In Absence - Laura Diaz De Arce

In Absence by Laura Diaz De Arce

Book excerpt

In Absence

My head hit the pillow, and I thought that like other nights after exhausting days, I would soon be asleep. My eyes were closed, my breathing slowed, but minute after minute, hour after hour, I did not sleep. I tossed. I turned. I tried many different positions. The hours crept by. I did not sleep.

I had gone through many changes of late. The swell in my belly had deflated from lack of trespass, and I could lie on it as sleep became my solace. My life had gone from momentary possibility and a constant of company to a quiet aloneness in the span of a few days. That type of loss, one I chose not to think about, was a pattern in my life. It had become second nature to burn away the memory of things no more into an ashen pile and allow them to be swept away. Sleep helped me do that. It should have been easy to close my eyes and will myself into oblivion. Instead, sleep avoided me the entire night.

The day after the first sleepless night, I tried to keep pleasant, though at times I was unsuccessful and let my discontent show. That second night I lay down again, sleep still eluded me, and I was becoming frightful. By night three, I was filled with anger. That anger did not peak; it did not expel the energy in me. Instead, it built, like a fury, and kept my body quaking, unable to relax.

By night ten, I was delirious. Night and day had no meaning. I kept no time but wandered aimlessly around my home. I ate no steady meals, taking handfuls of whatever was in the refrigerator and within reach. Time was moving, but I did not feel it. I felt frozen, my actions like those in a delayed video. I was here. Then I was there. There was no transition, no passage, only what had been then what was.

Night twelve came and still, I did not sleep. I’d taken to staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, eyes bagged, and shoulders slumped. My body had become a stranger to me, unable to behave in the way I needed it to. It had given me pains which could not be ignored. Across from me, there was a crack in the mirror, and I traced my numb fingertip over the jagged edge. A bead of blood slid down the mirror. I tapped the glass and it shattered in that same delayed motion that had become endemic to my condition. My image became thousands of little shards.

There was no wall behind the glass. Instead, there was a long, winding landscape. It was gray, both the path and the grass beside it. The sky was gray as well, dotted by clouds of silver and charcoal. I climbed over my sink and stepped with bleeding feet onto the gravel. I must have moved, for before long when I looked back, my bathroom was not there.

As I walked, exhausted, further and further into the path, I noticed other oddities. There were plants, but they were rotated in on themselves. Twisted trees and swirling bushes dotted the landscape outside the path. There were no animals, none that could be seen at least, only the sounds of them. Strange birdlike calls came from nowhere. As did the flap of wings or the buzz of insects, though I could see none. It was as if a soundtrack was playing over the environment. An imprint of the things that must have once been there but no longer were.

Then I came upon the garden of hands.

They grew in pairs upon wooden stalks, in many shapes, ages, and colors. There was a sign in front:

TAKE A SET

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LEAVE A SET

It was accompanied by a friendly wooden table topped with a checkered butcher’s block and a large cleaver.

My hands had never been my friends. They were clumsy, small, and constantly in pain. There were many attractive sets sprouting from the stalks, in many colors and forms. There was a set there that almost resembled mine, but they were more muscled in some places, with longer, more elegant fingers. They were absent of the scars mine had accumulated.

The pair was easy to pluck from its stalk, no shucking required. I brought them back to the table and placed the hands there. The right one moved to the knife and the left hand gestured to me to put my hands on the table. With two quick slices my real hands were disconnected from me. My former hands finger-walked their way off the table and into the stalks, disappearing from view.

These new hands had young fingers eager to touch the world around them. They pulled me down to run themselves along the soft glass. We walked to some trees along the trail, me and these new hands of mine. They stroked the rough, knotted and fragmented bark. They pulled at the waxy leaves, sliding fingers along the veins.

There was a very familiar sound, but I could not quite place it. It was a loud and grizzled meow of an old cat. He approached me, his face having taken on a snaggle-toothed appearance from missing teeth. He came to a stop in front of me and sat down on his hind legs. The hands began to pet him, and then finally jumped on my wrists when the cat turned and bid us to follow. The taken hands stitched themselves to the stumps at my wrists and we honored the cat’s invitation.

The cat led us to an orange tree. Most of its leaves were withered, and the fruit stunted and shriveled. I plucked a few off the branch and picked at the peels, breaking them into small sour wedges. The oranges were bitter, but with each bite, I began to remember a dream from some time before.

Those Adrift in Calm Waters

Oceans are never as calm as they seem. Even as the waves are rhythmic and the sky is clear, there is always something lurking beneath. When the surface is hot, the sun at its peak, and the afternoon storms have yet to roll in, the ocean lets the light filter leagues down. In these conditions, the creatures below can see close to the top. Red Stripe could see up to the sky with his fine eyesight, though he sometimes confused the large clouds with the long boats that crossed the water.

Along the floor, his little eye could see the movement of other creatures. None were as large or as powerful as him. Though he ate many of them, he found he had a certain affection for those lower creatures. As the largest and most powerful among the sea life, he was beholden to be their protector. When large ships dragged their nets, when they went hunting in his domain, he attacked the upper-water creatures until they fled or were fodder. They often fought back, pricking him like the small bottom creatures that were irked by his presence, but none could combat arms such as his, that curled and moved as grand as the waves.

On a day when the view was crystal-clear, Red Stripe spotted the shadow of something moving slowly along the floor. He pointed his large eye upwards and saw a small boat held in place by the still waters. The small boats of the upper-water creatures were nothing to be bothered by, for they picked at the small fish at the surface and were soon gone. It was only when such a boat was followed by a larger one that he felt any alarm. He sensed a change in the water. A scent like blood was looming, and above him, the toothy-creatures were circling around the shadow, their sleek bodies like seaweed in their current.

Red Stripe could not help being curious and eager to know if a larger boat was in their midst. With a single push, he launched upward to where the water was warmer and lighter. He looked on as the little boat wiggled a bit, and then an upper-water creature leaned over the side. Red Stripe had to stop and float, for he had never been as curious as this. He’d seen many an upper-water creature. They moved with limbs like he did, albeit in a strange way and with noticeably less agility. The upper-water creatures lacked the fine grace that having ten limbs bestowed. This upper-water creature seemed different; its odd appearance intrigued him.