The leg braces

She did it again.
Carly tried to get away, she ran, she cried – no, Mom, no! – but it was useless.
Mom got her and held her tight and buckled the leg braces on both her legs from the ankles to the thighs. Hard metallic braces secured with leather straps and bands.
Now she lies in her bunk bed. Her mother lifted her up there, breathing heavily. Carly lashed about, she cried – no, Mom, no! – but it was useless.
She can only lie on her back. She is very hot under the heavy feather duvet. She tries to open the braces but she can’t even reach the first leather strap. She can’t get up. She stretches and stretches her arms. The only thing she can reach is the duvet. She pulls it over her face. Now, she thinks, now I'll suffocate. I'll suffocate and then she'll see. It gets hotter and hotter, her head is going to explode. She throws the bedding on the floor. She cries: - Mom! Mom! –

“Take your nap!” “It’s good for you!” “You want pretty legs don’t you?” Carly hears and then she hears the door.
She is alone. She is listening really hard. She hears the kitchen clock. Cars driving by. Her heart is in her ears. She is only able to move her arms and her head and the upper part of her body. Her index finger constantly drills the same spot on the wall.
Carly knows. There will be a big fire. A very big fire. And her mom will cry. She will cry and cry – Oh I didn’t want that, I didn’t – and she will cling to the only leather strap that will be left.
“Mom! Mom! Fire!” she cries till her voice gives up.

Silence. After her crying the silence grows. The room is half dark. She sees the white ceiling, the “forget me not” wallpaper, her leg braces. She hears a car door outside the street. Now she is cold. She is certain one will come. One will come and he will break into the flat. He will open all the drawers, and he will find Mom's jewellery box, and Carly will be really, really quiet, she will stop breathing, but then he will notice the bedding on the floor.
“Now what have we here? A girl? I get a lot of money for a girl!”

She did it again.
Mom got her and held her tight and buckled the leg braces on both her legs from the ankles to the thighs.
Her finger keeps drilling the same spot in the wall. The “forget-me-not Wallpaper gets a little loose. “Mom! Mom!” she cries.

Finally, the door. Her mother brings in groceries. “You threw your bedding on the floor!” Her voice is accusing. “Did you sleep well?”
Carly is back in the arms of her mother. Her mother opens one strap after the other, rubs her legs. Carly wants to cuddle up. She wants to run away.
“You only buckle me up so you can go grocery shopping!”
“No, no!” her mother says, but her eyes give her away.
The hole in the wall is very small. It will get big and bigger and behind it are the streets of freedom.

Thirst

Her hometown belongs to a big stream. Like a spiderweb this stream has conquered everything in the city, the center, the suburbs, big streets and small ones, plazas, the shopping mall. The people living here think they built bridges and canals and dams, but all they really did was civilize the stream. Everyone hears its echo, including her. They hear it all the time, all the time, trickling over stones, fishes jumping in and out. Its ongoing gurgling has long found its way through their skins.
The stream is called Thirst and so is the town.
She always wanted out. She always longed for silence. Please, she thought, please just stop. Just for a moment. Please.

Why, she thinks, why do I think about Thirst now? She is drinking one cup of water after the other under the alarmed eyes of her doctor. Almost thirty years ago she left Thirst and never returned. But the polite and quiet voice of her doctor brought the stream back, with one big splash, grabbed her and threw her in the stream and now it's inside her again as if she never went away.

Suddenly, and it is always sudden when a doctor tells you the inevitable, suddenly she sees how it will go. It doesn’t matter if it's one year, six months, one day, couple hours, it all comes down to the question “why?” followed by “why me?”
I am not even a smoker, she thinks, and I've been eating biological the last seven years, I’ve done nothing wrong.
But it doesn't matter. She has one day left or one month or one year. At the most.

Her doctor likes to explain. He talks and talks and all the time she doesn't listen. She drinks another cup of water and listens to Thirst, the stream she left behind, flowing into her once more, claims her blood, accelerating her heart. Even feels its spray on her cheeks. Slow and steady and wet, not sweet and pure, but grey and dirty. The doc is still talking. Words in capital letters are landing on her. MEDICATION. ONE WEEK MAX. HOSPITAL.
They fall on other words in capital letters. Words swimming against a wild current. WHY? WHY ME?

She is flooded by memories. Lost chances. What ifs. Fast, faster rewind pictures in her head. His clear eyes. Him and her. Only Vernell days. She wants to stop. Wants to pause. Just a moment. Please. Fast, faster, the pictures seep away. Unpleasant. Disastrous. MEDICATION. WHY ME? WHY?
She has always thought: now. Now is when I will encounter something truly beautiful, now I will find the way to happiness. But then now disappeared without a trace. She stops. Yes, I want to live.

