by Micol Ostow
“this wasn’t the time.”
wasn’t the time?
to grow our family?
i swallow.
and here i had
always thought
our time
as a family
was
infinite.
serious
Henry can read the fault lines of my face, of course.
of course He can.
He sees the fragile fragments of my sheet-glass skeleton as they crumble,
as they collapse.
hears the shriek as the sand runs down the hourglass tunnel.
“motherhood is serious business,” He says, like this is something i don’t know about.
like i have no mother,
just the
looming vortex
that once swallowed mirror-mel whole.
like He, Henry,
is the beginning and end
of my family.
“we have lots of babies on the ranch,” i remind Him,
feeling the round, full words
fill up my mouth,
taste the sour tinge of
protest.
“true.”
He twists a strand of my hair around
His fist.
tenderly, at first.
and then:
my neck snaps back as He tugs,
pulls tightly.
it doesn’t hurt,
not exactly.
but.
“if shelly wasn’t ready to tell us about the baby,”
He continues, His voice low,
“then how could she be ready to bring a baby into this
family?”
it occurs to me:
that there is one person that shelly did tell.
about the baby.
one sister.
and that:
if Henry knows that shelly
was keeping a secret?
well, then—
He might just know
that she wasn’t
the only one.
well, then.
just like that,
the pressure on my scalp
is released
and my hair swings free,
forms a curtain around my shoulders.
shades the angles of my sunken cheekbones.
mutes my vision.
blurs things.
“i’m sorry,” i say.
i am not sure for what,
but that is no matter.
i am. sorry.
Henry steps in front of me,
brushes my hair back again.
His fingertips graze my chin.
His eyes are satellites,
missiles,
moonbeams.
and i am drowning
again.
i am. sorry.
for so many things.
“mel,” He whispers,
his lips vibrating against the pink of my ear,
“you know there’s something coming.”
i nod, slight, imperceptible.
think about the lockbox, the vortex,
scrap of paper written in code.
“and when it’s time,
you’re gonna have to do just exactly what junior says.”
His hands slip under the hem of my shirt, skirt the surface of my skin.
send me swooning.
His mouth finds mine and we almost speak with one tongue.
are almost one body.
“can you do that for me?”
i can’t say if the question is spoken aloud,
or if it merely echoes in my head.
but that is no matter.
of course.
of course.
He is everything. He is. Henry.
and i
would do
anything
for
Him.
frayed
bars may bind,
entwine,
encase.
encapsulate.
and the man
may have tried to keep Henry
down.
but.
still,
He managed
to make,
to forge,
to foster
connections.
Henry brings people
together.
He knits and weaves
Henry has friends who are
important.
who want to spread
His love
this is what He tells us.
when we gather.
when He preaches.
this is what we believe.
this is our truth,
our word.
our always.
Henry is love
no one has come to visit.
no one has lighted down upon the ranch,
eager to spread the gospel of Henry’s music.
it is a waste
Henry’s ties are
frayed,
unraveling.
disentangling.
and i
worry.
it has been twenty days.
after
love and terror.
the devil’s business.
sounds.>
something fierce.
somewhere deep.
someplace inescapable.
spark
helter-skelter is coming.
this is what Henry says.
this is Henry’s truth. His message. His gospel.
His
love.
“when it’s time, you’re gonna have to do just exactly what junior says.”
“the man is in for a big surprise,” Henry says.
“you’ll see.”
at night, when the rest of the family is
nestled,
resting, soundless,
Henry rouses us,
outlines
how it will be.
junior.
shelly.
leila.
me.
we are chosen
to bear His message.
we are precious.
and my doubt
easy enough to tamp down.
to drown.
we—
the outcast,
the abandoned,
the hapless,
the helpless—
the
rejects,
the trash—
the family.
we.
we will:
rouse,
rise,
arise.
catalyze.
awaken.
we will set the end of days
in motion.
we will swell, swarm, spiral.
we will light the match to spark
infinity.
Henry’s switchblade is a trigger,
a flint stone,
and when it is time,
we will ignite.
Henry’s lips against my earlobe,
a whisper of divinity, of clarity:
“when it’s time,
you’re gonna have to do just exactly what junior says.
you’re gonna have to be strong. swift.
you, melinda—”
“you are. chosen.”
“you will be my messenger.
you will speak my words.
“the man is
in for a big surprise,”
Henry says.
“you’ll see.”
part III
now
1.
“it’s time, mel. get dressed.”
my eyelids flutter.
i struggle, briefly.
thrash against the hour.
strain to pierce the eggshell-thin,
frail,
fragile veil
between conscious
and light,
between coma
and wake.
between
before,
always, and
never.
between now and infinity.
between my half-life, heaven, and
hell.
i have a stupefying moment of who/where/how, and then realize all at once, in a dizzying rush, a flood of yes.
oh. yes.
a barrage, a watershed of come to now.
i realize:
it is time.
2.
i cough, press my palms hard against the open-slatted floor,
feel the ridges, the grooves and indentations,
feel so much past-life, history, so much before, burrowed, carved deep beneath the surface.
i wonder what i’ve left of myself here, forever etched
into the skeleton scaffolds of
neverland.
i marvel at the reach, at the radius of my
mirror-self, the eternity of just who i’ve become, the endlessness of my
newfound
ties.
3.
i stretch back from my mattress, rise.
my bones make a hollow,
creaking sound as i stand,
shaking off sleep,
slights,
shrugging out from beneath countless anonymous
insecurities,
wordless queries,
soundless questions.
shedding the skin of the mel behind the
looking glass,
the mel i was
before.
before i became everything that Henry promised.
before i burned. frayed.
feared.
before i unfurled,
opened myself,
offered up my hollow places,
exposed my smooth undersides,
my pliant insides.
before i bled.
for Him.
