What an odd request, to lie on that old-fashioned couch and speak about all her sexual encounters. What a singular aphrodisiac for him, a place in that variegated history could be! And how far from cathartic, how opposite to soothing, how different from therapy, it was as she spun the tension across the room like a spider’s web, intensely aware of the quivering masculinity behind her. Even as she described the impotent and gifted; girls she had crushes on in her immaturity; the father’s of friends whose gaze, like a senescent butterfly, had rested too long; even as she conjured the enjoyment of drunken coercions, the coldness in romantic seductions; she heard a stirring out of sight.

The power of her words came as no surprise to someone in her line of work, but she could not anticipate her own arousal. And despite his lack of response, after initial mumbled promptings to continue, she imagined mutual engorgement.

The patient heard a ticking and paused momentarily until the deep soothing voice said,

‘Don’t Stop.’

But still a surprise when she saw his glorious nudity, for his disegno form was too well conceived to ever be naked. The acanthine hair on his head and neck, the reassuring and probably mandatory beard, the long fingers lambent in the low-light, arise then Xerxes. Of the legion men she had known, he was the greatest, more than a man, and the mirror of her self. Yes, the patient would enjoy her treatment.

Then so depressed, now so joyful, on his knees with his tongue relishing the acrid juices of her sex. One hundred and ten pounds per hour, for him to drag her thighs down towards him; burning her back on the unimaginative burgundy leather of the couch; each minute of his caresses, costing almost two. And far more than his plucking her lips like a harp with the rosy velveteen head of his sex, the understanding they had reached, made her forget the fee.

Anticipating the fruition of his desire, after all the times when his patients had been sufficiently engrossed in recounting their sexual neuroses for him to a risk those furtive, hurried strokes. The most blessed audience in the world had brought himself to silent climax, and hoped the women would not notice the change in the cloying atmosphere of that room; from tense to nepenthe.

Finally the spoiled psychoanalyst despoiled his spoilt patient; and his groping hands feathered her shoulders, traced her collarbone,

‘And how does that make you feel.’

‘Don’t stop; tell me about your past lovers’.

The whore could scarce believe the lack of emotion in his voice, he was inside her and so detached. She was never this needing of her men.

To interrupt his caresses should he thrust his sex into the invitingly narrow gulf between her full breasts, but what had his mother done to deserve such degradation? Would her tender nipples crack if he risked a gentle nip?

What the good doctor did was to squat over the couch, forcing his phallus directly down plugging her mouth and stopping her words. Trammelling up forever the flow of distant fathers and scarifying mothers; the tedious social alienation and repetitious pressures of work and love; with his sex buried to the hilt in her prone face he damned forever the boring complaints and questions, animalistic complexes and complex animas and animuses. Where there had been the unending need for understanding and explanation he filled her head up with himself, like all his patients would have him do.

Shocked by his behaviour and with a new clarity caused by disinterest, he withdrew limp and wet, standing over his couch and patient, like the Colossus. The analyst started to play over in his mind what this oral fixation could mean.

‘The hour is up.’ She did not want to leave; it had been the best encounter of her career.

‘Oh, yes of course. Your money,’ said the analyst, and so she left. Of course she was a prostitute: it would have been unethical to sleep with a patient. 

Imagine that.

In the quiet hallway, the Nurse shivered. The involuntary spasms launched from her tailbone, shoving their way up her spine. At first, she felt panicked. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, clenching her fists as she did, feeling the nails dig into her palms.. After a moment, she felt her muscles relax

Of course I’m shivering, she assured herself. It is cold tonight.

And it was. The snowy- wind howled outside, making the recently fixed heaters an even more welcome presence at the hospital – but that didn’t mean a rogue draft couldn’t hit the residents. She took one step forward, then another. Feeling more relaxed, she found herself in front of room 217. Pushing the door open, she smiled at the familiar balding man staring out the window. He turned and, somewhat startled, straightened in his chair..

“Damn, it’s windy tonight!” he cried, grinning and rising. “How ya doin’ doc?”

The Nurse smiled back.

“Hello, Mr. Messner. Do you know who I am?” she asked, as she picked up stray papers from the floor.

“Not a clue. You some sort of doc? That nametag of yours. R.N.? ”

She picked up a notebook from the floor.

