Octopus
by
Frances Lefkowitz
This is a story breathless for water, but I refuse to wet it. My children are grown-ups, but they still want me to tuck them in with blankets. Again, I refuse. I’m all dried up, and they are partly the cause. The wrinkle is that when one shows up with a box of her possessions in tow, she pronounces my apartment the only last place she can go.
The day is floating into night as I open my door, and there she is, in silhouette, so I recognize Stella by her drooping yet defiant posture. I have no choice but to let her in and make the sofa into a bed. She has put herself through college and criss-crossed the country several times, yet she is still capable of running out of options. My sigh hurts her, even just my sigh, but she cannot cry because there is no water in this story.
She walks up the stairs ahead of me, and I wonder what is in that box, and why is it a box and not a bag of some sort.
“I had to leave in a hurry,” she says, answering the question that never made it to my lips.
Her voice is on tip toes, reaching, raspy. She wants me to ask why and how, but a pea-sized pebble in my belly holds me back. If my daughters were sons, would that pebble be a ball of paper and float away? This question pauses me, but I won’t concentrate on it.
The fridge has beer, I take a bottle, and Stella copies me. In case you think I’m softening, beer is not the same as water, though it has water in it. Everything liquid has water. Water is hard to avoid; there is at least a whisper of it even in solid things.
Imagine an octopus on land: its deep wisdom and slow grace, undone by aridity. That’s Stella as she fumbles to open her box and reach inside. Here are the things she grabs if there’s a fire or earthquake or break-up or sudden bad roommate situation: earplugs, sleeping pills, a paperback mystery, a slim alarm clock. Apparently she is most concerned about falling asleep and waking up.
From the kitchen, I watch her arrange these things around her on the makeshift bed, creating her own nest. Every time she needs me I feel like a failure who did not lay the proper groundwork. If I had done my job well, she wouldn’t be so tied to me.
The sleeping bag unzips, rustles. I put the dishes away, wipe the counter. Then I run the tap, stick a vessel under it. Water has wormed its way into this story after all, into a glass that I place within arm’s reach of my daughter. In case she gets thirsty in the middle of the night.
The day is floating into night as I open my door, and there she is, in silhouette, so I recognize Stella by her drooping yet defiant posture. I have no choice but to let her in and make the sofa into a bed. She has put herself through college and criss-crossed the country several times, yet she is still capable of running out of options. My sigh hurts her, even just my sigh, but she cannot cry because there is no water in this story.
She walks up the stairs ahead of me, and I wonder what is in that box, and why is it a box and not a bag of some sort.
“I had to leave in a hurry,” she says, answering the question that never made it to my lips.
Her voice is on tip toes, reaching, raspy. She wants me to ask why and how, but a pea-sized pebble in my belly holds me back. If my daughters were sons, would that pebble be a ball of paper and float away? This question pauses me, but I won’t concentrate on it.
The fridge has beer, I take a bottle, and Stella copies me. In case you think I’m softening, beer is not the same as water, though it has water in it. Everything liquid has water. Water is hard to avoid; there is at least a whisper of it even in solid things.
Imagine an octopus on land: its deep wisdom and slow grace, undone by aridity. That’s Stella as she fumbles to open her box and reach inside. Here are the things she grabs if there’s a fire or earthquake or break-up or sudden bad roommate situation: earplugs, sleeping pills, a paperback mystery, a slim alarm clock. Apparently she is most concerned about falling asleep and waking up.
From the kitchen, I watch her arrange these things around her on the makeshift bed, creating her own nest. Every time she needs me I feel like a failure who did not lay the proper groundwork. If I had done my job well, she wouldn’t be so tied to me.
The sleeping bag unzips, rustles. I put the dishes away, wipe the counter. Then I run the tap, stick a vessel under it. Water has wormed its way into this story after all, into a glass that I place within arm’s reach of my daughter. In case she gets thirsty in the middle of the night.
NUNUM
Blending Flash Fiction & Art
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