Celestial Dots
I’m paprika, I’m vanilla. My heart is carved like impact craters; my buttocks are too. I’m normal land, I’m also tiny depressions. I’m Arizona, no Oregon in the States. I’m fibrous like the impossible kind of roots. Enough about me, I’d like to focus on you. You’re sitting in front of me, surfing through Instagram. You have green eyes; they fall in-between the lines of enigmatic and diabolic. I don’t know you beyond your eyes and you mentioned something about telekinesis. You raved on passionately about bending spoons and manifesting myriads on our first few dates. You have no power in general, but I’ll give you this; you have come over me.
You step out for a cigarette and I don’t follow you this time. I unzip my wallet and find the capsule I have been saving for ages. I open it up and pour out the psilocybin into your drink. You’ll never know. I check once again, you’re facing the blaring city: Its slugging yellow cabs and their laser beams pointing out children’s skeletal systems, fairy godmothers, Cruella de Vils slurping jolly ranchers.
All the fall frenzy is now ruled by black, nightfall exempts neither leaves nor souls. All black. Pitch. You’re not well, it’s Halloween for god’s sake, you’re dressed like yourself and that’s the scariest thing in the world. I’m bubble bath.
“What are you, three?” You asked.
“No, I’m bubble bath.”
“Jesus, that’s…never mind,” you said and rolled your eyes.
I fully understand what you meant, but I’m without wit when I’m with you.
You come back inside and down your drink as if you cannot stand me a single minute longer.
Is it the costume? It’s me on the whole, isn’t it? I’m repulsive. The psilocybin must be probing your serotonin receptors. I cross my fingers underneath the table, in between my legs.
As a child, I used to eat my own hair. There was a ball, my mother says, mediating my liver, clogging my intestines. They had to operate, immediately. I have had a black hole in me, ever since. No scalpel could tweeze this darkness away. I have sinned, not once, but many times. I give myself one more chance, one last time. I laced you, it strikes me red. Forgive me.
We’re on a zebra crossing, time is ticking. You turn around and say, “It’s over.” “What is?”
“We are.”
No. No. No.
I disagree. I fall into your face and kiss you straight. You try to pull away; I won't let you. I open my arms and instead of holding you, I slap you. You’re shades of flesh, bruised by a bimbo.
No. No. No.
“You can’t leave me,” I scream.
“Watch me, you psycho,” you say, and turn around.
You pace into the streets, are you aroused by the magic mushrooms yet? I bet you can hear the night crawl, it’s been thirty minutes. Your pupils have dilated and birthed a gelatin mask for your eyes; constellations are floating, not ghosts. My love, every Halloween is just a silly Christmas, don’t you know this?
“I’m not feeling so well,” you crawl back to me, like a worm.
This is all I’ve ever wanted. You in my arms. Always. I will cradle you like a baby; we can lay haphazard, stargaze and join those celestial dots. Together, we can make kitten clones and ice cream cones.
You’re clinging to my arm and I’m walking you back to my place, not your second-floor dump. Everything is going according to plan. You’re like January, a new beginning. You pick up a wig from the sidewalk: it’s pink like cotton candy. You distill it into single strands, skimming them through your fingers. Hair is just silky threads made of dead cells, but to you, it’s something else. Your muscles are collapsing but you spy on generously. Are there halos surmounting devil heads? You’re welcome.
We’re here, at my townhouse, climbing the staircase, or should I call them ladders to heaven? You turn around and face me: There’s a one-foot distance. I don’t want to close in on you, I want you to dissolve this distance. Your eyes are shimmering and your fingers are now tracing the white balloons on my torso. Bubble baths are for adults too, my love. Like a child, you stick your tongue out and taste one of my bubbles. Is it fruity? Does it taste like tainted leather or like gummy bears? I’ve given you cumulus in your mouth, we’re far from over.
You’re not you. You’re much more now. Am I in your paintings? You strip down to nothing, hop in the shower. I simply watch you from the bedroom: you’re drooling underneath the flowing water with a permanent smile. You’re the film I have watched a thousand times, so I let you play while I make love to you, in my head. Every shade, every idea is pleasant now, so I watch you from a distance and drift into unknown sleep. A huge mistake.
It’s 5:45 am. I’m awake. I call out your name so many times, you’re nowhere to be found. You’re in the air, everywhere, but not in form. You left me with nothing, not even a post-it note? Is this emptiness between us, so paramount to you? Why you? Why me? I could go on and on but you are gone, healed at least. And that is that.
Contributor
Niv K.
Niv K. is an entrepreneur turned full-time writer. She enjoys grappling with her characters’ psyche, which is exactly what she’s done with her story, Celestial Dots.