“I’m your nurse. Would it surprise you to hear that I have been your nurse for four years?”

“Four! Well, I’ll be damned. I’m sorry that I don’t remember that pretty face of yours.” She smiled at him, then bent to pick the final sheet off the floor, admiring the abstract shapes and patterns that were splayed across the page.

“I like this one,” she said, showing him a particularly intricate piece involving what appeared to be a twisted tree. It was beautiful.

“Oh, yeah – I like that one too. I was looking at it. You draw it?”

She smiled once again, adding the picture to the already tottering pile of Henry Messner’s drawings, each full of the complexity of one who did not know—or remember—the purpose of each piece. Such was the artistry of retrograde amnesia. She gently walked to the window and lead Henry towards the door. Henry immediately began to walk towards the dining room.

“Do you know what you are doing tonight, Mr. Messner?”

“Pretty lady, don’t keep me in the dark.”

“We’re having dinner together. Thanksgiving, you know.”

“Thanksgiving!” he exclaimed. “Who knew? Last I remember, I watched our girls dominate beach volleyball. Sydney. Man, I love a game with bikinis. How long ago was that?”

“Five years ago, Mr. Messner,” said the Nurse, following Henry down the hall

The dining room was, by far, the Nurse’s favourite room in the hospital. While the hallways could be stark and sterile, the builders had taken great pains to make it a comfortable place. The tall walls, lined with mahogany wood panels, were packed with shelves and leather-bound books, interspersed with bright windows that opened to a snow-covered field in the back. At one end of the room was the main dining table, stately and solid, decorated now with fall leaves and flickering candles. The rest was strewn with low couches. Almost everything was topped with handcrafted down pillows. The thick carpets begged for bare feet. Finally, the room was anchored by a magnificent stone fireplace that arched over a pile of burning wood. It always made the Nurse smile, especially since the smoke was now intermingled with the scents of a Thanksgiving feast and the husky tendrils of low conversation. The couches in front of the fireplace – the warmest place in room – were presently occupied by the Thanksgiving crowd.

The Nurse followed Henry closer to the fireplace, where he was greeted by the group. While she watched him, she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to a shyly smiling woman with wild, curly hair. The Nurse patted her hand, “Happy Thanksgiving, Grace.”

“The wind, it howls to the high heavens and drinks water,” Grace whispered. “Sings, she does, I cannot know what the matter is as she flies high in the sky.”

The Nurse smiled and squeezed her hand, closing her eyes to Grace’s wispy poetry.

“I’ve got to help out in the kitchen now, hon. I’ll be back in no time, though, ok?”

In one corner of the kitchen, a forty-year-old man peeled apples. There was an open crust in a pan beside him.

“Hello, Aaron.”

Aaron twisted around and grinned broadly as he gestured towards the pan. “Pie,” he said carefully.

“You shouldn’t have. Apple pie is my favourite.”

He chuckled and gave her a glance. I know. He tossed the finished apple into the pie crust. He gestured out towards the hall. How are they?

Aaron had a distinct advantage over others with Broca’s area damage, simply because his personality allowed him to have it. He had been a tax auditor and a man of a few words, instead using his eyes and body language to convey the emotions that he could no longer formulate into oral projection. He still lived at home with his family, but regularly volunteered at the hospital – even on Thanksgiving. Granted, Thanksgiving wasn’t until tomorrow, but his spirit was still admirable. He was a warm, welcome presence. And he baked killer pies. Especially apple pies.

“As good as usual. With the exception of Henry, I think they’ve been looking forward to this all year.”

Aaron paused a moment before laughing, picking a bowl of punch as he did so.

“Terrible,” he said. He handed her the punch.

She took the punch back to the dining room table and sat next to Henry. “Looks like a Thanksgiving dinner, huh, doc? Did you know that turkey is my favourite?”

“I know. You tell me every time I see you.”

“I hope I haven’t gotten too repetitive then. I tend to do that.”

The Nurse couldn’t help but laugh. “No. I think that it’s endearing.”

“Good,” he said simply. “I like being liked. Can’t help it. I worry about being disliked.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she said. A pause hung in the air.

“Worry about what?” Henry said, finally.

“Worry about eating too much at Thanksgiving dinner,” came an exclamation from behind. A matronly older woman appeared in front of them, offering them both a glass of punch. “Hello, Ms. Nurse.”

