Story: Proving Salvation by Kei Garcia

Proving Salvation

by kei garcia

the bedroom…

She felt for her salvation.

It wasn’t as if she wanted to feel what she was feeling. It felt heavy.Like a boulder around her neck.And rough. Like grated, newly dried cement. Her mind was wide awake, wandering in circles and squares and pointed polygons points sides angles. But her eyes kept blinking in slow motion, devoid of rhythm dub burrub dubbubbub. There was no comfort for her aching back as she slouched. Her lower limbs already numb, even as she curled and pointed her toes.

The only distinction were her fingers as they flitted over the keyboard. Pushing buttons that were stuck.

She was caged. In a world that was her own creation.In a life she made from scratch.In circumstances she outlined herself.

She was god. She was slave.

She hadn’t slept in days. She hadn’t eaten almost twice as long. The aroma of once hot black coffee permeating inside a locked bedroom was now stained with a stench that was all her own. She did not even know how long she’d gone without a shower.

This was her last chance. In a few more hours, they would be knocking knock knock knock on her door.If things didn’t go as planned, she would be obliged to open creeeeak. And then…

And then, it would be all over.

She could not afford to bathe. Could not afford to eat or sleep zzzzzzzzzzz. Could not afford to pause lest she encounter a moment of distraction and then, stopover over over.

She ignored the grumble gurrublerub in her stomach, and the drying saliva at the corners of her lips. She ignored the incessant pounding pound pound on the inside of her skull. She ignored the slicing ssssslickt ache on the back of her hands, and the itch just under her unkempt, thick hair.

She forgot about herself is there a self? for the moment. She only felt for her salvation. It was coming.

It was coming.

It was coming.

It was coming.

It was.

It was.

It.

the hallway…

She took her time walking, splatters of cold water sometimes landing on her cheek. Her fingers were coiled loosely to the strap of her messenger bag, hung around her torso like the only prized possession she had. She walked at that moment like any person would, except she didn’t mind the way the strong wind carried rain towards her, washing over her, washing her away. The rest of the people in the hallway scurried far from from the huge gaps on the wall.

She liked the gaps. They were freeing.

She had long ago decided not to look at the faces that came out of nowhere. If they knew her, they would call her attention. If they didn’t, they would leave her alone. If they weren’t sure, not looking at them would save her from knowing them. They didn’t matter. Neither did she.

But then, in a moment, she was engulfed in a cushioned embrace.She felt no guilt for not recognizing the other person right away. The embrace was too tight.She almost couldn’t breathe.

“I haven’t seen you in forever!”

It wasn’t like she had an appropriate response for that squealed remark. None that would matter enough to be heard anyway.

“Hey, what are you up to?”

This was Beth, her friend, she knew. This was Beth asking her, being nice. This was Beth Beth Beth Beth.

The faces were everywhere.

“Nothing, really.” She held onto the strap of her bag. Held onto something. Anything.

Beth had a toothy grin, and puffed up cheeks.

She wished she had also long ago decided not to look at the faces that came out of nowhere. Even the ones that made themselves known. But that was just plain rude. She was raised better than that.

So she sucked in a breath and touched the backs of her teeth with her tongue. And then an arm grabbed her own, dragged her towards the end of the hallway, away from the splatters of rain. Away from the gaps walk walk walk.

the classroom…

The words all bled into each other, like bright red Moses’s river, flowing without waves. The words were one with each other, and with each other, they were one. Where she fit in, she didn’t know. The words drowned her. She understood nothing.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. The exhaustion overwhelmed her. She attempted to sleep early last night, after days of sleeping at way past three in the morning, swamped with projects and papers and activities. But even when she turned the lights out, snuggled her way under a warm cotton comforter big enough to swallow three people her size, and enclosed her arms in a pillow that smelled faintly of laundry soap, she still couldn’t keep her eyes closed long enough. There was always something. The sound of a bump thump on her door, or the soft scratch shhhckt on her window, or the dull sound of the television just outside. And then, there was the sound of silence. That was the loudest of all.

They were talking to at her. She was talking back, not as animated as the rest of her classmates were. No, she was never animated. But she spoke like she knew what she was saying, like she actually understood the text, even when the words stuck out like crusted dried blood, unrecognizable and shapeless and oh god she was tired.

She fought the yawn that wanted to come out. Instead, she raised a hand and nibbled on a nail, then another, and another. When the classmate the boy with the spiked hair and striped polo shirt finally stopped blabbing and looked directly at her, she shrugged in a show of nonchalance and nodded up down.

He smiled.

She looked down at her chipped nails.

Others were busy talking amongst themselves, discussing other texts. And she wondered. What if their group wasn’t assigned with this particular text?Maybe, she might have had more of a chance. Maybe, if they weren’t assigned to get in the head of a loony murderer, be part of a world where a man’s dismembered parts lay still under the floorboards, she would have seen something else. There wouldn’t have been so much black redblackred and exclamations and she wouldn’t feel tired when they all talked to at her. With their smiles and their gestures and her fake enthusiasm.

Maybe the words wouldn’t be bleeding so much.

Maybe the words wouldn’t be bleeding at all ssssslickt drop drop.

the pharmacy…

The white counter served as the barricade, and oh how it protected from the mob of irritated customers. They were all there, giving out names like ascorbic or guaifenesin and, from her left side, she heard a whispered tamoxifenta…tamoxifen that she didn’t know what for but was apparently quite worth the expense. Some of them didn’t say anything at all; just handed the person from the other side of the counter their sheets of paper.

