Nail of the missing finger

By Pakhee

I always drink on Tuesdays. In the middle of the busyness, in the middle of the day. Today I had a little too much, it was past midnight. The realization decided to hide in the corner of my dizziness and it was Wednesday already. The night sky was silenced by the grey clouds, the air I always drink on Tuesdays. In the middle of the busyness, in the middle of the day. Today it smelled of dead stars and the rain hid.

I never drink on Wednesdays.

I was tired. My mind was, my bones were, but I kept walking. My body feels warm and I think that most of the warmth comes from the embarrassment that I had to face while getting kicked out of the bar. It was a scene that even I couldn’t digest, so I walked silently. Even death wouldn’t breathe the way I was.

I feel the urgency of the few cars passing by, overrunning my speed, and disturbing the dust. I touched the stretch of the yellow blinking street lights desperately trying to reach me. I hear whispers of the mute trees standing at the avenue covered in the dust of solitude. I feel the strangeness of moisture in the air on my ragged coat. I feel the stares of the blind as I walk.

I think about my boots as I walk. My boots got a little tattered. My hair has been a mess and my ponytail has not been able to cage its wildness of it. My coat froze with the smell of filth in it but the lady at the bar said that I smell nice. She looked at my missing figure and laughed, a glass of drink dancing in her hand. I don’t understand what she meant by that, but I remember her black lipstick and her yellow teeth, her painted eyelids. I Arrested that smile in my memory, as I walk.

I felt a big drop of water touching my exposed skin, a bright thunder followed by and sucked the remaining evidence of night’s existence for a second. Everything happened so quickly, I looked up, as if questioning. I smell the rain cutting through the sky, making summer bleed.

I crave a cigarette, my tired lungs crave the insulting touch of the smoke, and my lips crave the melody of it burning. I would buy one for myself right now but I see no shop with the lights on. I smoke on Wednesdays, on Fridays, and on days I am not supposed to.

It’ll rain soon. My experience told me to mock the rain by taking shelter, but my heart wanted to present a show for the hiding crickets and snakes, I felt like dancing, I felt like laughing. Rain at this hour was visible under the lights, it was unafraid of its exitance, comfortable in the dark and I walked, counting the now invisible stars.

I don’t have an index finger in my right hand and I think about it sometimes. A thought trapped in ashes, meant to be forgotten. It’s like a ghost, the missing finger. But ghosts are meant to be remembered, that’s the purpose of their existence. That’s how people remembered me, the one with a missing finger. But I just walk, and I don’t remember them.

I haven’t looked myself in the mirror in a while, but whenever I catch my reflection on shiny, talkative surfaces, I see no human. I see a body carrying the ghost of my missing finger. I have no name for this body but I hear a ghost’s loud laughter, louder than my existence. That’s how people know me, they remember me, and they give my existence a space in their memory.

I feel the raindrops getting bolder, hungry to swallow the dust, silencing the moaning of the thirsty trees. It will swallow me too, and I will walk.

“Wait up!”

All thoughts were knocked out the instant those words hit my consciousness. My legs stopped, my heart did too and suddenly there was no air to breathe.

I stopped walking.

I turned my neck, fighting the rest of my body’s violence to give that voice a look. My eyes rolled with me to the very corner, curiously. And my expression, voiceless, unrevealing.

It was a car, and the headlights weren’t allowing my eyes a glance, bright white light. I could feel the heat coming, the raindrops exposing. The thing that surprised me the most was the absence of my awareness and the car being so close to me. I didn’t hear it approach, nor the engines, nor the calling.

I dissected the voice in my head; a woman’s hurried and irritated.

I think the one sitting inside the car was staring at me, not that I am allowed to confirm. I can feel the stares cutting through the mysteries of my life and looking into me as if they would never move. I don’t know if I should walk anymore or wait or guess what’s coming.

The car moved, following the long silence, and stopped right beside me. I can finally see the eyes behind the veil of grey hair, head turned towards me, wrinkles painted over the face, a loss of muscles around her cheek, and thin pale skin surrounding every visible part of her body, she was running her eyes over him, as if I was a destination as if she was searching for my missing finger.

The window was down despite the polished and moist night.

“Looks like it’s going to rain heavy or even storm,” her grouchy voice patting the steering, smiling, “you should get in the taxi,”

I don’t know if it was a suggestion or direction, but it seemed valid.

I don’t say anything, I don’t feel the need to. I looked around the car, the lady, and the trees and I look at everything I could. It was the Wednesday I was not supposed to drink.

I opened the door to the back seat and sat, closing the door behind me with gentleness; looking at the bald interior of the taxi. Feeling the engine waking up my lousy bones, playing with my flesh and bone, irritating it as it gets ready to move.

