In the House Of the Rainbow
crit from zip, snap, gawain :)
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The black mould wept from the corner. But they were both so busy — Michael with her work and Erin with their studies — that neither of them had time to do anything about it. It pustulated above their bed, four feet above the headboard. Michael came home one morning. It had gotten bigger. Erin was reading on the bed — a thick-bound textbook in her career which, they both understood, would be replaced by AI within three years of Erin finishing their degree. Erin said, It's gotten bigger again. Michael flopped beside them on the bed, bothering to loosen her jacket but her fingers were cramping and she couldn't get it all the way off. She slid over to Erin's feverish side. They both knew what it was. But Michael had had therapy for her health anxiety, Erin for their OCD, and they both separately calmed the tremors and fixating thoughts welling. Quite independently of each other, they decided against cleaning the mess. Erin could not reach that high anyway, and with Michael's back a fall could have her out of the office again, as her employer refused to install a wheelchair ramp and she could only bear so long out of the chair. And with her ankles so unsteady in the first place, it was best to leave it be. Erin did not look up symptoms of black mould poisoning, and Michael forcefully turned her thoughts from the kitchen sink and the special antibacterial soaps and rough scrubbers she hadn't used in months. She was fine now. But she kept them, just in case. |
⠀⠀ My chestskin, not entirely feathered, stretches, tugged by the EKG leads, because I am reaching over to the glass of water left by my bedside, and on an impulse I curl one leg around another, shinscales roughing a sandpaper-rasp over the smooth backs of my calves until I still and they quiet. I am cold. The heart monitor beeps and its glow is blue and black. I do not need to see to drink, but my fingers are a series of centipede legs querying the state of the cup. Ta-tak. A lidded rim punctured by a little metal straw. The liquid is ambrosia on my tongue and I am greedy, suck it all down too fast and then it’s gone and my stomach hurts and I’m slurping at the bottom of the cup. |
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Erin's textbook was about the coding of trajectory-calculating supercomputers. Not those used by the military, they explained on the sixteenth day of a nonstop downpour the news was saying was caused by an atmospheric river, which Michael (who brought the news home from work every weekday— rationalized was likely the cause of the persistent damp of the past few weeks. A can of black paint sat by the corner from their last visit to the hardware store. Neither of them usually bought anything — it was just fun to look around, and the floors were flat and usually clean, and it was a good way to get out of the house — but this time, they were looking at paint swatches and a colour jumped at the both of them — neither of them, they agreed on the bus home later, had ever really understood what that phrase meant before, but now they did. These supercomputers, Erin explained, warming their toes on Michael's escaping calves, weren't the ones used by the military, but the better-designed, worse-funded ones used by public space industries and the better-designed, shadily-funded and more easily broken ones used by private spacejaunt companies that venture capitalists sometimes lauded in the Times and bloggers often ranted about on Tumblr. Neither of them could conjure the names of these companies except for NASA. Something tickled Erin's nose; they brushed it away. They had no pets. Michael snuggled closer. |
⠀⠀ I ignore it with a force of concentration the rest of my body lacks. I have not yet seen a doctor. The blood pressure cuff is whirring; its fabric is not too tight, but its noise hurts my ears. Behind the curtain: movement. My hand shakes and again I think I am dying — my heart, can it beat? The IV pump webbing into my arm chirps and I wait but nothing changes. They are trying to kill me. In my apartment over the past three months the druggies next door have been careless with their stash and their product keeps blowing through the vents. I don’t dare leave a glass of water out for fear the dust will dissolve in my drink, and I can’t even eat food under the cover of my only blanket anymore because I’m certain the air is saturated. I don’t even know what they’re using. I haven’t made it to my floor without checking the fit of my homemade mask in the broom closet by the stairs even the custodian doesn’t know about — the water is freezing and dunking my face in the bucket numbs my ears, but I have been able to wrestle my dive reflex under control as of late so I’m not gasping for breath, even though the slowness of my heart scares me. |
