Catastrophe Jones

When I was a little girl, maybe no more than five or six, I woke up in the morning with a spiderbite on one hip. Red and angry and wild, it flared to the size of my palm, disturbed by a youngster’s ill-fated attempts to obey the mandate of “Don’t touch it.”

Afraid I’d give myself some sort of skin-eating infection, my mother tried everything to get me to stop. She used calamine, benadryl, bandages, mittens, lotions, potions, punishments, bribes. No matter the admonishment, the reward for being good, the attempts at soothing, I would be found curled up, half-mad with itching, bitten fingernails scrabbling at once-pink skin turning a fierce red.

Finally, in frustration, she told me that the spider had probably lain eggs under my skin, and if I didn’t stop, they’d break open and spill hundreds of thousands of spiders, all over me, in me, through me.

You shouldn’t ever say things like that to an impressionable, overimaginative child.

It’s thirty years later and I swear I can still feel them squirming.

Thirty years, and I’ve got an itch to scratch.

Liquid rush, heat, sensation, a pattering sound, drip drip drip warm against the skin and why, why are things gone gray and muzzy?

I can taste salt and copper, and feel the heat of the white sun like a weight against the heart of me.

All the outside’s gone warm while the insides of me are frozen solid; there’s a heart somewhere in here, cracking ice with the kind of triple-beat reserved for drummers on meth.

I woke up holding your letter and a razor — I know it was a sick joke from the start; this can’t be my blood. Mine would be crackling into icicles, perfect and immediately chilled.

Mine would be etched in whorls of frost, spindles of ruby, feathers of frozen heat.

I’ve never been cold like this, blind like this.

This isn’t my blood.

The letter cut deeper than the blade, but it isn’t my blood.

“I’ve got you.”

He had said it a thousand times, and it was the only thing she could hear these days that didn’t make her want to flinch. Everyone else had words to give, but they were far more hollow. “I’m so sorry; my heart goes out to you; my thoughts are with you; what a terrible loss — if you need anything…” Of course, everyone means well, in these times. No one says anything to the grief-stricken that would be intentionally hurtful; in fact, most go out of their way to be as kind and mundane as possible, to say nothing that could possibly be mistaken as insensitive.

He never walked on eggshells with her, however. He never treated her with kid gloves. He wasn’t especially gentle. He wasn’t some overly-kind, solicitous ass-kissing fool. He was just himself.

“I’ve got you.”

It was a promise, every time he picked her up. It was a promise, every time he let her slide in past him, into the diner booth. It was a promise every time the phone rang, and the letterslot flapped, and the email beeped, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled up.

It was perfect.

She would never hear it again.

“I’ve got you.”

He had said it a thousand times, and it was the only thing she could hear these days that didn’t make her want to flinch. Everyone else had words to give, but they were far more hollow. “I’m so sorry; my heart goes out to you; my thoughts are with you; what a terrible loss — if you need anything…” Of course, everyone means well, in these times. No one says anything to the grief-stricken that would be intentionally hurtful; in fact, most go out of their way to be as kind and mundane as possible, to say nothing that could possibly be mistaken as insensitive.

He never walked on eggshells with her, however. He never treated her with kid gloves. He wasn’t especially gentle. He wasn’t some overly-kind, solicitous ass-kissing fool. He was just himself.

“I’ve got you.”

It was a promise, every time he picked her up. It was a promise, every time he let her slide in past him, into the diner booth. It was a promise every time the phone rang, and the letterslot flapped, and the email beeped, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled up.

It was perfect.

She would never hear it again.