flash fiction
The One Thing I Never Told Her
by Timothy Perez
The first time my wife gave birth I almost lost my cookies.
***
I looked down between the sheet, between legs splashed with orange Betadine and watched the doctor pull things out of her the way a magician pulls rows and rows of colored scarves out of a wide brimmed hat. I witnessed the doctor pull and pull and pull black sopping fleshy tissue from her; I witnessed her blood flowing into a blue pan, the kind mechanics use when changing a car’s oil; I watched as it filled to the brim.
I watched as the doctor dipped two fingers in a white tub of antiseptic lubricant and began stretching the blood-drenched womb of my wife; it was as if he were putting a rim on a tire. He pulled and stretched her like pizza dough. I was expecting the doctor at any moment to fling my wife into the air and my son come tumbling from her like a yo-yo, but then he did something unexpected and took out a pair of surgical scissors. They shined greedily in the bright light. I looked at the doctor and he winked at me. A five gallon white plastic bucket with a biohazard sign half filled with blood and bits of red meaty tissue. I turned to my wife said, You need to push. Now.
Too late. I heard the first meaty snip. Okay mom, push on three. One . . . two . . . three. My wife’s face puckered, and then a breath, and then another meaty snip. Sally, I whispered, he’s cutting you now, you need to push him out. Let’s go.
Okay mom, one more time. One . . . two . . . three. My wife’s face turned inward, the nurses oohhing and aahhing in unison like backup singers. Then, another meaty snip. That’s three. I tell my wife, a fourth one is the point of no return Sally.
And before she could be asked to push, my wife pulled herself up and grunted like a wildebeest And then the doctor’s final tug and in his hands he held a bundle of bloody phlegm screaming and wriggling and the placenta dropped and there was a slight splash and I imagined if it had been an Olympic diver it would’ve been considered perfect. And I choked back whatever was coming up and the doctor mistook my nausea for emotion said, birth is a beautiful thing.
My son: an otherworldly beached jellyfish, a fresh bruise, a chemical spill floating in a gutter, pale yellows, and dark purples, dashes of crimson, peppered with pink flesh, and then he began to unfurl like the petals of an Iris.
I don’t cry much, when I do it’s usually by myself in the dark or in a corner if others are around. And when my first born showed up I had a knob in my throat that dissolved like a cube of sugar when I saw the buffoon huddled in the nurse’s palms. I dried them up by staring at the halogen lamp, then at the doctor sewing up my wife commenting on the bucket of blood he had collected.
This is nothing, he said handing me the scissors the same one used to snip her wider with and it was then that I looked at my son for the first time and the doctor motioned to the umbilical cord the color of tripe. I took in a deep breath, bit my lip and cut. It had the texture of a garden hose, blood spurt from the kinky pale tube dousing the doctor’s blue gloved hand. My son yawned, sniffed the air, clambered between his mother’s breasts and began to feed.
And I stood there knowing I cut him from her staring into eyes that couldn’t yet see and the doctor looked up from the blue oil pan filled with my wife’s blood and the pan wobbled slightly and blood sloshed over and onto the floor in a pattern that would soon be swirled by a janitor’s mop only to be mixed in the detritus of other mothers wombs and the doctor winked at me one last time, said, good job, dad.
Read more by Timothy Perez in:
The Savagery of Bone (Moon Tide Press, 2013)
– acentosreview.com – kuikatl.com – localauthors.com – new york journal of books –
Please Olivia, Let Me Be Your Messiah, Please! – a.k.a. The First Time He Walked On Water
by John Brantingham
originally published in East Jasmine Review
No, he says. No, I don’t understand.
He stands up from the blanket she spread out earlier right on the edge of the lake, and he knocks over the fancy blue bottle of sparkling water. He bought it special because she was staring at one just like it that time in the grocery store.
It makes sense, she says. Her eyes are pleading with him to be reasonable. I’m going to be in college in a couple of weeks. You still have a whole other year in high school, and I want to experience things.
You want someone older?
I guess so. She shrugs and looks out over the lake. He turns to see what could possibly be distracting her, what could be more important than this, but all he can see is the lake, glassy the way lakes get on warm August afternoons.
You want some guy who can do big things, grown-up things.
She shrugs, and there’s nothing to say, so he walks out on the lake, walks on water, didn’t know he could do it before this moment, but that’s when God does these things for people isn’t it, when they’re desperate, when they need help. He can feel his need down inside him. Need is who he is right at this moment.
When he turns around, she’s just shaking her head slowly.
I can do things, he says. He keeps his voice calm even though he wants to scream. He gestures with both his hands at the little waves splashing around his Chuck Taylors. You want a guy who can do things, I’m right here.
Don’t make a scene, she says, and she casts around to see if anyone else is out here with them.
You want me to be your messiah, I’ll do that. He stomps on the water, splashing it up to make his point.
You want me to be your Satan, I can do that too. He sticks his index fingers on his forehead and growls. He tries to chuckle, like it’s all kind of a joke, but the laugh hiccups into a single, little sob that floats out there in the space between them for a moment. They both watch it silently until a breeze kicks up, and it blows away.
It’s not that.
Then what is it. What he wants to say is that he’ll do anything. He’ll be anything. He’ll change his whole personality if she wants him to, that he knows he’s only 16, but he also knows that this feeling — being with her — is the best and most powerful thing he’s ever going to feel, and he’ll do anything she wants just to be near her. He wants to say all of that, but she told him once that she hates when he says needy stuff like that, so he just puts his hands on his hips and waits for her answer.
Instead of saying anything more, she gasps her own sob and runs off towards the parking lot where he knows she’s going to get into her little blue VW and drive out of his life forever.
He should weep, he supposes, but that will come later.
Now, he dips his toe in the water below him and starts to script the same word over and over in big swooping letters. It seems the most beautiful word ever written, and it will in ten years when he names his daughter.
Olivia, he writes. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia.
Read more by John Brantingham in:
The Green of Sunset (Moon Tide Press, 2013)
– culturalweekly.com – servinghousejournal.com – johnbrantingham.blogspot.com –
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