The Nurse gratefully took the glass, and squeezed her hand tightly. Tamara’s bright personality and humour made her one of the Nurse’s favourite volunteers. And she was an amazing woman. Tamara – who had damage in her occipital lobe from a stroke four years ago – could not recognize the Nurse by face alone. However, the woman had grown quite adept at subtlety spotting and recognising clothes, hair colour, and jewellery.

“Have I told you lately how I appreciate you guys having to wear nametags?” she said. As amazing as she was, nametags did help.

Tamara sipped her punch. “Anyways, I was sent by Mr. Gourmet Chef himself to tell you that Thanksgiving dinner is almost ready.”

“Thanks.”

Before the Nurse could make her way to the table, grunting sounds came through the door. Accompanied by an attendant, Phineas Gordon was led into the dining hall. Perhaps led was too gentle a word. Shoved through the doors was more accurate.

“I don’t give a damn about Thanksgiving dinner. Waste of time. Hanging around these losers? I’d rather scrape my balls against rusty nails. They’re crazy.”

The Nurse sighed sadly. Six years ago, he had been a doting husband and father, an engineer near the city. Now, he had to be constantly supervised, but it was no guarantee that he would behave. She was afraid that the rant would last all through dinner, but to her great relief, Phineas’ eyes lit up at the sight of the food-laden table.

“Well, why didn’t anyone say that there was going to be all the fixings?” he said.

He immediately sat down on one end, as the rest of the residents gingerly made their way around the rest of the table.

The Nurse stood now, and saw the small party in front of her – the assistant nurses, attendants and the small band of patients who had no homes to return to. They could do much worse than this family, she thought.

“Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.” She was not one for formality, and so, without further ado, started carving the turkey.

“Everything to be thankful for,” said Henry. “In addition to being forgetful, I could be ugly and charmless as well.”

They began to pick at the steaming food set in front of them. Aaron had already outdone himself this year. She watched as Tamara picked at the rosemary-encrusted potatoes, and the quiche, and the steaming rolls straight from the oven.

Her reverie was interrupted as she thought she felt something thud against her shoulder. She looked. Nothing. She continued to eat. Then, another thud.

It was unmistakable now. She turned down quickly enough to see a broccoli floret brush against her arm and fall limply to the floor. She looked up to see a grinning Phineas. The Nurse sighed as she turned to him.

“Please, Phineas, don’t throw your food.”

“And why not? It’s fun.” For emphasis, he picked up a roll and tossed it at her head.

“Please. If you do not behave yourself, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Huh. As if I care,” he said, picking up another roll to toss. The Nurse sighed.

“I mean it,” she said. “Don’t sit out another dinner with us, please.”

The Nurse was startled by the raw rage that swept over Phineas’ stubbled face. His jaw tensed, his lips and mouth locking into an almost primal sneer.

“Watch me, princess.” He stood and pitched the roll into the punch, knocking over his chair as he did so. An attendant approached him, and gripped his shoulder. Phineas violently shrugged it off.

“Don’t you touch me!” He screeched as an attendant approached him. “I’ll show myself to the door! You bunch of crazies are going to be sorrier for the loss.” Then, in a split second, he fell into hysterical laughter.

“Happy Thanksgiving.” He knocked over an empty chair, and continued laughing on the way over to the door, which he slammed with a thud.

The Nurse closed her eyes and was grateful that the other residents seemed dulled to his behaviour. Tamara, as usual, was the first to break the mood. “Well, will somebody pass the mashed potatoes?”

They returned to the platters and a comfortable murmur. Aaron, six chairs down, called out to The Nurse.

“P…p…peas?” he said.

The Nurse saw the steaming platter of green pods in front of her and reached for them. The next events unfolded almost as a dream. The Nurse was, at first, lifting the peas – and then, she was not. Instead, her arm hovered stiffly in the air, briefly, before it shuddered straight into a candle. The hot wax splashed on her arm as the candle rolled into the dropped peas. The burn from the wax then brought her rudely into reality.

The table erupted. The flame from the candle had caught the corner of a paper napkin, sending tiny flames around the edges. Grace screeched. Henry yelled and jumped back in his chair. The others were caught in various stages of shouting, hand waving and general mayhem, while the flickering orange flames grew to an alarming size in the middle of the table.