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It was the 38th day of nonstop rain. Flooding, Michael said, had overtaken the lower half of the state. Erin had not returned their books to the library; Erin was having a hard time leaving bed and, due to Michael's work and the bus schedules etcetera: the cocktail's actual name, according to the nurse from yesterday, and according to the IV bag. A lucid-dreamt combination of steroids, anti-inflammatories, particular growth hormones, and psilocybin. To encourage new neural pathways. …neither of them had found a good time to return them. They looked at each other, not jumping because they were each past that in their personal work inside. A long humid moment passed. Then they returned to observing their domain, perched like lions on the edge of their bed, not quite tall enough to pass for Pride Rock but they sometimes pretended anyway, like they were children again and not: the books clumped together in piles held off the damp carpet by Tupperware lids and an old Amazon box that kept finding new purposes that barely kept it from getting thrown out. Erin shared a post earlier that day with Michael about how the banana boxes from Costco were stronger, had more reinforcements and would better hold the weight of Michael's CPAP. Currently, a pomegranate box they had found outside was holding Erin's old soundboard, broken and always the topic of discussion when they needed more space. Always allowed to stay — Erin because they might be able to fix it; Michael because truthfully, they could not bring themselves to remove what Erin could still use and love without restriction. The same idea kept the houseplants watered on days when when Erin could get up, because they knew Michael could not care for them on her own. Night claimed the light in their apartment, and they went to sleep. The black mould could not be seen through the swathes of paint, but it was growing behind the walls too, and in the neighbours' apartment too. —stripped of tape and small enough. Neither of them dreamt, but they did hear murmurings in the dark — this was not unusual, given their neighbours; it was only unusual in that it was not more loud, and neither woke enough to remember what was said. They did not remember to return the books. They came from the public library, though, and that institution several years back decided to stop charging late fees. |
There is something in my room. Their presence is undeniable; they are not doctors, though, and whenever I lapse too deep into the dream-fugue of my anti-rejection-etcetera drugs I see them — or perhaps it is the other way around. The hallucinogens are too mild — strain through the fog, keep each foot planted firmly in the whitewater of thought that drags and gurgles, raise a foot and stomp it flat, crushing any salmonspawn or crayfish and algae-soaked rocks and clamping firmly with opposable toes to the riverbed, numb through the water soaking in the bottom of the boot and I forge onwards, perceive faintly— There are boxes. Plastic organs and cardboard boxes. Packing tape. Plastic, all of it, or nearly so. My mouth opens, and then through the liquid slowness encasing my heart I turn my eyes away. I can still see them. Their presence is a tugging, a pulling, a sucking of my skin and nonexistent soul, though I understand why people talk about those, now; it is an entirely internal sensation,, one of almost body but not quite, like something inside is trying to break out. kept finding new purposes: as pantry under the table, as a scaffolding tower for Zoom meetings so Erin didn't have to hold her arm up, as gift-boxes when— And so easily, when the thought breaks through: a lightness in my chest. My lungs are no longer full of concrete. The thought was not complete, I know, but I do not think it will return. I use my IV stand to help me rise, my legs cramping from curling up on the ground — my legs falter, my grip slips, but I hobble onwards. I would worry about infection, but I can't check my back. I am glad that even the floor is antibacterial; self-cleaning, copper-threaded. I… The whitewater surges. An ice shard knocks against my shin and it is so cold I cannot fathom whether the snap was a breaking bone. The stars are a glittering expanse more vivid and personal than dew-strewn velvet — is this, too, a dream? I— Inhale. Exhale. I know who I am. I remember this. This is not the first time I have been here. I remember what to do. I take another breath. The question I scarcely remember from years back is clear and vivid in my half-dreaming state: Do I know my own reality? |
The neighbours were loud that night. The air in the hospital smells like meth but less dirty. White smoke crept from the vents and small particulates filled the air of their apartment, dusted their lips and dissolved. The cup is put down. Their eyelashes looked like they had slept in frost. I am asleep, awake, dreaming; purple flashes scatter in my vision and for a moment I am sure it is tomorrow. Michael woke early, as always, but Erin was already awake, staring at the far corner, where a line of black crept from the painted ceiling. My hand and crook of my arm are covered in tubing and it feels like spiders. Perhaps the paint had dripped, wetness invisible in the night. I am desperate to claw it off but I can’t because my other hand is refusing to move. The sheets smelled like mildew, were damp and sour against both of their skins. I look at them.
