Silence and the Word

by MaryAnne Mohanraj

  The phone rings.

  It’s past midnight. It must be Mark. Peter goes outside to smoke a cigarette and think. I pace back and forth as I tell the story again. It’s easier than I expected. It usually is, talking to him, at least once I get started. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the answer for me. I try not to let him hear how disappointed I am. I doubt I fool him, but he lets me pretend. It’s been a rough day, after all.

  Peter comes back in. I tell Mark I’ll talk to him tomorrow night, and hang up the phone. Peter pulls me into a hug.

  “You should go see a doctor.” He’s using that ‘I’m-not-nagging-but-you-know-this-is-a-good-idea’ voice. I hate that.

  “What can a doctor do?”

  “This might have happened to someone before. I’ll see what I can find on-line, but in the meantime, you should see an expert.”

  I consider arguing, but he will be impossible until I give in. He was like that about my wearing seatbelts, and remembering to take my thyroid medicine, and going to the dentist. I think I give in just to get him to stop nagging—but he doesn’t care as long as I do it.

  “Drive me?”

  “Of course.”

  He holds me tight all night. I wake, once or twice, and he is still holding me. It doesn’t really help, but it doesn’t hurt either.

  Peter calls the following morning, and somehow gets me an appointment. I think he bribed the secretary. He waits patiently while I do my exercises. I’ve already lost faith in them, but I did swear. I keep my promises.

  The doctor is very beautiful, with short black hair and ice blue eyes. I try not to check her out too obviously as she goes through the routine physical, checks my pulse, palpates my breasts… .

  “Well, you seem pretty healthy. What seems to be the problem?”

  I can’t say it. I just can’t. I stare at her, and she at me. Her cheerful expression grows concerned, but she waits patiently. This room is too big and cold and white. I want a blanket, but you can’t ask a doctor for that. My teeth are chattering. She says nothing, and finally, I have to speak.

  “Could I borrow your pad? And a pen?”

  I write it down. It’s always easier to write. “Parts of my body keep disappearing.”

  She reads it, and her eyes only widen slightly. Good doctor—well-trained.

  “Parts of your body keep disappearing? Which parts?”

  I tell her, and watch her expression subtly shift. This isn’t going to go well. I can tell.

  I argue with Peter in the car going home. He thinks I should do what the doctor says; slow down a little, try to decrease stress, maybe talk to a counselor. Unfortunately, none of my body parts acted up in the office, and I know what the doctor was thinking, with her sharp blue eyes and pointed questions. ‘The poor girl is over-committed, in more ways than one.’ ‘She’s so tired and stressed that she’s imagining things.’ It would have been ridiculous to bring Peter in as witness, and she’d probably just have decided that he was over-committed too. He’s not been sleeping well, and he looks exhausted. Still, there aren’t any bits of him disappearing. I’m getting scared.

  Peter drops me off with a hug and makes me promise to call him if anything else blinks out. For a moment, I don’t want to let go…I hang on tight. But I can’t hang on to him forever—besides, I told Mark I’d call him. And I owe Katherine a call, still. I let go, kiss his cheek, and head inside.

  It’s easier telling the story the fourth time. I’m not sure why I bother, though. Katherine reacts as expected. She’s been convinced for years that if I just picked one of them, settled down with Mark or Peter, got married, etc. and so on ad nauseum, then I’d live happily ever after. She’s read too many romance novels. She’s fixed up the problems with her boyfriend since we talked yesterday, which means that she’s even more convinced that True Love(tm) will conquer all. If I swear monogamy to Mark (or Peter), then all my problems will be solved. No more disappearing bits.

  Even if that were true, it wouldn’t be worth it.

  “That’s not an option. I love both of them… . No, Kat, I can’t tell you which one I love more. I don’t know… . Well, I’m not you, am I?”

  She eventually gives in on that one, but then shifts her attack. Surely I can at least stop bringing pretty boys and girls home for a night? Sure I could, but why should I? What can that possibly have to do with this? We argue for hours. Usually she’s less persistent than this—after all these years, you’d think she’d have given up entirely. But now she has new ammunition. We argue until I am ready to weep with frustration. Finally, I just hang up. She’ll understand. I’ll call her back next week and apologize; I just can’t cope with any more right now.

  There is work waiting for me, but I can’t look at it now, I can’t. I just can’t.

  I call Mark.

  I meet Mark at the airport; he’s bought a ticket and come out early, two whole weeks before my scheduled trip. I feel better as soon as he arrives; stronger. Solider.

  Nothing had disappeared in the few intervening days, but I’d been looking a bit translucent. My housemates had mentioned that I seemed pale; one of them made me dinner last night, out of the blue. She kept trying to get me to drink carrot juice. I’d started staying inside; in bright sunlight, I could see the veins and arteries through my skin, the blood pumping away, the muscles stretching and flexing. It didn’t seem to be dangerous—my hands could still type, my legs could still walk—it’s just unnerving. I’m so glad to have Mark with me.