Finally, Tamara lifted the pitcher of water and emptied itover the napkin. It immediately shrunk into a pitiful black pile on the table, sizzling into a watery death.

The end of the fire stunned the table into silence. Everyone stood, blinking, until Tamara reached over again and righted the fallen candle.

“This is why candles violate the fire code here,” she chuckled.

The chuckle extended down the table, mirth mixing with relief. This was a story for the ages, they cried. Wait until the kids hear about this one. A tantrum from Phineas and a fire, all in the same meal.

They did not notice the Nurse, who had not stopped staring at her slightly trembling hand. They did not turn when she pushed back from the table and mechanically walked towards the door. And as she felt the cooler air from the hallway hit her face, she did the only thing that she could think of doing.

She ran.

The Nurse could hear her own thundering footsteps as they echoed down the empty hall. She slowed down now, as she felt sharp cramps grab at her ribs. Finally, she stopped. After catching her breath, she gave a savage growl, slamming the palm of her hand into a nearby locker. She welcomed the pain that shot up her arm. Leaning against the wall, she slid down, curling up into a curve. Her breath came with effort. She did not notice another figure coming until a shadow enveloped her.

She gasped.

A startled Aaron stepped back and waved his arms in apology.

“S…s….sorry.”

The Nurse sighed now. “Just…just don’t sneak up on me like that again, all right?”

Aaron nodded his head in comprehension. He glanced meaningfully over his glasses.

The Nurse opened her mouth and considered. It would be so easy to lie. So easy to blame a bathroom break, blame a frightening image for her panic. However, when she looked over, she was met with quiet, intelligent eyes, and her resolve faltered. She offered a weak garble.

“I got burned.”

“Liar,” said Aaron, smiling.

“Oh, right. You used to do that for a living, didn’t you, number pusher?”

She was met with a friendly shove. She chuckled and looked up, and was met again with a sharp gaze that repeated his previous question. The Nurse sighed and looked away down the darkened hallway.

“They diagnosed me with Parkinson’s last week,” she said. “I just told my family today.”

Silence.

Suddenly she could not see – her vision dissolving into spots of colour. At first, it was a tickle at the end of her nose. Then, it was a flutter of the eyebrow. And then she couldn’t stop.

She wept, now. The tears, pooling in her eyes for some time, finally spilled down her face. Aaron put his arm around her, a silent force against her trembling shoulders. “I’m…s…s…sorry,” he said, simply.

She broke from his embrace and took in a sharp breath, desperately trying to stem the flow from her eyes.

“In the last week, I have been imagining things. Every time I shudder in disgust, every time I shiver in the cold, every time I feel tired in the morning and can’t bring myself to get out of bed. I imagine that I’m losing control. And the truth is that – someday – I will lose control and I won’t have to imagine. Like Phineas.”

Another tear flowed off her nose as she hugged her knees. “And that’s not all. When I came to work here, I loved my patients. Loved what they were. But I pitied them. Pitied what they had lost. And now, I’m beginning to hate them. I hate what they make me remember. Even when I love them, I hate looking at them, staring and struggling, scared and desperate, knowing now that eventually, it will be me. And someone will go ahead and pity me instead.”

Aaron sighed as well, and sat in silence. He offered a small curve at the corner of his mouth. “No…n…n…no pity,” he said. “F…f…friends.” He pursed his lips in brief frustration and looked seriously in her gleaming eyes. “You’ll…you….”

The Nurse smiled at his earnestness, briefly breaking her streak of emotional drainage. She leaned her head back against the wall, and felt the texture of the wood against the back of her skull. She slowly lifted one hand in front of her face, flexing her fingers one by one, delighting over the curl of each knuckle.

“I’m just…going to miss this. Y’know? I know I’ll have some time to adjust, but this…” She wiggled her fingers for emphasis. “This just never gets old.”

She sighed and stood up. Aaron stood up with her and placed a hand on her arm. “Okay,” she said.

Side by side, they returned to the dining hall. Although the tears threatened to re-form, she kept her gaze steady as she noticed the faces in the hall with her. Grace, who now seemed to be chatting about birds. Tamara, who laughed with Grace.