“I'm thinking about the stream in my hometown” she says.
Her doc looks at her bewildered.
“The stream?”
She wants to laugh. He didn’t see that one coming.
“It is really astonishing,” she continues. “I feel Thirst as if I’ve never left it.”
“Thirst?”
She laughs. “Don’t worry. I'm not cracking up. Time is like a stream. Whatever he takes will be lost forever.”
Her doc wants to get up. He is struggling for words, holding his pen real tight. She just smiles.
“Give me my medicine. I’m not staying. I’ve decided. I’m going home.”

Apple

It may sound a little strange but since last Sunday not even my parents can deny it any longer, since last Sunday my sister is an apple.
Not a green apple with chubby cheeks and not a healthy red one with yellow spots either, no, more like a dry and brownish one bitten all over. She has only one strand of hair left so even that looks like a branch.
She just sits in her chair at the kitchen window, just sits and stares with dry eyes which have long forgotten to see and schtum, yes schtum, and this may sound nasty but that is a relieve after all that apple-biting noises she made in the last few years.

You see, Jessica decided on her 16th birthday that she would only eat apples.
No matter what our parents, her friends or even I said to her, threatened her with, she just smiled and polished an apple.
The first year we tried everything. We had her examined by a psychologist and a physician who could not figure her out and we even took her to Lourdes. She lost a lot weight the first year but seemed to be okay after a while. The doctors suggested trying to get other food into her by making apple pie, or apple pancakes or even candy apples but my sister would always scrub the dough away, scrub the sugar away and just eat the apples.

Over the next year, she developed a routine of eating apples by colours. In the morning she started with a green Granny Smith. Her first bite was her favourite. Loudly she smacked and spattered Granny Smith’s fluid all over the table – believe me after a while, just the sound of it gave me goose bumps.
For lunch, her favourite were tiny red apples like the ones you want to find in your stockings but she used to grate them with the core and with the leaves until they were a mere red and then brown pulp, believe me after a while only the flies liked the smell.
For dinner she always started with some apple juice, gulping down the first glass, and smiling, and some days you thought: now. Now, she is eating again. Now, she is over it. But then she started to cut one or two yellow apples, the ones that are sweet and soft, just on the edge of being rotten but not quite and all you heard at our dinner table were her teeth pricking and her swallowing and in the end you saw, I mean you HAD to see her tongue. Her tongue came out and licked her mouth and I had to look away, I had to.
I can’t say that we got used to it but we kind of adapted ourselves to the situation. Just as we thought it can’t get worse she started to climb the trees. Apple trees of course.
The first time she was rescued by the fire department like a damn cat. The second time my father and I got a hold of her, but the third time and all the other times she fell. Each time she fell she broke something, and each time it would need longer to heal. Eventually, she stopped healing. The doctors said she needed a feeding tube but she cried so loudly that my parents didn’t go through with it. After a while, she just sat in her chair by the window. My parents started to feed her apple puree three times a day. One day they wanted to make me do it but this is where I drew the line. No way. The apple puree was not so bad though. It came in little glasses and I kind of liked the plop it made when they opened it. It was not smelly at all and she just gulped it spoon by spoon. But in the end, her tongue would come out, I would have to look away.

Now, I haven’t seen her tongue in a long time but, since last Sunday, my own tongue has an urge to come out. I find myself licking my lips, and, just staring at her dry apple form makes my mouth water. This can’t be true. No, believe me, this is not true. I am forcing my tongue to stay in my mouth and that’s why my mouth waters. From time to time I can smell apples but that is not so farfetched considering the circumstances. What really annoys me is that I daydream about climbing trees. I climb up like an ape and pick fruit which make me shudder. I swear, I swear I will not eat them. Not one. Never.

Twice as much ain't twice as good

It's not really about food.

"I wish I could eat like you. I'd have no problems losing weight." Pia says to me at lunch. Then she looks at my tummy. Well, if I always ate like I do at work I'd have no problems losing weight either. I pick at my salad, limp and soggy, drenched in that kind of dressing you only get at restaurants. White and milky with a taste like starch.

The afternoon at work seems to pass backwards. On top of everybody working as if in slow motion I have to sit through one of these meetings which are held solely because my boss likes to hear himself talk. Also, it's good to make him feel in charge.

I'm hungry. I'm always hungry. In the afternoon Pia brings a big tray of gummi bears. I never eat sweets at work. There's no point.