I missed walking.

The lady wasted no time and started driving, the engine massacring the fuel and taking us somewhere I wasn’t aware of. I never told her, she never asked me. She was still very much staring at me through the mirrors that were letting her, and my wrinkled brain wasn’t able to conclude any answer for this action. With a suggestive glare, sincere curiosity, or reflex, I wasn’t particularly interested in solving this riddle either, until the moist air is touching my skin and playing with my hair, I even forget about walking.

“You are quite kind, aren’t you,” her focus on the road wasn’t attentive, it was a safe focus. I don’t say anything as an answer.

She smiles in acknowledgment.

“Looks like I will have to do the talking,” she smiles, it wasn’t a beautiful smile, it was reflective. She smiled with her eyes closed. She waits as if thinking about what could interest me.

“My last passenger, he had no left eye, just hollow sockets, and skin surrounding it as if it was melting.” She looks for my expression, “he talked a lot, very unlike you.”

I didn’t react, I didn’t say anything. Rather, I think about, how people remember him? As if his missing eye was a breathing force as if the life of a ghost flows through him too. I think he must have made peace with it as if he could breathe even with his missing eyes.

“He said that he sleepwalks, and he had been doing that a lot recently, that he was afraid of sleeping anymore, so he decided to walk around,” she laughed as if his story was something to laugh about, “he slept on the way, still talking in his sleep.”

I didn’t react, I was watching her smile, she had crooked teeth, uneven like her speech. Words roll back and slide and slip on her tongue before they reach the maze of her crooked teeth.

It irritates me, her happy smile, her laugh, her yellow teeth, and the wrinkles smiled with her like she was born with them.

She drives, challenging the youthfulness of the car, with renewed attention, learning about the blooms of the night. She looked like someone who is aware of all the mysteries of life and knows everything about everyone like she carries death and laughter in the same side pocket.

The rain didn’t get aggressive. It rather bought calmness to the burning world and dry leaves. I snuck my head out of the window and I let the drops hit me like weak daggers of the angry clouds. They spoil me, and I let them. Suddenly I thought about the girl I met in the bar, her black lipstick, her yellow teeth, and her perfect smile. Where is she now? Is she still drunk? Is she with someone? Or is she still smiling?

I don’t know her name but I wanted to see her smile gone as I choke her. I wanted to grab her neck with an intensity that would swallow her smile. To see her fight for her breath, to see her skin curling up in resignation and fear under my skin, would be a demonstration of perfection. I wanted to punish her, I wanted to be the last person to see her smile.

The old lady reminds me of her. She laughs as if she’d swollen the fireflies that play inside her, impress her with a smell of trust and fake warm light.

“Do you know, today, I was thinking about my roommate,” she speaks in short and clear phases, “when I was in my senior year, I had a girl living with me, and in those days, I use to go out for a walk daily, almost,” she laughs again, speeding the car, without looking at me, “one day, I woke up early to go for my walk, my Walkman with me and undying motivation, it all seemed like a normal day,” she looks at me through her rereview dropping her smile, “until it wasn’t.”

She pauses and drags a short silence with her.

When you’re breathing the same air as someone else, you tend to get an idea as to how someone is feeling, but at the moment I wanted to breathe out all my senses of judgment. I wasn’t interested in making any burning calculations and kit out a story out of the ashes, I wanted her to continue, wanted to know what wasn’t so normal about that day.

“The alarm was ringing loudly, I could hear it, she was never a heavy sleeper so I thought she went out, even the door was open,” she stops as if she needs to rest, to take up some air to keep her ribs alive, “but then I entered, and I will never forget what was waiting for me.” She laughed loudly, loudly and long enough to squeeze her lungs stiffens, “She had hung herself.”

She doesn’t move to look for my reaction, this time she doesn’t care if my muscles can breathe or not if it was the death of my dream.

Her words were alcohol and I was getting even drunker on it. Her stories swim inside of me and still, it doesn’t interest me. Her stories aren’t brave enough to play with any part of my rage. It’s boring, it isn’t delicious. Missing eye and a woman who died. I guess I needed more unforgiveness. I wanted to punish her.

“I see you have a missing finger.” Her eyeballs move to where I have my hand hanging. Her pointy look hurt my fingers, making the night darken its presence. I need the pain to distract myself.

“You know, you talk too much?” I question as if I am sure she isn’t aware.

The old woman turns her head towards me, the car speeding with no supervision. Her eyes are on my missing finger. Her whole face is visible to be, and for the first time I see her smiling so widely, as if she owns it, like every tooth of hers has liberty. I drink that smile with every curve, every line, and it was poison. She talks as if she owns the Wednesday night.

“What can I do, I can only talk to the dead.”

By Pakhee