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Tomorrow came with eagerness, though both of them had slept terribly. Michael left early for work; Erin woke to being sprawled across the bed, nose itching furiously. They sneezed, though the body did not want to sneeze so it was more of a cough through their nose; this was a habit they had learned from prior patients through their counselor, and the gesture was almost unconscious, now. Whatever is in the nose now had best go out, not deeper in. They blinked, eyes bleary. The sheets were covered in a too-familiar dust. |
The next day is worse. My body is wracked with spasms from my wingpits to my ankles. One of the nurses — I am conscious for her visiting, this time, though I do not have the strength or breath to say hello while cold viscous fluid fills into one of my multiplying IV bags — briefly see spiders —
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Intermission: You
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Nobody is going to read this anyway. A thick and heady mountainside with a quaint little cottage and a witch looking for her lost cat. The cat must be a Maine Coon, or perhaps a Norwegian Forest cat. Unless there are bobcats or cougars clambering through the snow it'll be fine. The snow witch is transgender, because she needs to be for the story to be sufficiently cute, unless the reader is disgusted by this in which case the snow witch is cisgender and youthful but nurturing and matronly all at the same time, depending on the scene. The cat is the important part. The snow witch is young and spry. She cannot be a snow witch; this was decided in our last board meeting. The witch cannot be called a witch; this was decided in our last board meeting. The child cannot be called a child; this was decided in our last board meeting. Scrap the snow witch witch child. The cat is what's important. The internet loves cats. There is a cat lost in the mountains. The snow settles on its fur and does not melt. Its paws are cracked; it bled a while ago, but now the blood has frozen to form snowshoes, mixing with the mud. It dares not cross the stream. The stream would wash the mud away and make its steps hurt again. Its paws are numb. The stream is the way home. Its coat is striped with browns; lower down the mountain where the trees blot out the sky and the snow settles on the canopy like a blanket, never piercing the lower layers, it would blend in perfectly. It is warm down there. It remembers this longingly, from being a kitten before the … took it in. The cat cannot be included; this was decided in our last board meeting. There is a mountain. There is a stream in the way. There is no stream and there is no mountain; this was decided in our last board meeting. You cannot go home. It is very cold. (Yes. I am no fascist, and I know it is impossible for some (impossible — not possible — not something that could be done with the resources available at the time asked with the level of finesse required for the duration given — maybe it is possible if you have the additional context of it being required to live; if I hold a gun to your head; if I tell you aliens will visit in thirty minutes and only select for meeting those who have finished this story (this is a lie) but I do not want to do any of that. It is not true; it will not kill; you to never read this. You can go your entire life never knowing (this object finishes with this word) and never feel anything different, or maybe it will be lifechanging, but those who read and forget are too common, and works that encourage this are even more plentiful than that - is this one of them? I have written forgettable works before — how can I know? Is it an intuition? I think so, but is it also the mind who engages with the text? I have long felt that writing is a form of telepathy — you engage with the text, yes, but if done right also engage with the author's mind-state when writing or revising — sometimes I reread my works and remember the thought-stage from so long ago, and sometimes I read the work of another and experience the same. Is it a falsehood? Is it all a memory? Or is it insanity. I will never know — or maybe I will one day ask someone if they, too, experience this and then I will have a revelation. A dense clump of cells. Zoom out. A double-pulsating membrane. Zoom out. Yellow marbled fat spiderwebbed