  I slide my arm around him, hold him tight. Definitely better. I don’t mention it until we’re home, until the bus has deposited us down the street and we’ve walked up the last few blocks to the house. Luckily, he travels light. We slip inside, dodging housemates; he’s not the gregarious type, and lately, for all their kindly concern, they weary me.

  “I think you should spend more time alone.”

  Mark doesn’t usually give advice, even when asked. He must be actually worried.

  “I feel better. Now that you’re here.” It sounds appallingly mushy, but he’s used to that from me.

  “I can’t fix it for you.”

  “Shh…I know.”

  We talk for a while, and then go to sleep. No real answers yet. Difficult to have answers when you’re not sure what the question is. Is the doctor right? Is Peter? Am I stretched too thin? And if so, is there anything I can do about it? Is there anything I’m willing to do?

  In the morning, I wake to sunlight coming in the window, and tentatively hold a hand up to it. I can’t see through, even a little. Totally solid and normal. Relieved, I turn to wake Mark up, but he looks so peaceful…he hates being woken. At least I can make it a pleasant waking.

  I slide further under the sheets, slip down to gently breathe on his hip, his thigh. If I do this just right, I can get him hard without waking him. Once, I even made him come in his sleep; that was satisfying. I’m not particularly interested in trying to repeat that, though—my nipples are sore and my thigh muscles are tight. I want him, and I want him awake. I breathe in deeply; the scent of him always turns me on. I blow gently on his hardening cock, I lick down the length of it, I rub my thighs together as I take the head in my mouth…I rub my cock against his leg…what?!

  He’s awake. I’m very awake. We sit up; I yank back the sheets, and there, below my belly, nestled in a little nest of fine blonde hair, is a pale cock just like his, shocking against my dark skin. I can’t help it—I gasp out loud. You might call it a shriek. Not that I haven’t fantasized a little about having a penis—what woman hasn’t?—but to have his… . And it is his, exactly. Our eyes flick back and forth between our groins, comparing. Twins! Mine softens just as his does, it relaxes into exactly the same shape. We don’t say anything; we just sit there, staring. It’s there for at least a minute before it slowly fades out, and my own, more discreet, genitals fade in. I feel a little better, but still…

  “Well.” My voice is shaking. I take a deep breath. “Peter has been complaining that
I start sounding like you when I’ve been talking to you a lot. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I don’t think being near me is going to be a solution.” He sounds relieved.

  “No.” What if it had been my head that faded out, to be replaced by his? Or even my heart… . “Still, if I could figure out how to control this, to do that again, the possibilities… .”

  “Do you think you can?” He has an unfortunate predisposition for asking difficult questions.

  “Well. No. Probably not.”

  “You don’t want to just disappear bit by bit, and you don’t want to turn into me. I think you should at least try going away. Away from everyone.”

  “But the project… .”

  “Will survive without you for a few days.”

  He’s right, of course. Maybe that’s why he so rarely gives advice—so that when he does, he can be right.

  I borrow some camping gear from the housemates, send out e-mail to the appropriate people, change the message on the machine: “Gone fishing; back Wednesday”. I take out some money, buy groceries, pack the laptop, try to remember what I’ve forgotten, grab my medicine, and finally head out. Peter drops me off at the trailhead. I promise I’ll call every night and let him know that I’m okay. He’s not much of a woods person; I think he thinks I’ll be eaten by bears. There are no bears around here.

  By the time I hike in and wrestle with the tent and gather wood, I’m so exhausted that I don’t even worry about being able to see the fire through my hands. It’s kind of a pretty effect, actually: flickering reds and golds glowing under my brown skin. I feel a little guilty about not having written anything, but console myself with the fact that I only have three two-hour batteries for the laptop. If I don’t type tonight, then I can stay another day. I curl up in my blanket and go to sleep.

  Third day. I didn’t type anything yesterday. I didn’t flicker either. Skin’s opaque this morning, and the lake is beautiful, if cold. I swam naked at noon yesterday. I think I’ll go in a little earlier today. I could swim for hours here; days. When I finish, there’s a meadow nearby, and my blanket makes a perfect place to curl up and bask in the sun. I’ve got a lot of bug bites, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I’ve run out of books, too. I could always write my own—when I run out of paper, there’s bark, right? I could learn how to make ink out of something. Bug-blood, maybe, or fish guts. Of course, I’d have to catch a fish for that.

  That’s a bit of a problem, actually. I didn’t really bring enough food to stay past tomorrow afternoon. When I hike back out this evening to call Peter, I could ask him to bring more food. Maybe I’ll do that. It’s nice here. Quiet.

  Peter looks worried.

  “You sure you want to stay longer? Do you have enough batteries?”

  “Plenty—don’t worry.” It’s not as if I’m using them.

  “This should last you a few more days. You—you do look better. Healthier.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’ll see you Saturday, then?”

  “Umm…okay. Guess that’s it, then.”

  “Yup. Listen, it seems a little silly to call every night. I’m fine out here. I’ll call if there’s a problem, okay?”

  “Well, okay.”

  “Bye, then.” I heft the now-heavy pack onto my back and turn away. He leans over to kiss my cheek before I’m out of range. I let him, and smile.