4.
the creaking, the pops and hiccups that sound as i rise, they startle me.
they are the sounds of my skeleton snapping into place, the sounds of my skin, bone, sinew,
settling.
of my pockets, my pieces, expanding and contracting with my every
bated breath.
they are the sounds of my body reshaping itself, readying itself.
reeling.
they are the sounds of the opposite of solid.
it is time.
it is late. it is the witching hour.
helter-skelter is upon us.
helter-skelter is
us.
the messengers.
the holy choir.
the harbingers of doom.
5.
junior’s face hovers, inches from my own.
i sense him, feel the edges of his skin
ooze,
radiate,
pulsate with energy,
with anticipation, with
yes, now,
always.
junior wants.
it is the type of want you could clutch, you could grasp;
the type of want you could wind around a crooked finger.
through the tar-thick, viscous cover of night, i can feel it, the want, constricting across my shoulders, weaving about my collarbones like a dusty noose.
i can inhale and breathe his want into me so fiercely that i can almost taste its rancor.
can almost pretend it’s my own.
almost.
6.
it has been too long, here on the ranch. here in ersatz-everything, here without windows, without edges, without
far too long.
so much so, so long, that it has begun to feel that our infinity, our collective orbit, might be fading.
losing shape, strength, elasticity.
might be fraying. unfurling.
might be washing away like an etching in the sand as the tide comes in
and slowly,
steadily—
but irreversibly—
erases what once was.
leaves only the now.
unwinds,
unravels infinity,
indefinitely.
i am not surprised to realize this.
after all, infinity has always felt impossible to me.
there is nothing, after all, that doesn’t
end.
7.
it is here.
the now,
everything that Henry has
spoken of.
it is tonight.
tonight, we rise, and journey past the fault lines of death valley. through the canyons and craggy terrain, out toward where the blank, important people secure themselves, squirrel themselves away.
we—
junior, leila, shelly, and
me,
my half-life—
my shattered, fractured, mirror-self—
we have a message to deliver.
His message. Henry’s. of
terror and torture and undertow.
His reminder of what it feels like to drown.
to be held down, filled up, choked off.
of sharp teeth, slick canines.
of bloodlust, anger, hunger.
of empty spaces. of hollowed-out husks.
of uncles and elbows and knees pinned apart.
of breathlessness. of afterlife.
of what it truly means to
come
to
now.
8.
we are fragile and fractured.
we are family.
we are fraying.
but.
rather than
unravel.
we will
rise.
we are poised to set the city of angels afire.
we burn, we shrink, we shriek.
we are coiled, potent, poison, ready to ignite.
and Henry’s message will be heard.
now.
always.
tonight.
9.
He doesn’t come with us, Henry.
He can’t, shouldn’t, won’t; doesn’t exist within our orbit, our shallow, washed atmosphere. He is our rudder, our tide, our current, but now, tonight:
we are the undertow.
we are messengers, harbingers, doomsday prophets.
we are chosen.
we are chaos, fierce and deep.
we are inescapable.
10.
we know what to do, what we must do,
how exactly to go about setting the world
ablaze.
how to spark.
“make it messy,” Henry said. “show the people what happens to their sons and daughters when they refuse to see the now.”
He had an address, though not one i recognized, of course.
and of course, i don’t ask questions.
there is no why, no before, only this:
blood. fear. chaos.
power. poison.
helter-skelter,
and infinity,
and mirror-mel,
still trapped,
pressed, soundless
beneath the looking glass,
its reflective surface a sheen, a sheath,
>
a sheet of ice
that separates:
before and after
broken and whole
fractured
but
patched,
patiently.
prepared for what is
now.
mirror-mel sees me,
signals to me
wordlessly;
she traces warning signals against the
frosted panes of her
transparent,
ever-present,
crystal coffin.
collapsing, gasping, drowning.
folding in upon herself.
afraid.
11.
i see her, mirror-mel—
see her at a distance,
as though she’s a mere shadow,
just a fragment of my former self,
a cipher, an outline.
a whisper,
a wisp.
a suggestion.
mirror-mel does not bleed; when she weeps, her face is a mask lit from the inside, streaked with sorrow, stained with someone else’s tears.
mirror-mel is a broken promise.
she is my never,
the jagged edge of my ruptured psyche,
my me that i have
learned to do
without.
a frozen fragment of my
unspeakable past.
but
even with
a chilly force field
a shield of charged ions
an icy screen the width of an ocean—
even still—
she and i,
we are conjoined,
ephemeral,
infinite.
we are paper dolls.
and i—
alone—
i:
am still, now,
broken.
12.
we have been chosen.
junior, shelly, leila, and i—
we, together, have been chosen,
anointed,
elevated.
handpicked by Henry to speak for Him.
to preach the word.
the truth.
the love.
the terror.
He bursts with love;
He overflows,
and we are vessels.
unique.
important.
we will preach the gospel;
foretell psalms of savage disarray.
we will tell tales of violence,
bloodlust.
chaos.
we are a choir of coiled fury,
of anger, of hunger.
a harmony of dissidence.
we are sharp and slick.
Henry has prepared for us, for everyone—
for the family, for infinity—
He has prepared a
sacrifice to be offered,
a gateway,
a talisman to incite,
ignite,
illuminate the pathway to the great
beyond.
we have purpose.
Henry’s purpose.
we are poison.
we are fever.