Aaron, who smiled through it all and made it back to his seat while the Nurse watched. She finally sat down at the end of the table, next to Henry Messner. He turned to her and smiled.

“Damn, it’s cold tonight!” he said. “How ya doin’, doc?”

Dear Mnumba,
It seems as if I am writing you a letter, my dear friend. We have always been honest to one another. Thus, to make sure that there is no misunderstanding between the two of us, perhaps I should confess immediately that this is the case. I am writing you a letter! I am writing to you from a wooden cottage on the border between Italy and Switzerland, just by Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. The first draft of this letter was made in handwriting just by the previously mentioned lake, whereas the text you are reading now was compiled on a computer, on the stony surface of my desk. At this moment it is snowing outside. The snowflakes are as big as the stars, and the sky is white. Do not worry dear Mnumba; the cottage is warm which the snowflakes would confirm if they could live to tell.
My research results are oxymoronic just like the mountainous valleys of the Swiss Alps. I have a long way to go before I have gathered sufficient specimens to analyse back at the laboratory. I have funding to stay here for two more months and there is little leeway for buying any more office equipment or specimen gathering paraphernalia. I am afraid that my cottage basement is not big enough to harbour the amount of specimens required by the research board. I will have to start storing the samples on the wooden floor in my living space which currently looks as follows: one big room, with a bunk-bed, a desk made of rocks from the local mountain and a shelf made of trees from the rainforest; two windows facing each other on opposite sides of the room and a door which allows one to enter and exit the cottage.
O Mnumba, the days feel protracted; and I am often restless – but I am certainly not lonely! I feel comfortable in knowing that the specimens are well preserved in the basement. I have only to wander outside for a while in the snow, at the foot of the mountains – in order to relinquish my feelings of restlessness and replenish my desires to be lonely. Because, my dear Mnumba, I am not alone in the cottage. I have arranged with the people residing in the nearby village to visit me once a week for a transaction of basic foodstuffs, whiskey, animal protein and moleskins. They send me a different person each time. Sometimes they send a male, sometimes a female, sometimes a teenager, other times it is an elderly person; less frequently they are polite, more often than seldom they speak, and they always come alone.
Mnumba, I must tell you about the odd quotations I found lying around in one of the stone drawers of my stone desk. They all seem to be written at various points in history, and differ quite considerably in terms of content. On evenings like this, I amuse myself by reading a few of them while blazing my throat with the lagavulin you bought me; delivered by an elderly villager who happened to speak, but not in a polite manner. The first quote claims to be dated from the 1960s and says:
“Speak bluntly and you will trust, speak dada and the next word will try to run with you“.
There is another quote which I found just yesterday while looking for my specimen requirements instructions, it says:
“The person who thinks of the next day during dinner will be eating with her eyes” and claims to be written by an unknown Beylerbeylik of early modern Ottoman period in the year 1406.
There are many more, my dear Watson, let me give you but a few more. I believe you will find them of the upmost interest, especially since I found them lying in a drawer made of stone in a cottage in the Alps.
“Eat long enough and you will try; eat more and they will try“
“In order to predict you must foresee and in order to not be predicted you mustn’t“

“The umbrella is a tool for thought, says the weak, the umbrella is the fools reflection of herself, says the Greek, the umbrella is the crust of thought, says the Word that rhymes with eek“

“In the times of old, they said not to themselves that their times were old, but only reflected upon how the time dating before them was enough to make them think of it as aged“

“They who sit with their face are not strangers to their feet”