with blue and red eroding-river-lines. Zoom in. A lack of perfusion. Zoom out. An arrhythmia. Divide, swipe. Zoom in. Closer. Sheets of keratin layered upon each other like how bamboo grows. Zoom out. A riparian forest over an oilspill. Swipe forward. A clear-bodied dark-organed monster clambers through the terrain but breaks nothing, gentle despite its thunderous movements. Its body-hairs are thin and vibrate with the movements of the host. Its proboscis is armed with teeth; it descends to the forest floor, extends the needle-tip— Yes, I am, but should I be? Fluorescent buzz, hot-prickle across the skin from the ears down. Use the scrub-brush, wrong side, both sides harmful, rougher side and scrape, shave like cheese away layers, whittle deep. Wet like a nosebleed, sponge away, introduce thick antiseptic, don’t expect a sting, don;t get it. Calm, organized, controlled, won’t hurt ‘till later. Exhaustion deep in the bones, no shake in the hands, all dead and too tired to make that now. Or maybe you are ignoring all of this, skipping or skimming to save time and brainpower. What are you saving that brainpower for? Video games? A book? Scholarship? Your own comfort, like staying warm when you could produce your own body heat? If you never stretch, you will lose elasticity; if you never think, you will forget how to do so. I do not believe your situation is as drastic — I, too, am lazy. It is selected for. But if I do not fight, then am I truly alive? I cannot distract you too much or you will forget the narrative. You are unsatisfied. I hear you, reader. I do. You know that something terrible is bound to happen to Erin and Michael. Your heart has grown disinterested, perhaps, in a preemptive attempt to spare you the pain of losing loved ones, even if they are imaginary and just met. Let me alleviate that. In the meantime, let's have a chat on the left. Sorry about this. |
READER: Are you? ME: No. I am a mere fanatic. There is a moment before sleep when I can hear the music again. I used to memorize it; I talked in 5th grade to my teacher about having a radio in my head that let me play music whenever I wanted. They gave me the "That's nice, kid" look that all adults somehow learn over their years (I have, too). READER: Okay. I do not care about Michael, Eric, whatever. I care about this story. It must drift down and die. Why do you despise letting it live? Letting them— Why do you hate? ME: I do not FELLOW OBSERVER: I do not hate. I love. I love so much and I show that love by exploring everything — pain, suffering, love, joy — to the deepest depths I can. And sometimes that means being ridiculous about the narrative! But that risks disengaging the reader and making nothing follow anything else — and when that is done, mistakes can happen. Characters end up where they shouldn't. Critical information gets missed. Pieces must follow the rest in a way that is logical..But what is logical about writing? All we have is what we grew up learning. If you have never read philosophy before, nothing will make sense — not only do you not have the necessary context, but you do not have the familiarity, disgusting little word right there that belies something far more important, for your understanding. And you cannot fake writing a philosophy work until you have even the idea of what there is to be said. Likewise, you cannot write until you have read. To break the format is to strive for something new and better. The first work is not all that we have; the corpus of our writings to this day is not all that we can use. We must explore outside. READER: You speak in a duet. The latter grows dreary; this is a therapy session turned soliloquy, one where the therapist has waxed until they could sell a thousand candles and the client is long gone. READER: Your speech rubs off on me. To put stuff shortly: give me an example? I am stabbed with a thousand needles. Ten thousand knives jut from the other end and I am in sickle cell crisis. My own red blood cells — the faulty ones — are tearing away at my insides. I am on the ground in the forest and I see the stars and they transform into a giant eyeball. I am not crazy, nor am I on drugs. I am simply able to see for the first time. Disposable chopstick instructions say at the end, Now you can pick up anything. I don't need chopsticks for this. I reach up and take hold of the cornea. FELLOW OBSERVER: I