Ben was blind from birth. His mother knew it the moment she held him and saw his star-shaped irises and pupils. The iris themselves were gray with little white flecks in them, and the pupils were (as pupils tend to be) black as the depths of space. His mother was shocked at her first glimpse, but she couldn’t help cuddling and nursing her child with starry eyes of her own, the kind that made her heart pound and warmth flood her being. The doctors told her that his eyes were completely unresponsive to light, that the problem went deeper than just their shape, but his mother insisted that there was no ‘problem’, that she couldn’t imagine a more perfect shape for her beautiful baby boy.
Immediately, of course, when an aunt told the neighbors about the baby’s eyes, the buzz spread like smoke from a chimney, and, soon after, everyone in town was whispering about The Boy With Star-Shaped Eyes. …
My job here in the apartment building is to make sure people put their garbage down the chute. There’s one of them on every floor, so there’s no excuse for people to leave bags full of dirty diapers and kitchen scraps and used takeout containers in front of their doors. It’s not only unpleasant for the other residents and their guests to look at—not to mention smell—but it also attracts roaches. And then the management company has to call an exterminator. Exterminators cost money. Call the exterminator enough, and our rent goes up. We’re all in this together.
That’s what I tell everyone when I see their trash outside of their apartment. I knock on their door, and even if they won’t open it, I know they are in there, and so I say it anyway.…
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. Tomorrow will be the last day of my life. I didn’t want to leave this world just like that. It is difficult for a man to face his end, knowing he has passed through life as a ghost. Sometimes frightening people, but mostly invisible, transparent, with no effect on the things he touched. A man both living and dead, a dead man walking, if you want to call it that. The greatest mystery has been revealed to me in these last few days. What is the meaning of living? The answer was recounted to me by a dead dog I found several nights ago on the side of the road that leads to Atlacomulco: There is no meaning; it said amid the buzzing of the hundreds of flies feasting on its decomposing head.…
So begins the ancestral laying-on-of-hands. White on green, the first snowfall comes a sad, melting martyr to disaffected, banknote-colored leaves I hope survive. The mason’s terracotta bricks overlay grass and won’t retain warmth, neither will the cherry tart left on the counter for my friend who recently moved in.
As faces flurry, melt upon each other’s cheeks, I feel a sense of relief. The thousand-piece puzzle is nearly complete. No one is dead. The singing whisper of a choir, or the mindful totality of ancients voices, or something close to Hark, the Herald Angles Sing. My anxious breath returns my lungs with frigid air, then warms that air.
Damp snow accumulates on the white cedars’ arms, until they drop stress, then raise themselves again.
Now that we know what today can be like, can we ever go back to yesterday? She addressed her question to the silver toaster on the counter. In response, it threw up two pieces of toast. Burnt and crisp. She took a bite.
Chew, swallow, gulp. Taste? An afterthought.
The toast was eaten. Tea, coffee, and cigarettes consumed. It was too early for wine.
Hers was a ground-floor studio without a balcony. Only a window which looked out to a once-bustling Dubai street. Now it was silent. Forlorn. The birds few and far in between visited every now and then. But mostly she was on her own.
It had been four weeks since the lockdown.
*
A sparrow descended on her window. Flapping its small wings, the shadowy grey patterns like shutters opening and closing, like the aeroplanes that no longer littered the sky.…
Winter’s frozen fist punched through her windows and crawled over the bare boards where her cold feet stood during the day, and the cradle where her little angel slept, and the small bed where men lay on top of her. Her body only brought in so much, and less since the little angel. One rare client, instead of using her, asked something strange. A bag of warm money sang in his hand.
She accomplished the task as the client had requested–easy. A little trip to the Thames during the night. The client left it outside, and she dealt with it.
She sat on the banks for a few minutes, singing her little angel’s favorite lullaby. The frozen fist loosened around her and a little warmth slipped in.…