Then, they waited. She figured she would do the same.

She looked at the almost unrecognizable handwriting on her own paper. This was what she was afraid of. The tangible proof that there was something wrong p r o z a –

“Hi. What can I get you?”

Her head shot up.She looked at the woman. There was a gentle smile branded on that face. A smile in the middle of chaos.

She handed out the paper. Then came the money that she had saved up from her own allowance.For a second, she thought she would be forced to look away, mortified and feeling low. But the woman moved on to the next customer, and she was relieved that at least she was spared that scrutinizing gaze of sympathy pity.

What would her parents say when they find out? Would they blame her for the way her chest tightened and the way her breathing came in shallow gasps and the way her gaze turned everything into washed out visions of a world not quite her own but one she was forced to be in? Would they understand the shades of gray blackredblackredblackallover or the way the silence grated her senses at night when everyone was supposed to be asleep?

But maybe she really was putting too much thought into this. Maybe she really didn’t need to talk to that man and his receding hairline.Maybe she didn’t have to be given that paper with the writing that spelled out how different how pathetic she was. Maybe she certainly didn’t have to be here, on the other side of the counter, waiting.

Or maybe, what she really needed was her own barricade, blocking out block block block the bright light that assaulted her sleep-deprived eyes.

the mall…

She had no understanding how two worlds can exist adjacent of each other. That there was a mall of boutiques with names that resonated thousands of miles away, of useless winter coats worth a poor man’s monthly paycheck, of people smelling like jasmines and white musk. And then just outside, there was a universe of busted street lamps and dirty pavements,of pirated movies and cheap fried squid, of people smelling like 24-hour convenience store cologne.

There were people everywhere in their faded denim jeans and vintage tees and skinny jeans and handbags and their laughter and smiles and holding hands and oh god oh god oh god her eyes ached and her limbs were numb.

They the faces were everywhere. She only needed one, just one, and she could go back to the safety of her room. Her parents didn’t even know she went out, but they didn’t know a lot of things so it wasn’t as if it mattered.

But this?This mattered. Because there were voices now is there a self, little child? with the silence, and her skin itched, and although her eyes were closed, her mind wasn’t and she was so, so tired. So this mattered.

The mall, he said. So the mall it was. Secluded, he said, near the theaters.

She felt the cold hand on her bare arm before she even heard the voice, “Been waiting long?”

She shook her head.

“Look,” he said, his voice deep, and she felt like drowning in it, but maybe she was already drowning and was it possible to drown over and over again? “Someone’s waiting for me so I have to go,” and then the foreign object on her fingers thank god, “but I brought you enough to last you a month, maybe more. No need to pay me or anything. Consider this a friendly gift.”

She looked up and there was that smile too bright again. She had the urge to look down.

So she did down down down.

And what she saw on her hand, this mattered.

This IT was her world.

She was saved.

the bedroom…

There was a world all her own, she knew, She had to reach out and find it. Salvation, she knew, was a few touches away click click click.

She locked her door.

She turned off her phone.

She took out the papers and read. And as she read, she wrote. In loopy handwritings, and black and red ink all over the margins.

And there was hot black coffee with aroma so enticing, it filled the room and her nostrils and her head. She’d said goodbye to sleep a long time ago.

Her messenger bag lay forgotten on the floor beside the bed, but from it came the bottle of clear liquid with the sharp, piercing smell of hope. From the bag came both curse and gift. The green and white capsules of reality. The small pills of salvation with those v-shaped holes.

There was another reality, she knew, with no voices do you have a self? and no nameless faces and no bright white lights that blinded her eyes.

So, this reality?She had to throw away.

The back of her hands tingled after she sought the reprieve of cold metal ssssslickt and the river ran messily down down down all over. The marks made by the river was her oasis,until the world had been created and salvation finally came.

She would be god. She would be slave. She would be more than she had ever been in a world that was more than she had ever known.

Her tangible proof. Not someone else’s. Her own.

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[A New World.]

The knocks on the locked door kept coming; the one-two pounds from the outside incessantly interrupting the slumber that the whole room seemed to have been put into. And yet, the room wouldn’t wake, wouldn’t even budge from its rest.

There was a yellow messenger bag lying on the floor in a daze, as little pills with v-shaped holes lay scattered beside it, on top of it, under it, like tired little children taking a nap after chasing each other around all day. A pill bottle a distance away lay toppled sideways like a passed out drunk man, green and white capsules spilling from its open mouth.

The glow from the laptop’s screen was soft and far from vibrant, but beside the dead phone, its hibernation was a slice of life. Sheets of paper were spread all over, with printed words in the middle and illegible handwritings sprawled on margins and lines of red and black, painting muted abstract pictures on top of alternate universes.

The barren white walls were empty of posters. But the wall nearest the bed demonstrated a diagonal streak of thick red gracing its surface, then travelling in branching paths downward until it settled on the floor and dozed.

Everything else dozed around it.

The aroma that came only with the promise of coffee was now stained with a mixture of alcohol and that tangible stench of something so overwhelmingly sour.

The bed was silent as it carried the weight of another world on its back.

And everything was still, even while the threat kept announcing its way through the banging on the door,coupled with frantic pleads from no longer hushed voices.

In the middle was a figure, both god and slave.

Face down.

Saved.