  “Bye,” he says, as I walk away.

  the sun is so warm and the insects buzz above the grass tickles as the breeze blows it against my damp skin the sky is a thousand shades of blue and i will count and name them all before sunfall before night because when night comes then i will have to count the stars and there are so many this is my one two three day of naming blue

  icicle blue

  Mark’s eyes blue

  computer screen blue

  atlantic blue

  my favorite jeans blue

  esthely blue

  i made that last one up entirely esthely the color where midnight runs into deep sea lit with sunlight blues esthely esthely esthely

  Peter finds me. Peter finds me and cleans me up and takes me home and holds me until I am myself again. He tells me that my skin had turned green. Not transparent or translucent; very there—oh, definitely there. There, like a tree is there, a tree reaching up into the esthely sky, alone in the night but solid and rooted in the earth.

  I don’t think I was meant to root quite so deep.

  I don’t have an answer to the questions, but I have a plan to keep me whole. This is the plan.

  1. Schedule time for Mark and Peter. Schedule time for work. Schedule time for friends. Schedule time for play.

  2. When I start feeling a bit translucent, drag someone with me to the woods. Don’t talk to them, or at least not much, but make sure they bring me out again before I take root.

  3. Repeat as necessary.

  3a. If this doesn’t work: panic.

  The first issue is coming out on time, it looks like. Or only a few hours late, at any rate. Katherine is engaged. Huzzah—that should keep things calmer. Tomorrow I go to visit Mark, thank the gods. And my housemates have made dinner for me, which is nice. My toes are tingling a little—that’s the first sign, I’ve learned. It’s okay, though…it’ll be a couple of hours before anything actually disappears, and I’ll have time to take a long walk first and count the stars. That should hold it off for a while. It’s just like remembering to take my meds.

  This isn’t quite how I expected things to go. But I don’t know if that matters.

  I’m not giving up, not yet.

  If I hadn’t come this way, I’d never have found my shade of blue.

  And Can This Ever End?

  Note: this was written as hypertext for the web; the sections can be read in any sequence, or repeated

  Frost

  Rosa. Rosa in the afternoon, sitting in the window with her hair falling down, hair so pale, so fair, a white waterfall cascading down and down and he loses himself in it, in this girl sitting in the window, reading a book with her eyes half-closed and her legs pulled up and the light behind her so she is only a shape at dusk, in the town library, a curving shape with white water falling behind.

  He opens the door, picks up a book from the cart by the door, a good book, a big, thick book, and walks a long circle of the small room, pausing at each compass point instinctively, despite the lack of arrows. He looks up, he looks down, he looks anywhere but at her, and finally he happens to be beside her, he happens to sit across an expanse of cushions in the broad window nook, he happens to be gazing at his book and not at her, oh no, and he is biting his lip raw. He is biting his lip and staring at the book and the clock is ticking and she has not looked up.

  Five o’clock, six o’clock, seven and perhaps he should speak and the library closes at eight on Monday summer nights in August of that year but he has done as much as he is able in walking the room, in coming to this southwest compass point, in sitting here, where the breeze from the quiet vent carries with it her slightly musky scent mixed with the dust of old books. He has done all he can and turns the pages without ever noticing that the book is in Spanish and talks of un corazón that has shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Seven fifteen. Thirty. Thirty-eight. Forty-seven, and the dry librarian calls out that it is time to check out books, that the library is closing, that it is over over over. And he does not move, he has stopped turning pages, and his lip is bleeding, just a little. Rosa looks up then, she looks up and smiles and asks, “Café?” and when he only clutches his book harder and stares at her she laughs. “Coffee, then.” He laughs too, only half-comprehending, but they walk out the narrow white library doors together, leaving the books forgotten behind.

  Forest

  Patrick writes poetry. He does not show it to her, but every word is of her, every touch of pen to paper, every scrap stuffed into pockets as she walks up, lifts on tiptoes, kisses him on the cheek. She doesn’t say hello, she only smiles and loops
her arm around his waist, curls a finger into his belt loop and they begin to walk, he with his head tilted down, loving the easy familiarity of her. Patrick whistles and walks and this is what he writes:

  the ivy curls around the oak, stretching up into the sun

  and her legs are two strong trunks, her arms spreading

  branches, a multitude of branches, a multitude of trees

  and even in the dark, the tips reach up to the light, they

  stretch, and moonlight streaks the green, sunlight

  catches the twisting leaves and the ivy reaches up,

  though it will never stretch quite as high… .

  Patrick takes her to the woods. She had never seen them before him. She had grown up in the city, the big bad city with a moderately middle-class life; she had walked its streets barefoot, heedless of glass, and now she lets go of his waist, she runs in the woods, she disappears among the trees, his heart thumps and for a moment he cannot breathe, he cannot think, and then he sees the white banner of her hair, shouting surrender in the dark woods, shouting come and get me and he chases her, running her down, hunter to the fleet deer, but he catches her, he catches her up against a tree, and then he pauses, uncertain.