Just when I'm about to leave the phone rings, and I have to deal with my boss yet again. Obviously he feels that I'm not enough of a team player. Ugh. It seems that somebody accused me of pushing too hard. Brain-dead snails, the whole lot of them.

Finally, I'm out. Today I'll take good care of myself. I'll take a nice bath, steam some dumb vegetables, and go for a walk later. It will make me feel great.

I'm hungry. My feet walk to the grocery store out of their own accord. I'll just get a bit of chocolate. I had a bad day, I deserve a little treat. Just one or two pieces after dinner. There it is. Chocolate. Mmm. Home.

Finally there. I kick off my heels, get out of the constriction that's the "power suit", jacket with shoulder pads, short skirt, blouse that I can't lift my arms in, pantyhose, underwire bra. Finally able to inhale all the way again.

While dressing in yoga pants, a tee, a hoodie, and two pairs of soft socks, I put the Red Hot Chili Peppers on. Loud. That's better.

I'm beat. Open the fridge, get a cold beer. Fetch a glass. Unpack the chocolate, potato chips, gummi bears, and licorice. Pour the beer. Put everything on a tray together with my novel. I sit down in bed with my tray, and the remote control. Finally, I can relax.

I open the bag of potato chips first. They smell delicious, I put them in my mouth, and they crackle as I bite down. I'll only eat a few, and then I'll put the bag away. Spicy, crunchy, garlicky, hot. Just a few more, just a few. Now a sip of beer. A bit of licorice interspersed with the gummi bears. Chips, beer, gummi bears, licorice.

I start reading. The next time I look up the chips are gone. Oh no. I did it again.
I'm feeling bad. Bloated. Fat. Unworthy. I finish the chocolate. Whatever. I get up and fetch another beer.

It's not my fault, food is the only thing I have. It's my security blanket, my comfort. It's like a cave. I dig myself in, and then I close the door. And I'm safe.

The taste, the texture, the feeling of being full.

It's my drug of choice. It makes life bearable. It isn't really important which food it is. It can be anything.

Of course, I'm not stupid. I know that it doesn't really help. But I do feel better. At least for the moment.

That feeling of the salt rush comes first. The blood races up into my head. Making me a bit breathless. Next comes the sugar high. My heart beating faster. All the while the fat makes me feel safe and warm. The beer like a clear mountain stream going down. It would all be fine if I could stop in time. Just a bit and then close the bags, and put it all away.

I totally lose control around food. There's this vortex in my middle. It's always hungry. It sucks me in, and it doesn't let go.

Afterwards I feel bad. Fat. Bloated. Weak. Sick. But the vortex still isn't satisfied. I'm still hungry. If I wait a bit I can finish off the second bag of potato chips. Maybe I should take up smoking. At least I wouldn't get fat.

If only I could stop eating altogether.

This is sick. Why can't I stop. Nobody's force-feeding me. I know I can do it. Tomorrow I'll eat nothing but salad and yoghurt all day.

Man Cook

My head's reeling; my hands tremble as I pour whisky into a tumbler. I wait with bottle tilted. Glug, glug, glug it goes until the surface of the liquid rises to a level corresponding to my current high level of depair. How high is it? It can't be that bad for I'm only a spectator--I'm not a hot-blooded curry chef. I take my first sip from the shaking glass.

***

I was lying on the sofa in the late afternoon, reading, when the sweet smell of onions first wafted in; wave followed wave of aroma, and as much as I tried to concentrate on my book, each word defiantly morphed into a little onion dancing off the page and floating into the air. I shut the book in frustration and went to check up on my father in the kitchen. He was preparing onion paste, frying a pan full of sliced onions to tranlucence, then blending them to a brown mush. It was the first step of the meticulous process that would take up half his day, the results of which would be presented in the dining room to the invited guests. He looked grim. This was serious.

I left him at work and took a walk outside along the suburban tree-lined road where the air was clear and did not smell of frying onions and did not cause salivation. But the food images were stuck in my mind, so I fumbled a cigarette from the pack in my pocket into my mouth. I took a suck at it before lighting--it was a different kind of sweetness from that of the onions, it was a sickly sweetness, and that sickly sweetness didn't make my mouth water for food but rather drove an urge in me to light up. Which I then did.

Later, I again visited the kitchen and watched while my father ground coriander and cumin seeds with his clay motar and added grated ginger and garlic and cinnamon and vinegar until he had a paste so fragrant that I was forced to make my escape again, to stop myself from ravenously losing control.

