No one ever can fully explain
the consequences of the tick-ticking of the pocket watch tucked into the breast
pocket of Father Time’s tweed overcoat. There was no sense of urgency in the
last cheek I brushed, or the last time I smoothed the small fine hairs of my
bangs away from my forehead, or even the last time I peeled the Sunkist price
sticker off the skin of an orange, leaving the citrus smell lingering under my
fingernails until I smoked my last cigarette and the filter tasted like
Christmas.
No
one warned me, and even worse than that, nothing
seemed off. There was no sinking in my stomach as I punched at the letters
on my phone or scribbled down the number for Chinese carryout on the heart
shaped pad of paper that was stuck to my refrigerator. In the days to come I
would close my eyes and try to ignore the pulse running through my veins, and
fantasize about those last moments before I closed my eyes and my fingertips
disappeared.
What
textures are so absent from my life? The ones that I never appreciated before,
that I can’t call to mind by a simple command. The cool groove of the tiling in
my kitchen sink, the wood grain of my bedside table or the static electricity
of the air before a thunderstorm… They all blend together as I fell into the
cool sheets of my bed that scratched beneath my fingertips that last evening.
In one day I became a burn victim with my individuality seared from the tips of
my extremities, all my silent communication with the world immediately brought
to a halt.
This
is what someone should have told me. Should have forced me to see, begged me to
appreciate. I am not entitled to touch and feel the world around me, and these
things I have taken utterly for granted. As one who has gone blind will
remember their last moments of vision with utter clarity I will remember you as
the last surface I touched. The lower back I dug my nails into, the last
eyelashes I brushed with my index finger while reaching for the sweating glass
of water that slicked my fingers and made them too cold to place on the ridges
of your ribs.
If
I had slipped into sleep a little slower, forbade the dreams from rushing into
my subconscious like a stampede of horses… Would they still be here? If I had
contemplated the missing texture of your body before it was gone, would I have
never disappeared at all?
These
are the questions I am left to ponder.
This
is the life I am left to live.
I
woke suddenly, gasping for a fresh breath of air in the cool morning of
February when Frost scraped the windowpanes with her long plastic fingernails.