I must make a second confession, Mnumba. As you know I was hoping to get away from my continuous contemplating that seems to plague my mind, by moving to the Alps. The contemplation repeats itself in the same manner of sequence, every morning: Contemplating about my worries; worrying about my contemplation. Every morning begins with intense contemplation. Which is odd, in fact, as you probably noticed Mnumba, because contemplation is a state of being, you cannot have an intense feeling of contemplation. Yet this is what is happening to me!
Mnumba, my dear Mnumba, I sleep in a bunk-bed. Perhaps I should explain that the bunk-bed is the place where one might sleep. It being a bunk-bed, I am thus close to the ceiling of the room in which I had been sleeping for the last three months. The contemplation continues as I move my body around my bottom; swinging my body around its own axel, with my bottom as a greasy bearing – using the bed sheets as a platform for spinning. The swinging or spinning rather – of my body around its own axel – continues for a moment as I aim my legs for the ladder – enabling me eventually to climb down from the bunk bed.
Mnumba, there is no one else but me in the room, I can assure you, when I conduct this, shall we call it: ‘morning exercise.’ At this moment, except for me and the occasional others, there is only me in the room and a silver pillow lying on the cedar coloured wooden floor.
The others that are occasionally here in the room are the focus of my contemplation. Yes! I believe it must be so Mnumba. It is they, Mnumba! They, the occasional –meaning not frequent- visitors of which I spoke about before, are the original source of my contemplation.
The morning exercises end with me sitting with my legs dangling down the ladder of my bunk bed, contemplating about the others; talking about the others and talking to the others, at the same time. I tell the others – imagining them sitting on the silver coloured pillow, with their long yellow hair on the cedar painted floor. I tell them, how I woke up at 08:02 last Monday – the 1st of November. I tell them how I had two slices of baguettes for breakfast, that I ate some Izmir cheese and drank two cups of filter coffee with no milk or sugar. I tell them this, Mnumba, while contemplating and watching how they smirk at my contemplation.
However, I continue telling the others that at 10:32, later that day; I went close to Lake Maggiore, in search for more specimens. I saw this man with a black coat and thick black glasses, standing with his back to the lake; he was waving at me. He stood close to a car with no roof. It was an old car; from the fifties I believe, it was red and shiny. I took large but slow paces towards him; chuckling to myself about the oddness of the situation. I could smell my body odour from five days of not showering. As I approached him, the oddest thing happened, I must explain to you in detail, Mnumba.
As I came closer to the man, he did not react to my presence, yet he continued to wave at me. It felt odd that he did not greet me in any manor what–so-ever. This fostered my desire to walk closer up to him. As I stood, just a few inches from his face, he stopped waving. The man with glasses took a deep breath and I waited patiently, trying to anticipate the phonetics of his words. (I believe, in retrospective, that the man was a pro tempore of my contemplation.)
Nothing came out of his mouth and instead his forehead opened and his brain, stained with black spots, started talking to me with a low-pitched voice in Russian. Surprised by the unexpected development of the situation, I took two steps back in awe and fright and I suddenly found myself stuck – no melted – into a tree. I don’t know how I got free from the tree, but I am here now, writing you a letter, and I feel fine.
Why a melted tree, the others ask me, and so might even you ask me, my dear Mnumba. To which I reply: You just touched upon the most rational and easiest part of the event. This, my dear Mnumba, I answer you, and which, by the way, was also my answer to the others.
You see, as I came up to him – him meaning the-man-standing-with-black-thick-glasses-leaning-against-a-red-and-shiny-car-that-looked-as-if-it-was-from-the-fifties-whose-brain-had-small-dark-spots-sprinkled-all-around-his-Russian-speaking-brain – there seemed to be, at the exact same moment, something peculiar going on with his thick black glasses.
You see, he was sweating, not because it was cold outside, but because his thick black glasses had been set in motion, and sweat was pouring down his forehead. It so happens that his glasses seemed to be locked into his skull bone with two solid nuts made of what looked like steel.
In his right hand, he had a copy of a Russian newspaper, the Pravda, which he held in front of him. Finally, I thought to myself, the Pravda, the truth, is about to be revealed. Then, my dear Mnumba, as I attempted to read the headlines, his sweaty skull opened. It sounded to me like small thuds of “click, click, click, click, click” as the steel bolts locked into his forehead started revolving around themselves. The temples of his spectacles where supporting the other half of the skull which was positioned above that yellow mass of goo we call the brain. His glasses made the upper part of his fleshy and bloody skull stay up, you know, so it wouldn’t close again. And the brain explained to me, in Russian, what it said in the newspaper the Pravda.
Mnumba, I just remember something, and I must make another correction to what happened to me. The brain didn’t have any black spots on it, I was wrong. The brain was bathing in red and yellow napkins. The napkins had pieces of fat on them that made greasy impressions; just like the stains you get from wiping your hands after you have eaten freshly grilled chicken.
The man with the glasses, whose brain was talking, his face was smiling at me, and his eyes were staring like crazy at me. Thus, at this exact instant, I took two steps backwards. It was so cold, and I had begun to sweat, not because of the cold weather, or the perplexity of the situation, but because I had a very warm jacket. But I did not say this to the others; I told them that I was sweating because of the situation.
The tree must have started to melt the exact moment you touched its bark, the others speculated. Indeed, I replied to the others, and so, Mnumba, the brain was yelling louder and louder in Russian. As you see Mnumba, I never fully answered the question posed by the others! And as I moved backwards I suddenly felt frozen. Melted into a tree, Mnumba! But I am fine now. I will go out and collect some more specimens.

