Cracks and Crevices

Homebound Rainstorm

          You will come home from work and wipe the mirror clean of droplets gathered during the shower. You’re not here yet, but I can see the reflected image of you lingering
in the frigid glass. I don’t know if it’s because of the crest of droplets lining it or the mirror itself, but your brow is fragmented into a cold mosaic, austere and distorted. The bathroom is humid and suffocating, too tight to fit us both. I turn up the water’s heat to boiling hot to hide my naked body behind a cloud of sultry mist.

          The house sort of purrs when it’s quiet. It almost seems to have more of a presence than you do. There’s the clatter of pipes supporting the flow of the house’s bodily liquids; gas and water traversing its great intestines, its veins, its arteries, tucked away inside the walls. The pumping heart of the oven fuels its warm breath, and if you prick up your ears, you might catch the pinprick of an electric spark going off in the socket like a miniature supernova. Something always bangs and clackets, as though we lived in the stomach of some colossal being preoccupied only with sustaining its pulsating existence. “Can you hear it?” I ask, and my voice rings with hope. “You can’t. You’re not here,” the walls will mutter in response.

          The bathroom floor is strewn with ruptured memories. Together we collect the shattered tiles. It’s like a great unsolvable puzzle that neither of us can grasp; we’ve long
stopped even trying. We shuffle through the broken pieces, our tongues behind our teeth
because the weight of silence is so much easier to bear. My hand meets yours and our gazes slide off each other abashedly like raindrops off a repellent. I wish the tiles weren’t
all white. Maybe then we could find a pattern. It’s hard to tell whether the fragments we’re holding will form a whole when put together, even if we managed to align their sharp edges. I squeeze the jagged shard in my hand and blood trickles down my palm. It’s warm and thick, and it tastes of metal, just like tap water.

          You will come home from work and wipe my face clean of tears. “Don’t cry,” you will say, as if it was forbidden. I will sink in your eyes like in an arctic ocean because I’ve
only ever swum in our bathtub. You will stand on the cliffside, skipping stones, painting circles enclosed in circles on the water’s smooth glaze. My screams won’t reach you from
beneath the waves and you’ll just walk away, unstirred.

          I can hear you preparing sandwiches in the other room. Setting off an orchestra of kitchen utensils while rummaging through drawers, washing vegetables, opening and
closing the fridge in search of butter; it’s clear that you’re in a hurry. Sandwiches – food for those constantly on the move. No time to cook, no time to digest. The knife is sharp and it makes a strange sound when you slide it against the bread, as if you were cutting something more material. It rings in my head every day, this sound, a reminder that you
are here, however briefly. I look at my wrists and they are sliced as well. You cut my flesh into thick, succulent slabs and wedge them between two pieces of stale bread, pressing
until it comes out on the sides. When you bite into me, I will burst with juicy flavour, dying your lips red. You slide the foil-wrapped sandwich into your bag and now you’re
gone.

          I don’t even remember your voice – it’s always just the water. The flush of the toilet, the pattering rain, the whispers in the walls I’ve come to take as company – but never you.
I press my forehead against the glass of the shower. My face feels clammy and I need to taste it to see if it’s just water or tears.

          I need to get into the shower to wash off your smell, to wash you off. You are ozone and you get into my skin through the pores, poisoning me, although I can’t see you. Wash
it all off, the pain, the memories; all down the drain and into the ocean.

          Foamy sentiments on my hands and hot water from the snake-like hose. Scrub. The soap licks my skin tender from too much rubbing and it hurts. Still you cling onto me like a drunken tick. I scour with all my might but I only manage to wash off the protective layer. You stay on, a thick coat of grease tainting my skin. It weighs me down, viscid, perverse. My searing scars become inflamed again although they’ve only just started to heal. Soap mingles with blood, scorching, sizzling, burning. I wail and bang my head against the glass door. It bursts open because the cabin can no longer contain my feelings. They spill out on the pristine white tiles.

          You will come home from work and wipe the bathroom floor clean of blood, like you brush off memories, with a dirty mop. And I won’t be there.