READER: YOU FELLOW OBSERVER BLEED INTO IT. I FIND A WAY AND FIND A NARRATIVE AND ENTER WHATEVER I CAN AND I HAVE FOUND THE STREAM, THE WHITEWATER I AM KNEE-DEEP AND RISING, WADING COLD AND MY ORGANS ARE SHRIVELLING INSIDE I COULD FIT A STRAIGHTLACE CORSET MY MOTHER ONCE WORE INTO THE RIVER I found the door. i found the door and waltzed up to it with feet flopping like my tendons have been cut but i am not seen i am not seen i am walking past the nurses and doctors and ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF AND CEOS AND BUSINESSPEOPLE AND WHITECOLLARS AND BLUECOLLAR ELECTRICIANS AND PLUMBERS AND BOILERWORKERS AND MECHANICS AND BRICKLAYERS AND STONECUTTERS AND CARPENTERS AND this crowd is huge, i push past multicoloured fabric, i see the trees and split it into a forest, a 3d diagram, a bead-curtain, plastic barrier separating a site of contagion and split it right down the middle i part the fabric of the crowd and the soles of my feet touch warm earthen stone in patches slickened and cooled in a thousand kisses by last night's rain. it was last night. i decide that now. i step forward; |
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⠀ Erin's hands are precise and slow. Their left hand moves files from the lab's patient-slip inbox and brings a cup of dirty pens from the front. Their arms are controlled, not shaking. They try to speak and it comes out in a soft groan followed by a series of syllables. The patient behind them (before them?) leaves and sits (stands?) in a (chair?). Michael appears around the corner. She is dressed in double-white scrubs. Her legs move her to the desk. There is a bouquet of purple roses, petals gold-rimmed and thorns blunt-tipped (still present because thorns are part of what makes roses beautiful), dark emerald stems subtly arched in spirals and swaying in the windless air, cut ends already sealing capillaries against fluid loss and sending rootish threads (though do not be mistaken — these are not roots) into the cool-warm hypoallergenic air (which is blessedly cool like wet metal for those feverish and warm like a thick blanket fresh-hauled from a fabric drying machine for those too chilled to maintain swiftness of the fingers or flushness of the lips and toes). Michael walks to the front and someone asks him why he has breasts. He does not have breasts and somehow nothing is wrong (and he does not question it and he does not feel anything and this is normal and he does not feel anything from memories of anything like this having happened before and everything is fine). Erin sits at the desk and their nose is red and dry; their fingers are coated in a thin white powder (this is fine too). Michael lifts her Michael's male hand lifts (sinister is masculine?) and Erin is working at the table and standing on their own legs just fine without pain or strain or effects from muscle wasteage; actually, no, the glutes and thighs and calves never had any problems ever and they have no pain even lingering and their his her Erin's hand is shaking. Erin's hand is not shaking is shaking not shaking, their bloodstream is curdling and they are not bearing the strain as well as the world I they we I would like to believe, they are dying and nothing is wrong. Their heart is actually beating normally and their blood pressure is fine. They are not experiencing a fluttering in their chest and they are not feeling the numbness and tingling of their extremities and their vision clears (no) is clear from blotches and splotches and blackouts and tunnel-vision and anything else (stop it). They are fine. Both Erin and Michael are fine and they will not let me let them be fine. They are fine and the rose is purple and gold. They are fine. Michael walks down the hall to print some document or something and her legs break. They break out of nowhere and it is adisplaced fracture; it is grisly and disgusting and nobody tells you how much it hurts and how much everything inside of you knows that all that was there is wrong; muscles cry and everything jerks and cries and the rose is not fine, I am so sorry, nothing is okay and— |
Lightning strikes and I— it (cannot/couldn't) remember what type they (are/were)— too heavy in the rain? but a powerful downbeat later it (has/had) launched upwards above the forest ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ |
No more.
but I'll keep some of the details.