Take care!

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Frenk

Ps. another quote I found inscribed in the bottom of one of the drawers of my desk: “The leftovers of the sea will have its revenge on our thirst by being too salty to drink and too little to hope for” Ds

There he was, waiting for me, shadowed by the dim light of the day’s end. I grasped his look, and I right away understood his thought. I got closer, and noticed how his thought was materializing in gestures of confusion. Wasn’t I the one he was waiting for, I wondered. He looked at me astonished, trying to recreate me from thought fragments and forgotten feelings. I understood from his eyes what his question was: are you the one I love? Are you the same one from yesterday, the one from today, the one from my thoughts? He was whispering that it wasn’t him the one living his life next to me. And the thought that maybe we have lost ourselves somewhere on the road, that we have forgotten ourselves, as hurting me. And while trying to search for that distant moment, I found out that I was afraid of an end…

Second night of separation

The night began with a light rain. Walking me towards the car, he seemed to be in a hurry, as if pushed by an invisible force. He gave me a short glance, with his fugitive eyes, foreseeing a break-up with no regrets. I looked at him then, with my eyes full of fear. I was afraid of an immediate separation. But under the sad rain, he made an unexpected gesture. He stopped. And then, the time stopped its wheel, the rain stopped from falling, the night stopped from coming, and I stopped understanding… He was looking at me, moment after moment, thought after thought, teardrop after teardrop. When I his sad cheek, I wanted to leave, not to be there anymore. But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t feel anymore. I noticed then a white hair on his unshaved cheek, hiding his sad story. I understood that his soul was torn apart by a double identity, and his fight has left deep marks in his eyes. And I forgave his hastiness each time, smiling as a sign of understanding. I let him leave that rainy sad evening in the parking lot, hiding my soul between cars, rain pools, and yellow lights, until our next break-up.

Third night of separation

He wished he could have looked at her for the one last time, at least for a second, but he anxiously headed for the door, almost forgetting about the thought just had. But when he wanted to open it, he realized how much he wished he weren’t there anymore. He knew that she was watching him, with her inquiring eyes. He knew she understood that he was running away… She locked the door behind him, closing the emptiness between them. She stood still for a moment, waiting for the inevitable. She felt that everything around her was collapsing; things were dematerializing, and her body was decomposing. E pur si muove, she thought. She remained with her hand stuck to the door handle, as if it was the only real thing that she could cling on to. She was afraid that she would fall, that she would lose herself. Then, she slowly took her hand away, and leaned against the cold wall, which seemed more stable this time. She cuddled next to the thing that could guide her in her fall. Frightened, she remembered how time and again she felt him around her, how she saw him in her things, and discovered him through her thoughts. But now, she couldn’t rebuild him from fragments of thoughts. She tried to remember their last conversation, the words that have hurt her so. But she realized that she could not remember his words. The words turned into sounds, the sounds into air. She couldn’t remember anything but pain, which was now spreading inside her, like a disease. She tried again to cling to something, anything that would stop her from falling. Azulejos came into her mind, the word that would make her remember. But it didn’t. Helpless, she let herself fall in depths of her thoughts. She wasn’t scared anymore; she wanted to feel that pain, where it would lead her. Now she understood. The pain showed the way inside herself, it opened a new way towards her soul. And now it seemed so easy to feel him inside her again. She was alive. She rediscovered herself, more pure, more free. Finally, when she thought that there was nothing else to lose inside, she felt a strange silence around her. Suddenly, she woke up, amazed by the bizarre light in her room. She looked outside, and she understood that it had got dark. She understood that now, everything was peace.