In the couple of hours that passed before dinnertime, the house became infused with the smell of lamb vindaloo. Now six people sat at the table: my mother, Aunt and Uncle, their two adult children, I. My father was still busy in the kitchen, but came in presently to serve papadums, which were hastily grabbed and crunched and munched away by all present to try put an end to the watering of mouths. And before long he returned with the main course in steaming dishes, the curry topped by the crisp green of chopped coriander.

"Mmm...delicious," said Aunt, as all started feeding themselves. And several mouthfuls later, having consumed a sufficient sample size, Uncle was ready to give gave his verdict. I knew from his expression that what he would say would be bad. Better left unsaid. And wrong anyway. But he couldn't stop himself--it was his way. He proclaimed, proudly bellowing the words out from his enormous belly:
"You know, when I was studying I had a couple of Indian lads staying a few doors down from me in the residence hall, and they showed my how to make a proper curry." I glanced over at my father. He had stopped eating at these words, but looked down at the food on his plate instead of at Uncle. Uncle continued:
"Yes, those Indians taught me how to make a proper curry back then. The key is not to use any water. Use butter or oil and it retains all the flavour. Water kills the flavour--it's fatal." He paused. And then continued:
"I'll tell you what: one of these coming Saturdays I'll invite you all over for a proper curry. You won't believe the difference." By now everyone was uneasily looking for something to rest their eyes on. Aunt looked most uncomfortable of all--in an awkward show, she started eating again and repeated her words from before:
"Mmm...delicious."
But it came out flat this time.

My father was dead still. He stared down at his plate; white knuckles squeezed untensils. A vein on his temple throbbed once...twice...three times and then...then he exploded: in a flash (and a wine-glass-breaking crash) he lunged over the table and grabbed with both hands at Uncle's throat. Aunt screamed; uncle gasped for air and flailed his arms around wildy, landing several blows to my father's head but to no avail, for my father's teeth were clenched and bared and his eyes filled with rage and most significantly: his grip stayed strong. All the time aunt screamed---so long, too long it seemed---until my mother stood up and shouted at my father in her most stern and clear and powerful tone and with her widest eyes:
"Stop that at once!"
And he did stop. Uncle gasped; my father dashed off. A door slammed down the passage.

I couldn't bear staying at the table, so I headed to the kitchen to pour myself a strong drink.

Elena

"You must be so happy!", her mother exclaimed on the phone. "Must I?", Elena wondered to herself. Since she knew better than to respond with "Why do you always tell me what to feel?", she managed an almost convincing "Of course I am!" before she excused herself.
That part, the excuse, had become much easier these days. Interestingly you could have obligations by the dozen, or really valid reasons for something but it seemed that nothing was as valid as saying, "You know, with the baby..."

That seemed to be one of the few things that were easier now. Most things were much more difficult, of course. Before she hadn't known that one could crave sleep so much. That being hungry could make her that aggressive, or how fiercely she'd protect her baby.

Her baby. It still seemed weird. Like a stranger yet familiar as her own limbs. Clearly a part of her and yet, totally different.
If only the baby would sleep. She looked at the pile of parenting books on her bedside table, next to a gigantic bottle of water, three cartons of nursing pads, and the book she was reading. Well, trying to read. Something not baby-related .

When, before her daughter was born, she had read that it took about eight hours a day to care for a baby, she had laughed inwardly. That couldn't be true.
What the books didn't say was that those fictional eight hours were spread out all through the day. Alternating twenty minutes of baby-care with ten minutes off. When she had read that babies slept about eighteen hours a day she didn't know that she'd have a daughter who never slept more than twenty minutes at a time. At least it felt like she didn't.

She thought of last night when Mark had carried the wailing infant through their apartment for three hours while she got to sleep with earplugs. That had been the best sleep she'd had in two weeks. Who knew how refreshing three hours of uninterrupted sleep could be? Or that one could be tired enough to doze off while holding a conversation just because the other person didn't say anything for five seconds? And that one could be resilient enough to hold the baby, feed the baby, burp the baby, rock the baby, change the baby, carry the baby, and go without food, drink, or anything for ages?

That was something at least. Who would have thought she could do that? Despite the fact that she really considered trading the baby for a vacation. Alone. Only her, a comfortable bed, and room service.

Until she was separated from her, if only for an hour, and she missed her, and worried if Mark was treating her right, and then she knew she'd rather die than let anything happen to her.

Maybe that was what her mother meant by being happy? Though her mother didn't seem capable of feelings that fierce or even remotely passionate. Maybe that first months really became all foggy after a few years and then you only remembered the moment when you held your newborn in your arms, marveling at it, this whole new life that was part of you and your loved one.

