Inattentive, and: Rebirth as Deliverance, and: Tic Douloureux, and: Serafina, and: After The Pillow Book, and: Missing e, and: Damn Fag

Abstract

Inattentive Forgets to do her chores, prefers to play alone, loves to read but cannot finish a book, traces rows of curlicues on her PeeChee during class, knows all the answers but is too petrified to speak, and when spoken to at home gazes glassily into space saying "Yes, Mother," but hasn't grasped a word. One day, sent to the garden to cut a sprig of rosemary for potatoes, she was half an hour later found perched on grass-stained knees, scissors lost, errand unremembered, her lips kissing dandelion pompoms into air. Is she normal? The mother wants to know. Un-inclined to diagnose, to label, I listen as her child recounts a typical day at school, her favorite story- She's obviously smart enough to read the exam room's every pamphlet. Is she gifted? Just a fidget? Who's to say what's weed, what's wildflower? She seems to me more dreamy than distracted: lost thinking her long, long thoughts. [End Page 123] Rebirth as Deliverance This is stupid, she thinks. A baby doesn't need to wrestle to be born, like a chickadee pushing out of an egg. Still they wrap the ten year old in a blanket, press down on her with pillows. It's dark in there, and she can't breath. This is stupid, she thinks, and demands to be set free, but they only squeeze her tighter in the makeshift womb. It's her new mom's idea, something to bring them closer, help them bond. This is stupid, she thinks, that woman will never be her real mom. It's a long and difficult labor, and the girl resists their urgings. "Don't you want to be reborn?" the therapist asks, more threat than lullaby. This is stupid, she thinks, and answers a sullen, "No." Thirty halting minutes later as video whirrs and the adoptive mother hums her daughter's name, the smothering blankets part to reveal blue silence - her icy face fixed in defiant grimace. [End Page 124] Tic Douloureux For weeks, months, he feels nothing. Then a slight breeze brushes his face, he absentmindedly strokes his moustache or a grandchild kisses his cheek, and the ice pick stabs just below his left eye, making him wince and water, spasming his face into lopsided grimace. No one can tell him why it pokes him, how long it will last, or who gave it such a glamorous name. But we all agree it's excruciating. Worse than birth pains, or a kidney stone. This sudden electric shock like a drill bit spinning against his zygoma. This burnt matchstick held to his eyelid. The medicines we try only make him sleepy. And the nerve surgery: rhyzolysis, could paralyze half his face. Just when he thinks he can't take it anymore - it vanishes. For weeks, months, he feels nothing. Sometimes a year passes and he almost forgets. Then, reading a book one evening, or gazing at some family photos, he turns to watch a hummingbird at the feeder, an eyelash falls and grazes his cheek- a little tickle, that sends him. [End Page 125] Serafina That day the sky seemed torn open like a letter. All morning on the television bodies falling in flames as steel and glass towers crumbled. Unable to look any longer, my partner and I wandered the late summer garden- the kniphofia in tatters, a few pears bruised and fallen near the birdbath, our own city shining and intact in the distance, but the sky eerily quiet, not a plane, not a bird in sight. Come evening we walked to the neighborhood bistro. How oddly soothing to watch the hostess guide us to our favorite table, offer us menus, fill our glasses with iced water - her movements calm and assured, as if nothing astonishing had happened. How the votive candle's gentle flickering lit my partner's face, and the bread and the oil the...