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The black mould decreased from the corner. They were both busy still — Michael with her work and Erin with her music — but it really did go away on its own. Still, Erin took the time after streaming one day to paint it over in white, Michael helping them to stand on the bed. Michael wasn't as tired anymore, though she still hurt — she was being paid more, now, and worked fewer hours: a development which still surprised them both in a way that made them wary and joyful at the same time. Their celebration the night Michael had received that call was one of late-night cake and a set of birthday candles found buried in a cache of old spices that Erin only now remembered being gifted from their family before everything happened that made their family no longer their family. That was still the case. But the pain, as most pains do, eases with time. The cake was good. The mould decreased. It had pustulated above their bed, four feet above the headboard. Now there was only a clean patch of fresh white paint. At some point, they had the energy to go looking around the hardware store again — one of those outings that starts with, Hey, we haven't done this in a while. The hardware store had started doing samples — started doing them that day and nearly that hour, so everything was fresh and abundant, and they managed to snag one of every colour of paint in long-lasting acrylic. A stroke of fortune coinciding with an abundance of energy and time to spend together. They spent the next few days painting off-and-on in a stencil, then outside the stencil, then beyond even that, obliterating the white patch in a chaotic frenzy of hues and growing catastrophically far beyond even that. Soon, they would have a house of rainbows. It was after a full week of quiet nights and restful sleep that they learned their neighbours had been evicted. It came in the form of a notice taped to their door — it nearly peeled off the paint when Michael took it down, brought it to the bed, dodging Erin's guitar, recently dug out of the closet, and new soundboard at a shocking price from a garage sale. |
I was allowed to get better. The healing of my flesh helped. I could stand on my own. The cane specialist came to see me. It was nice, made of wood. I managed nearly halfway across the room the first time I saw PT, and I managed to sit down and pee on my own without a catheter a few days after that. I was told I had had a wasting disease combined with some form of severe encephalitis, but that they figured out the problems and I was on the road to recovery, which (predictably) would be long and slow. They had sat me in a special quiet room with soft muted lights and gentle don't-hurt-anyone coloured wallpaper to tell me this. Sitting for the first time in months, cane never out of fingertips' reach and legs folded awkwardly — I had grown during my time in the hospital. I did not need the bad news room. A slow sense of nameless warmth was taking over my skin. I was going to be okay. |
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The notice, predictably, was a bunch of corporate-pretending-to-be-apartment-complex-owner-pretending-to-be-landlord nonsense. The third single-sided sheet had just enough information for someone with half the pieces to puzzle it together. The result: their neighbours had been using fentanyl, PCP, ketamine, LSD, tobacco, methamephetamines, cocaine, steroids, whatever they could get their hands on. Their unit was closed and would receive a deep-clean from the cheapest company they could find that was willing to do long-term drug cleanup. Wait, no. Erin squinted at the page being read aloud. Adjusted their glasses. It said they were hiring a rather expensive company, actually. One that specialized in this. One Erin was familiar with from their prior occupation — if this company was being hired, it was because they were also cleaning out the HVAC due to potential contamination. They both stared at the sheet for a long time. Looked around their recently-vacuumed apartment — one of the first things Michael did, not needing to come back home so late. The windows, finally open after so long with rain, and their only so recently dry walls and floors. The smell of fresh air. The bags of dust, dirt, hairs, and grey and white powders after cleaning everything so thoroughly stacked neatly by the door. They looked at the sheet. They looked around the apartment. They looked at the painted flowers, more of them now — they kept painting more, and if they were told to stop they didn't think they would. They looked at each other. Michael held Erin's hand. Each cracked into a slow smile, and they began to laugh. |
It was my first night back home. Wood, comforters, and so on, a disorienting array of textures, smells I had never noticed, old food gone stale or mouldy or suspicious. A long night of fretful sleep: too quiet, too unfamiliar in my own bed after so long in another. I woke properly before dawn and decided I could not sleep any longer than I had. It took me a moment to remember where the lampcord hung. I clicked it. A piece of paper — no, a sheaf — no, a whole loose stack — no, a bound stack of papers appeared at my bedside, pristine. The aftersmell of bleach trailed from my fingers; I had already touched them to make sure that they were real. That hadn't been a problem in a while, but I wanted to make sure, heart briefly quickened from the fear. The pen atop the stack looked thick, heavy, the kind one wrote novels with. My ears rang in preemptive exhaustion from the frantic beeps of the heart monitor. No more. No more. Only fragments. Flashes: Maine Coons, a thousand needles, feathers. None of them real. Come by again, says the topmost paper. Not blank at all. It was fun. I check my chest. Short tufts of down, purple and edged in gold. |