Changes

            Woke up this morning and started scratching, peeling off the skin like I do every morning. This time, it was you, though. I don’t know if you had hid the condition from me this whole time, or if I was contagious, but nevertheless, I sat on the bed and watched as you shed the outer layers of your arms.  It didn’t hurt, though. I know, because it never does. The purple skin underneath was ready for the new day.  I almost felt as though I was watching myself, but I was too caught off-guard to start scratching off yesterday’s skin, now red, from my own body. 

            You acted as though nothing had changed, so I was hesitant to ask.  Then, I remembered the incessant itching of the old skin, and had to peel that off with a vengeance.  While I was taking care of myself, you got ready to face the day from the bathroom.  It’s funny how one change can make an entire routine so surreal, almost like figuring out that you have a tail, and wondering how you were able to sit in chairs this whole time, like a normal person.

            I knew your skin wasn’t like mine yesterday, though.  You had taken a month to get used to the fact that I wasn’t the same, and now I guess the tables had turned.  I hope to accept the change with as much grace as you had, but it won’t mean as much on my end, as I’m familiar with the condition, already.  That doesn’t mean I won’t try…

            You were ready, and went off to do whatever it is that you go do during the day. I try not to bother you with this ceaseless curiosity, and I know it probably isn’t my business.  As if answering my questions, though, I gazed at the city from our little porch on the 23^rd floor, I saw a pig fall from the roof sporting odd little wings.  It fell, squealing and flapping.  It actually flew for a few feet, about two floors below me, then fell again.  The body splattered across the entire street. You’d be surprised how much guts can be stuffed in a pig, even with wings.

air

            Two guys in old wife-beaters, combat boots, and boxers walk over the Deringer St. Bridge at around 10:53 pm. It’s June, so they aren’t really cold, their body language says they’re old friends. I think they’re interesting, being the only people that have walked by me all night. As they stop at the middle of the bridge and look down at the river slowly passing by, carrying little boats with people caught up in their own worlds, I listen in to their conversation.

            “The air.”

            “What?”

            “Do you ever stop and just think it?”

            “… What?”

            “The air! Do you ever just think about it?”

            “Not exactly. It’s just kind of there, what else is there to think about it?”

            “Exactly! It’s just there, that’s the point.”

           

            “I don’t get it.”

            “We’re surrounded by it at all times. We can’t see it, and if it’s moving, we can’t feel it. It doesn’t have a smell to itself, only carries the smell of the things it passes by.  How does such a thing happen?”

            “Fuckin’ magic? I don’t know, why the sciences quiz? You’re reminding me of Ms. Garfunkle, you remember her?”

            “Yeah, of course. She fuckin’ stank. Knew her shit, though. Anyway, how is it that we aren’t like the air? Look at you, you don’t flow. I don’t flow, either; no one does.  The air flows pretty constantly, from one place to the next.”

            “We came out here to talk about not being air? Really?”

            “No, but how did it happen? We’re sitting on a huge rock right now. Rocks don’t exude air as a basic property of themselves, so where did this come from?”

            “Space. All this shit comes from space, you know that.”

            “Yeah, but if there’s air in concentrations like this out in space, why can’t we breathe out there? You’ve seen astronauts, they wear all that goofy shit just to be able to survive out there a few minutes. We had to invent that, and here’s this rock right here that just has this shit. We dubbed it ‘the atmosphere’ and most people don’t even give it another thought. We’d be fuckin’ dead if the air wasn’t here.”

            “You’re serious? You’re blown away by gravity? I know what to get you for your birthday now, at least.”
            “What?”

            “A hole. Then you could test gravity and be blown away to your heart’s content.”

            “I’d like that very much, actually.”
            “I know.”

            And without further ado, they walk away, leaving me to watch the people in their own little worlds. I can’t help but notice that nothing changed.

Raging

            She walked down to the corner store to fetch some milk, if that’s what they’re calling it now. I think it is.  Her little dress flapped a bit too much in the wind, but she didn’t mind.  Dresses and indecent exposure weren’t what concerned her at the time.  Maybe she should have worn underwear, but there was no time for that piddly shit, now, was there?

            She got to the store, smoothed her dress, and walked in. The looks always came in an avalanche, but she had found ways to be ok with that. One of those ways was to not pay attention to them.  The itching made that method the easiest now. Fucking itching, everywhere. It would end soon. She just had to wait a few minutes. In the back of the store, there was the unisex bathroom that no one had cleaned since World War II, but it was as good a meeting spot as ever. She stepped inside and waited.

            She just had to wait a few minutes. Then it would stop.

            It took a bit longer than she remembered last time, but soon enough the guy walked into the stall. They nodded swiftly to each other, and she sighed.  She searched for pockets, frantically yet quietly. Her dress didn’t have any pockets. But where the hell was the money, then? Silently distraught, she brought her hands to her head. The crinkling of bills was heard at the same time, reminding her that she had been holding the money the whole time. Damned brains forget everything sometimes.

            She gave him the money; he gave her the pills. Everyone was happy.  No one outside would expect anything but sex in this bathroom, which was more legal than this, so they didn’t mind.  The water faucet worked, and with its help, she downed a few of her newly bought friends right there. He walked out, and she stayed.

            She just had to wait a few minutes. She left, then, feeling better.

Littering

            Dennis loved the feel of those little grains between his toes. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his business, basking in the glory of his sand box in the back yard.  When he was done, he pulled his pants back up, kicked some sand over the waste, and went back to jumping on the trampoline.

            His mother had been watching him play, though, and came storming outside with a mixed look of fury and befuddlement on her face.   She pointed at the sand box as though it had just raped the neighbor’s puppies as she came to a stop in front of the trampoline.  She screwed her face up, like she always did when she was mad, and Dennis began to wonder why he thought she was at the front of the trampoline. Did trampolines have fronts? Maybe that was what Mom was so angry about, too.

            “Dennis, what the hell? What were you… Just… What the hell?”  She sputtered, shaking her finger at the sand box.  This did little to clear up his confusion about whether or not trampolines had fronts, so he stared at her with the blank look he got whenever dad talked about his “Poke Er” games. They didn’t make any sense. Either one of them.

            Seeing his confusion, Dennis’ mom sighed, scratched her head with the hand she had been using to point at the sand box, and took a few seconds to collect her thoughts.

            “Dennis, honey.  Why did you go poo in the sand box?  You know how to use the toilet; you did that yesterday. Why the sand box today? Don’t you want to be a grown up like Daddy?”

            “I do, I do!” Dennis nodded enthusiastically, “But I’m a cat today. Cats don’t poop in toilets. They use those boxes.  I had to go, so I used the sand box.”

            “But you’re not a cat, Dennis,” his mom said with obvious disapproval.

            “… Meow?” Dennis replied. He tried, in vain, to lick his butt, and rolled across the trampoline in continued efforts to make his mouth and anus connect.  His grunting didn’t help his “I’m a cat” case, either.

            Dennis’ mom sighed, again. She did that a lot, turns out. Life could be frustrating most of the time, much like when your kid shits in a sand box because he wants to be a cat.  But how do you deal with that situation when it comes around?  She didn’t quite know how to react, so she went back inside, leaving Dennis to live in his own little world until dinner time.