Issue #25

She hissed as her blunted nail slipped under, then lifted the fresh scab, tearing at the surrounding flesh before coming completely away.

“Shit.”

The fibrous patch was still under the nail of her middle finger when she looked at it, along with a little blood. Shuddering, she flicked it off and into the sink, her other hand gingerly pressing against the now open wound at the back of her head.

“Goddamn it.”

Small droplets of blood stained her fingers. She rinsed them and opened the medicine cabinet, pulling out the mercurochrome and a fresh Band-Aid. She quickly cleaned the cut and the area around it, then bandaged it, immediately returning the packages to the cabinet once done.

She closed the mirrored door and her eyes met her reflection, head on. She normally avoided glances longer than necessary, but the stinging at the back of her skull made her pause.

Brown on brown. Plain faced and ordinary. Thick lips, wide nose. Unpretty.

Her shoulders sagged. The wound began to throb.

It starts with a weird TikTok video. You’re not even on TikTok but your sister sends you videos constantly and this one isn’t even the video she’s sent you — one of Sylvanian families having a potty-mouthed argument — it’s the one that comes after it. It’s only a teaser video, designed to make you start your own TikTok account, and you see just seconds of it, but it stays in your mind. You dream about it, actually.

This is how the dream goes. You are in a spacious white kitchen that has marbled worktops and a white matte Smeg cake mixer. It is fancier than any kitchen you have ever been in. The floor is real wood, not laminate, and it has been bleached yellow white, and the gaps in between the floorboards are filled with diamante. There is a cake on the marbled worktop. It is huge, like, four or five tiers. You don’t know much about baking, you’re way more into savoury foods, but somehow you know it’s a steamed Joconde cake, layered with vegan pâte à bombe-based buttercream. You are about to cut the cake, and you are aware that your ring finger has a plaster on it. The plaster is white with a bubbled texture like a Ribbed for Her Pleasure condom.

“Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep.”

–Sandra Cisneros, “Four Skinny Trees,” The House on Mango Street

August 15, present

It’s brute work moving this body around. It takes every ounce of my spirit to keep the pieces together. I pick up one leg, move it forward, try not to let it thump to the ground. It’s not at all like I remember walking. Even on my worst days, even at the end, when I was bone tired from the cancer treatments and gasping with each step, I didn’t have to think so much about what order the motions should go in. It’s like being inside a steel robot and trying to manipulate the controls while dragging around the hull.

Focus, Helen. Pull in and keep holding. Move down the street. Not much longer.