We first met Mamma Kitty when we lived to Sacramento. The cat came around while we played in a broken old stale hot tub in the backyard. From the first time we met her everyone was enamored by her beauty. The cat would hobble to our house which she could now rely on as a constant food source and let my mother pet her. In return Mamma Kitty would kill mice and lay half of their remains on the stoop where she would proceed to bang her head into the sliding glass door until my mother would come over and recognize her gifts laying there convulsing in their blood. My siblings and I were alarmed by these morbid gifts, but my mother would stand there and applaud her then reward her with an exquisite petting sessions. They had a strange connection, the cat and my mom. So when we moved to Tahoe my mom decided we were taking the cat with us. We transported her in a makeshift cage, two laundry baskets taped together with packaging tape.

When we first moved in the cat sat under my parents’ bed all day long, and wait for the next idiot to come in and fall victim to her deranged animal instincts. Once you stood close enough to the bed and demonstrated that you weren’t moving for a couple seconds, the cat would jet out and claw your foot. The pain was brief but there was always a scratch mark that lingered on the foot, a constant reminder to stay away from my parent’s bed. I suppose one day the cat decided the minor scratches were not powerful enough to validate her domination over the household so the cat started venturing out of my parents’ room, giving people false hopes of being in her good graces.

I still distanced myself from her. When Mamma Kitty would enter my room in the middle of the night waking me up by tromping over my bed I would scream in terror. The idea of that cat clawing my eyes out was too much to handle, so I would have to wake my mom up and have her remove the cat from my premises. Instances like these informed the cat I was an easy target.

One night I was feeling sorry for the poor cat sitting outside my parents’ bedroom, meowing to be let inside, so I decided to open the door where she could return to her thrown under my parents’ bed. I tried the handle but the door was locked. I was a master snoop, and had figured out how to pick all the locks in the house with my fingernail, so I proceeded to do this. I picked the lock and swung the door open for Her Royal Highness to enter. From there I was confronted with the most astounding picture I have ever seen. My father jumped out from nowhere holding a crumpled t-shirt in front of him screaming broken, nonsensical sentences and then the door slammed in my face. I stood there staring at the door in complete and total shock. The cat was gone, and I was there looking like the classic fool.

Too traumatized to return to my brothers and sisters, I went to my room where I laid in bed and stared at the stucco on the ceiling. Initially I was scared that my father would come and yell at me for being so stupid as to not acknowledge a locked door, but when I saw he sent my mother instead I knew this was going to be an incredibly awkward and unpleasant situation. My family, the typical brush everything under the carpet and forget about it people, believe that meaningless conversation can mend any wound. The conversation is a gesture of your ability to forget what has just happened, as long as you promise never to speak of it again. I was fine with this, and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. We both didn’t mention the humungous scar that had instantly developed from my shock, but talked about Rosanne and the new books we were reading. I was so embarrassed for her, and wanted her to leave, but being the loving mother she is, she had to come and make sure her third born had not died from a cardiac arrest.

My parents tried very hard to exemplify a relationship where each of them was unhappy, and now I knew they actually did like each other. I felt betrayed. I learned my entire raunchy vocabulary from their frequent battles, and now the words had lost their powerful meanings. How had they been able to fool us for so long? I was unable to make sense of what seemed to be the biggest domestic cover up I would ever discover. I slowly accepted that my parents did like each other, and even began to think of their fights as political rallies. The slogan “Workaholic Asshole” translated to “Vote Matriarch” and “Fucking Spaghetti” actually meant “Vote Patriarch.” My siblings and I were amidst the longest running campaign ever in existence. It was a strategy working to both their benefit. No one ever dominated the throne too long and their loyal subjects were completely dumfounded as to which party to side with. I suppose they had us eating out of the palm their hand.

Later that night Mamma Kitty entered my room. She sauntered all around my bed, and was insistent on making me notice her presence. The cat knew I was incapable of getting my mother to make her get that damn cat off my bed. I had become helpless. The cat had now conquered my room; I became a new claimed country to her. All I could do was cover my head with a pillow and try to make myself fall asleep.

Mamma Kitty was smarter than most and after awhile when the she did not come in my room anymore I realized she had set me up, not as a way to make my room yet another conquest, but she wanted to teach me a cruel life lesson that one can only learn from such a dreadful experience. From that day forward I was a changed girl, because I learned something that only a few people find out at my age; never trust a bitch, not even a gorgeous crippled one.