But then, that was another one of those lies. The "happiest day of your life", that was wedding day, wasn't it? Maybe all these people suffered from amnesia.

Elena remembered everything. The awkwardness of the ceremony, the fight they had the morning before, how everything went utterly chaotic, and how they were really glad when that day was over.

Maybe other people meant something different by "happy". Maybe those people lived by making up a story in their head of how it should have been, and clung to that for the rest of their lives.

Elena stopped walking through the apartment because little Anna had finally fallen asleep in the sling. She sat down, the baby heavy on her, pulling at the fabric on her shoulders. She had her book right here, next to her favorite chair, tea at the ready, still warm in the thermos. She put up her feet that hurt after walking for almost an hour, inhaled that sweet baby smell, felt the warmth of the sun on her legs, and took a sip of tea, careful not to spill anything on her daughter.

"This is happiness", she thought, "this moment. Soon I'll feel uncomfortable again, something will be wrong, but now, this minute, I'm happy."

She opened her book, looked for where she had stopped reading the night before, and dozed off.

The Stripes

I was just doing the dishes when Stephen called. He sounded excited, almost hysterical, definitely worried and disturbed.
His penis had gotten stripes overnight.

“Get out of here,” I said and laughed as I wiped my wet hands on my pants. This could take awhile.

“Really!” Stephen cried. “Really, let me come over and show you.”

Show me? Your cock? I mean this has to be a brand new line. A line I’ve never heard before.
Stephen and I go way back, back all the way to grade school, and although he put his tongue once or twice in my mouth, we never took it any further.
Most people I know say its not possible – a man and a woman just being friends – sooner or later sex always gets in the way - but Stephen and I, we prove them wrong.

“Lisa,” he said, “I’m coming over and that’s that.”
That’s that, is something Stephen says often, but he really means end of discussion.
It takes him only 15 minutes to get to my apartment so I quickly looked in the mirror. No way could I look at his penis with this face.
I stripped, jumped in for a 4 and a half minute shower and slapped some of my very expensive face cream all over my body.
Thank Goodness I always have a brand new pair of underwear in my closet in case of emergency.
This was definitely an emergency.
So I put on my sexy black and white bra and panty set, threw back on my jeans and a T-shirt. It was just Stephen after all.
Twelve minutes later, I was still brushing my hair when the doorbell rang.
Holy cow, he must really have speeded.
I started doing my lashes when he pressed his finger insistently on the buzzer making me smear some mascara on my face.
“Shit Stephen,” I said into the intercom, “can’t you wait a second?”
“Not a second longer,” he shouted while I looked in the mirror. I looked good. I could hear him rushing up all four flights of stairs. He didn’t even breath heavy, he is in good shape.

“So, where do you want to do it? In the kitchen? In the bathroom?”
He just stared at me. “In the bedroom of course, do you think this is funny?”
He pushed me into the bedroom and opened the fly of his jeans. He surely is quick when he sets his mind to it.
“Look at that Lisa,” he said, “look at that.”
I took a good look. I took a really good look. Well, there were definitely stripes. Not black and white like a zebra, more brown and reddish like an ancient painting. His penis was really big, bigger as I thought and surprisingly smooth.
“It looks pretty,” I said. I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
“Are you nuts? Pretty! It’s a fucking nightmare!” he yelled.
He ruffled through is hair with both hands while I looked at his problem.
“Did you try to wash it off?”
“Wash it off?” he cried, “I scrubbed it raw, see, look here, my balls are bruised!” And he showed me more and more.
“But it really looks pretty”, I said, “like a painting”, and he froze.
“Liz Hurley!” he cried, “I‘ll kill her!”
“Liz Hurley?” He didn’t answer me as he wildly punched numbers into his mobile and I continued looking at his wild thing. It seemed to have a life of it own.
“You slept with Liz Hurley?” I mouthed as he waved and his thing waved too.
“Just an Indian look-a-like,” he mouthed back, “I’ll kill her.”
He dumped her over the phone something I normally think is extremely rude but didn’t bother me at the moment.
“The nerve of that bitch,” he said, “ painting my cock while I was sleeping.”
“It looks cool” I said.
“Do you think so?”
It was probably the glimmer in his eyes, the whole ridiculous situation, Stephen still with his pants down, the fact that he slept with a Liz Hurley look-a-like, I don’t know, but life sometimes takes the most unexpected turns.
“I also have stripes. Do you want to see them?” I asked

He did.