101 Words

Got the second needle yesterday, and Mom announced today in complete euphoria that it’s Open Season next month.

We’re going to visit Nana. We’ll hit every restaurant along the way. Go to the movies. Sit in our old seats behind home plate.

Hallelujah.

Sure, I’ll go, but the mask stays where it is: perfectly positioned over the scars, acne roadmap, and dental affliction we can never afford to fix.

Continuing compliments on the hairstyle will make up for the eye rolls and head shakes, and I can take the ‘delusional coward’ and ‘paranoid sheep’ slurs. I’ve been called a lot worse.

His fingerprints are coarser than the wood he hopes to recognize. His cane catches chains holding the table to this place that’s held him longer. Perfumed memories belie time; the fresh, warm scents of her laughter and tears surprise him. He almost believes he can hear her smile widen, taste her molasses eyes gleam.

But he knows things have changed. His hands can’t prove they’ve been here before. Everything, surely, looks different. Promises they carved have weathered away, but a matrix of nodes engenders goosebumps up his arm.

Preparing their picnic, he envisions her reading what she’s written across his skin.

Rummaging in the record store, I seize upon the worn album; my folks’ favourite when I was a child. Its guitar riffs still echo from the woodwork of their home and the lyrics still whisper from the walls.

Such sublime harmonies. Yet the folk duo’s own relationship seldom rhymed.

At the counter, I see that ‘Jenny’ once claimed this copy in dark blue pen. But ‘Ben’ had crossed out her name and, in agitated text, scrawled, ‘Mine long before you shredded my soul.’

At home, under a wistful moon, I hold my wife close and slow dance to the soothing rhythm.

“Look what’s just arrived,” exclaims my husband, pulling me eagerly into the bedroom.

I gasp at the apparition in porcelain sitting on the rocking chair. Wiry black hair is piled onto its head, the thin body dressed in her trademark bottle green. Glass eyes appear to gloat, whilst the ruby red mouth is painted into a sneer.

“It’s almost as if she never left,” he continues, as my skin prickles at the eerie replica of his mother. The attention to detail is unflinchingly accurate. A diseased heart may have seen her off, but Dolls Like Us brought her back to life.

I lower Edith into the passenger seat. Her soiled nightgown feels cold and wet against my skin, the latest indignity suffered by her body’s failure.

She thinks we’re visiting her son. It was after his funeral that we’d sat in this garage and Edith admitted she felt her mind slipping. I promised to take care of her; soon I won’t be able to care for myself.

She watches me with empty eyes. I want to hold her and tell her it’ll be okay. I start the car. She touches my hand. “But the garage door.”

I tell her I opened it.

It was Easter and my town was overflowing with bunnies. Chocolate bunnies. Marshmallow bunnies. Sticker bunnies. Toy bunnies. To my surprise, the local store was selling bunnies. Two for one. They were too cute and I had to have them. I couldn’t tell their genders, but the teenage employee promised the cage was all male. I took a black one and a brown one. I named them George and Martin. They fought all night! I couldn’t sleep! So I moved their pen to the lounge for peace and quiet. Peace at last, until… Would you like a bunny? I have twenty.

I fell asleep in IKEA. I couldn’t help myself. The store was warm, cozy, and the chair like a feather bed. IKEA named the chair Stocksund. They should have named it for me. I’d closed my eyes and allowed the mellow elevator music to wrap me like a blanket.

I don’t know how long I had been there when the assistant woke me. He offered me a cup of chalky coffee in a plastic, reusable cup before leading me from the store. I should have asked for a spare packing box. The overnight rain had reduced my home to cardboard scraps.