Blood Moon
And what if someone did come, just then, to the rescue of the dying rat. There was the time in the convenience store when, half-drowned, one came crawling up out of the drain. I took my own shirt off to wrap the precious thing like baby Jesus, and the man behind the counter wanted to know what was in the shirt, never mind my tits hanging out, he wanted to know if I was trying to steal or what. So, I revealed the babe to show the man what swaddled thing I’d done, and the rat didn’t move, wasn’t dead but didn’t move at all, and I didn’t have to shush the man behind the counter, because he knew what it meant. But then, years later, another rat dropped from the ceiling of my older brother’s basement, right in front of me, while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, and my daughters slept in the next room; a rat dropped from the ceiling to show me his death in a rampage of spasms, in a final and dramatic performance by the nervous system, he chose to show me, and I didn’t pick him up, and I didn’t disturb him at all, and I didn’t put him out, just watched his animal dream from the outside with envy.
. . .
There were snakes in the basement, as i was saying, the quantity unknown and of little importance, when dealing with snakes, let it suffice to say there were multiple,
He said, I don’t think your dad’s out of the woods on the suicide thing, then perhaps reading my expression,
I only bring it up so you can prepare yourself for that demon.
. . .
There’s smoke over Popocatépetl. With the sun rising behind it. All orange and alive.
He says, That’s a God, just like he says about the big cocodrilo the gordito feeds to keep satisfied, just like he says about the sun when I say,
I think I have heat exhaustion, I need to lie down, I think it may be sun poisoning, maybe I stayed out too long.
But lying down, I go from sweating to shivering in the midday heat, and I think, no, the sun didn’t do this. And I drift in and out of sleep. And I bob in and out of fever dreams. My daughters blur in and out of my vision. I’m in a long corridor, and the rook, in passing to take my queen, says:
Maybe I am a queen in red lipstick are you going to fuck my ass? I doubt it.
And the insertions and extractions continue. A mosquito gives me his prick in exchange for my blood. I sweat and then I freeze. I’m present and then I’m leaving. And the rook says:
You interrupted my dialogue, you broke my epistolary periodicity here, I’m still here you know, outside of your head,
which ultimately makes it so difficult to look at the rook in any meaningful capacity, because the immensity of believing anything, of conceiving of anything outside of one’s self is so very frightening, and makes one feel like a newborn deer, wet in the grass, waiting. Of another’s existence, I was utterly afraid.
To protect my small and insignificant world from shattering, to prevent this audacious creature from tearing down my veil, coward that I am, I proceed viewing the rook as a rook, y nada más, and we dance without touching, inches apart, giving and taking when it feels good, until, inevitable, as we all knew, coming just as quickly as it was going, it breaks.
. . .
But it was only then that you realized there was something else you wanted. When you’ve eaten cashews next to the flower goddess, all bloody and fresh, in a glass bowl in your bed, when you’ve had the flower goddess in your bed, bloody and new, the placenta in a pretty glass bowl, and after all the hard work, she suckles, and you think there isn’t more you’d like to do in this life, there isn’t more,
that is until you’re lying down to die, gracefully, at peace, and as you rest your head on your arms, and begin to close your eyes, you see a color you’ve never seen before, or rather, you have seen, but only once or twice before, and but it eluded you those other times, back when you had something to prove, back when this color wasn’t interested,
and now suddenly, you’d forgotten it, but now suddenly, this color appears on something easy, like a dead dog, when before it was on something difficult, like a cardinal, but now you see it, easy to have, easily attained, and you half heartedly tell yourself not to get up, but your eyes no longer close so readily, and you think,
well, maybe just one more thing, maybe I have just one more thing to do, could I just take care of that dead dog, could I nurse that dead dog back to life, then that color would not disturb me so, that color would not bother me so, and then I will surely be ready to close my eyes for always,
so you slink toward it, hands and knees toward it, and on closer inspection, the color is attached to, get this, not a dead dog at all, but your own death, and you find yourself to have been dead a lot longer than you had previously presumed, and your experience of death slips away from you, cheated, and you find yourself at the beginning again, with your own placenta, and your own suckling to do, small and foolish.
. . .
But there wasn’t a way to know, really, if what I was seeing was the moon or the streetlight. It was so bright and high. I was in a garden.
Later, I’d lie down and move between waking and sleeping. In an individual bed too small for the whole family. But there we were. I would startle awake, thinking the baby needed me, but I’d look over, and she’d be sleeping. And I’d startle awake, thinking my daughter needed me, but I’d look over, and she’d be in his arms. And I’d startle awake, having seen my father’s demon, from the shoulders up, turn to me as if on a lazy susan, revealed as if a game-show prize, all red, with its voice buzzing in the front of my skull, having not really said words, but having barked something infernal. And I’d startle awake, laughing until tears formed in the corners of the bed.
A Miyazaki playing from a laptop on the refrigerator. My daughter sleepwalks to the bathroom and falls asleep again in the doorway. I think to move her. I stay. I think to myself, don’t fall asleep on your back. It’s easier for the demon. I tell myself, it’s going to sit on my chest if I don’t roll over. But I don’t roll over. So maybe I’m asking for it. And I laugh at nothing in particular.
I woke to find that the crib was closer to the bed. It was closer to me. It was so close that I had to wonder how close something can be to my body before being considered inside of my body.
I’d said, I’ll flinch when I see the demon. No, he’d said, I don’t think you will. I’ll flinch and go right back, I’d said. I’m far from getting free, I’d said. He’d said, I really don’t think so.
The refrigerator exhaling sounds of wartime, sounds of agony, and I'm giggling. Then, I'm losing my mind. Then, I'm laughing the way lunatics laugh. Then, I'm weeping in the blankets. He's saying, maybe you should go for a walk. I'm making it as far as the garden, and I'm realizing, if he speaks, I will explode. Before, earlier, I’d thought I’d heard his voice, suggesting the walk, so distinct, so crisp, but if I actually had, if he spoke now, I will disintegrate. And how I am praying for silence, and how I am praying to the streetlight.
Laura Quinnelly is a West Virginian currently living in Morelos, Mexico. Her work has appeared in Lammergeier Magazine, Burning House Press, and Occulum, among others. Her chapbook, Sparrow Pie, is available through Eggtooth Editions.