Sasha Greenwood

I haven't posted anything in a while, and I actually haven't written in a while either. This is just something I found and sort of liked (hahaha). Anywho, I don't think the ending is a sure thing, it sort of just cuts off (just to warn you).The title is also temporary (I think) But let me know what you think, and give me all your suggestions.


Kathy glanced at the calendar for the third time this morning. She released a sigh and wringed the red rag in her hands; they looked as cracked and wrinkled as the crevices of the tightly twisted towel. She let it go, holding it above the sink by a small portion between her index finger and thumb. It unraveled from its tight coil, twirling slowly until it was almost completely loose – a heavy, red slump letting occasional accumulations of water crash onto the surface of the sink.


Her hands hurt from wringing it tighter than normal. Dropping it and the rag slumped into the shiny, porcelain bowl. She looked at her palms: blushed, moist and wrinkled. Her fingertips had become a leathery hunch of skin. The blue veins marking roads in her wrist were more distinct than her younger years.


She glanced once more at the calendar, but realized that the day meant nothing anymore. Instead, she had to count by hours and minutes.


It was morning still, the dew speckling on the tiny threads of the window screen. Kathy thought to herself, I have time yet, but Joseph was still sleeping. In her head she could hear his patterned breathing. He had always breathed a certain way: a dreamer’s breath. She remembered that she had listened to him sleeping in the weeks after her daughter-in-law left the boy in her arms – only a week after his father’s death. In those hard times, all he had was a few good dreams…


She looked out the window a while, perching her head on the knuckles of her intertwined fingers, her elbows pressed firmly on the thin space of the counter between her and the sink. Her bones were aching. She stared a long while, the image canvassed in the window becoming just a blue. There were no distinct colors or shapes, just a messy conglomerate of matter. Usually it was an insignificant image, but this morning it perplexed her. She was transfixed on it. Kathy stared on until she realized that she was holding her breath. A heavy intake of air broke her hypnotic gaze. Her funny bone was sore from pressing so hard onto the hard countertop. She stood up straight and dropped her arms.


Finally, her legs moved. They wandered out of the kitchen, not needing her permission. Then, they made small strides across the hall and into the living room until they were no longer needed and she lazily sat on her husband’s gray armchair. After his death only 19 months ago, Kathy often found herself bundled in his arm chair. It gave her a sense of completion again. His odor still lingered on it. The cushions were molded into the shape of his body.


He was holding her again.


She dozed into deep thought. Joseph was changing more quickly then she remembered his father changing. They hadn’t gotten along well this summer. It had been his second year of college and she felt the university was a liberal brainwashing mechanism.


What is right to him anymore? Everything is wrong: said wrong, done wrong ,told wrong.


Ever since he even began considering college, their old relationship began deteriorating. Each summer visit seemed to express the crumbling. Last summer, one night at dinner, it was the subject of prostitution. How the conversation came up, she didn’t remember. It just did:


“Legalize prostitution?” she had asked. “Come now…”


“Well sure. There’s a lot of good arguments for it,” he replied, holding a small piece of bread in one of his hands.


“That’s ridiculous. Most of those young women are born into that mess.”


“That’s not true. Actually, many of them want to do it.”


“And I’m sure you have spoken to many of them.”


“Maybe I have,” he stuffed the piece of bread into his mouth as if it were a good excuse not to continue. She almost felt her eyes bulging a little from the shock of even wondering how many whores he had slept with. Even worse – they probably didn’t sleep at all.


She noticed that he had swallowed. He eyed her, an uncomfortable atmosphere sucking up their air. Spoon in hand, he bravely spoke again:


“Besides, legalizing it has positives…like-“


“Exploiting women,” she muttered, picking at the carrots in her soup broth. He ignored her insight.


“- For instance, prostitutes can report more rapes and abuses. And-“


“And exploiting women,” she mumbled a little louder this time. Again, Joseph ignored her.


“-regulating condom use, health check ups, not to mention-“


“Exploiting women?”


“-that they can contain STD’s.”


“Well,” Kathy huffed, “I think that the best way to contain STD is to cut off the dicks of men…All of them…” She politely patted her lips with her napkin, getting some light pink splotches on it. When she looked up, she saw that his face was frozen in an odd expression that she perceived to be a mix between fear and awe. She remembered thinking to herself, So it’s okay to exploit women but not men?


Last night it was the subject of abortion and stem cell research:


“Well if you ban abortion women will revert to other, dangerous means,” Joseph had argued. “You know, like before.” She laughed a little at this.


“Joseph, dear, we’re in the 21st century – women aren’t going to use hangers anymore.” He hesitated, but it did not stop him from persisting.


“I mean, other means that may be dangerous without professional supervision.”


“And killing innocent babies?”


“Come on! They’re a bundle of cells!” She didn’t reply to that, although it offended her deeply. Israel and Hezbollah, she had secretly decided, will not be apart of our night-time conversations.

Her eyelids fluttered open when she heard Joseph’s heavy footsteps on the stair. He stopped at the bottom of the staircase, seeing her gray hair just above the armchair. Folding his arms across his naked chest, he shuffled his bare feet on the hallway tile.


“Why’s it so cold in here?” he asked her. She inhaled and closed her eyes again.


“I haven’t noticed.” Shrugging, he started to turn in the direction of the kitchen.


“Do you need anything?” Kathy asked him, anticipating the answer. She always asked him, just in case…maybe. Always he replied with the same answer, “No grandma, but thanks.” She was expecting the same today, but he said nothing. Surprisingly, she felt his lips firmly crushing on her temple.


“No Grandma, you have done everything I needed already,” he told her. She felt her eyeballs warming with a welt of tear-water, so she kept them closed tightly.


“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked. It was an unexpected question, and she had only one true answer: Just live long and love hard. Instead, she replied quietly, “Can you make me a warm cup of tea. It’s very cold in here.”


Kathy heard Joseph’s small huff of laughter, and then his bare feet slapping against the hall tile and drifting into the kitchen.

__________________
"The trick is living without an answer. I think."

-Thumbsucker (2005)