched the knob and turned on the television. The rain flashed on the screen, and already,
a death toll. There was nothing to do. Nothing was about to be over soon.
They set the ghetto on fire and send fire trucks to put the fire out. The last siren speeds
away from the standstill. The cab driver asks her to tip him extra for the traffic and she
checks the meter, checks her money. Over beers she listens to a story about swimming with
a whale shark the size of three bars and two galleries across them. Imagine yourself beside
a breathing building, she is told. She closes her eyes and coughs up ash. Breathe like a
building, she reminds herself.
There were several heaves, he said. First, he could see his limbs, and then he could not. He
could see his chest, and then he could not. He could see his face, and then he could not.
He remembered the O of his mouth, the water erasing it. When the sea returned to the sea,
he pulled himself up from a field of bloated bodies. He looked for his face in each face. He
scoured the tents. He read the lists. He could be alive, he said. There was no proof otherwise.
They had to begin somewhere. This one had a phone in her hand. This one had a gash
on his cheek. This one wrapped her arms around her belly. This one shielded this one, it
seemed. Helicopters swarmed overhead. Names were called out. This one was stripped
of her clothes. This one was a face with no eyes. This one was a body with no head. This
one was beaten with a pipe. This one was buried under a car. This one took a bullet in the
mouth. They sweltered in the heat. They kept losing count.
The street was a river and she swam down the street. A natural swimmer she was unlike the
rest of them, bodies midway and by the end of the street, statistics. The city was river was
grave was ruin was monument was city again, less a bridge and neighborhood or two. Her
cheek less a scar with the right makeup on. At the beach she got stung by a jellyfish and the
boatman raised a cup to the swell of her foot. She glanced over her shoulder, sensing she had
caught the eye of a limestone cliff.
They take turns telling each other what they haven't been able to do since. This goes on
for a couple of beers. Together they do not sit with their backs to the door. They trade
photographs of children not named after their disappeared, for fear of the same fate. From
the recurring dream, one recounts a path to the grave, the trek to it, what wasn't there. The
other spends nights keeping watch. There have been ghosts, though never the right one.
His hair falling over his eyes wide open his hair can barely hide them. His mouth on
her mouth. His sound down her throat. Her body beyond coral reefs blown up in the
dark, beyond limbs thrown down a hole. Her body beyond apology. His sound inside
her stammering, softer, smoother, slick as guitar music, track five, circa speeding down the
highway to the beach, eleven years old, uncle yammering about the cost of cement and labor
for the new room, still unbuilt, for the baby, still unborn.
Arrest
She held the sentence against the open window. Sunlight passed through abduct and attack.
Behead settled below a cable line, on which perched a trio of birds. A pedestrian's head
grazed close range, then civilian, then genitals. The sentence was news and the window was
news. The sentence was fact and the window was aftermath. The sentence was fiction and
the window was emergency. Smog traced the crevices of massacre. Carnage turned courage
turned garbage against the bobbing of leaves.
In the morning the box was a breakfast table and a dresser. At night it was a desk, stacked
with clippings and notes. There were days that spun out of time: orange juice beside memo
beside lipstick beside draft. Sometimes she knelt before the box, as if it were an altar or a
fireplace. At times she stood beside it, as if it were company while waiting in line. The box
was an anchor that held the rest of the room together. It said door to the right and kitchen
to the left. It said body was in and rain was out.
We woke up and she didn't, was all he said in a letter about the child they brought home
and buried two weeks later. With the letter came a photograph of M--, five days old. Over
dinner years later he said he still woke up each day seized with terror, as if he would walk
to the next room, bend over the crib, and find his child dead. Shouldn't the worst already
be over? he asked. There was no child in the next room. He was no longer a father. He was
not a father.
The rain arrived without warning and it swallowed every sound. She touched each machine
in the house to feel it humming. She touched her throat to feel the words out of her mouth.
There was someone at the door, she could tell, by the knob that kept turning. No knock, or
click, only the sight of it, turning. The rain was at the door. Someone was at the door. She
watched the knob and turned on the television. The rain flashed on the screen, and already,
a death toll. There was nothing to do. Nothing was about to be over soon.
They set the ghetto on fire and send fire trucks to put the fire out. The last siren speeds
away from the standstill. The cab driver asks her to tip him extra for the traffic and she
checks the meter, checks her money. Over beers she listens to a story about swimming with
a whale shark the size of three bars and two galleries across them. Imagine yourself beside
a breathing building, she is told. She closes her eyes and coughs up ash. Breathe like a
building, she reminds herself.
There were several heaves, he said. First, he could see his limbs, and then he could not. He
could see his chest, and then he could not. He could see his face, and then he could not.
He remembered the O of his mouth, the water erasing it. When the sea returned to the sea,
he pulled himself up from a field of bloated bodies. He looked for his face in each face. He
scoured the tents. He read the lists. He could be alive, he said. There was no proof otherwise.
They had to begin somewhere. This one had a phone in her hand. This one had a gash
on his cheek. This one wrapped her arms around her belly. This one shielded this one, it
seemed. Helicopters swarmed overhead. Names were called out. This one was stripped
of her clothes. This one was a face with no eyes. This one was a body with no head. This
one was beaten with a pipe. This one was buried under a car. This one took a bullet in the
mouth. They sweltered in the heat. They kept losing count.
The street was a river and she swam down the street. A natural swimmer she was unlike the
rest of them, bodies midway and by the end of the street, statistics. The city was river was
grave was ruin was monument was city again, less a bridge and neighborhood or two. Her
cheek less a scar with the right makeup on. At the beach she got stung by a jellyfish and the
boatman raised a cup to the swell of her foot. She glanced over her shoulder, sensing she had
caught the eye of a limestone cliff.
They take turns telling each other what they haven't been able to do since. This goes on
for a couple of beers. Together they do not sit with their backs to the door. They trade
photographs of children not named after their disappeared, for fear of the same fate. From
the recurring dream, one recounts a path to the grave, the trek to it, what wasn't there. The
other spends nights keeping watch. There have been ghosts, though never the right one.
His hair falling over his eyes wide open his hair can barely hide them. His mouth on
her mouth. His sound down her throat. Her body beyond coral reefs blown up in the
dark, beyond limbs thrown down a hole. Her body beyond apology. His sound inside
her stammering, softer, smoother, slick as guitar music, track five, circa speeding down the
highway to the beach, eleven years old, uncle yammering about the cost of cement and labor
for the new room, still unbuilt, for the baby, still unborn.