A Cold Search For Warmth

There’s a super-sexy-ripped-chocolate body standing by the doorframe. I’m afraid of it. It’s holding a tray and smiling at me. It’s kneeling beside me. The tray has a few loaves of bread, fried egg, and a cup of hot tea on it. He is feeding them to me. I’m still afraid. I chew slowly. The owner of the body, his name is Fabian, leans in to kiss me. My mouth stinks. I don’t normally eat, or kiss, when I’m just waking up. The insides of my mouth is a married woman sleeping around on a Christmas morning in the mornings— plain dirty.

It’s cold as Dante’s hell inside. Inside the room. It’s Harmattan. I let Fabian feed me, although I’m still afraid. He packs the egg between two loaves of bread and puts it inside my mouth. I’m afraid I’ll choke. One really shouldn’t eat lying down. Fabian figures this, and attempts to raise my back like an invalid. I say, "I got this". Then add a smile for good measures.

I’m still afraid.

What am I afraid of, really? I’m afraid of the bed I’m on. It seems to be moving, which is fine with me, but then I find out it isn’t and I’m disappointed and scared. I’m afraid of the reverberations coming from a generator at God-knows-where. I’m afraid, like I said, of the fried egg and bread. Finally among the things I can reckon, I’m afraid because it’s cold outside and I’m warm inside. I feel really warm inside. I know I should feel cold. But I’m really warm. I suppose this will turn out like my whole life has, a story of insides and outsides; limbo.

"Your body is Art," Fabian says, still kneeling. "Art", he says again.

He never stops when he starts on Art.

"True Art, you know, blurs any distinction between Art and Life".

I push the tray away, but he won’t have it. "You must finish this". He says. "What’d you start it for when you know you won’t finish it?"

I acquiesce.

I like when he’s bossy like that. I’m just finding this out, however. To tell you the truth, I’m just finding out everything about him— like, he doesn’t stop when he starts on Art. What attracts me about Fabian, you see, is that he comes unstuck; no strings attached. He never talks much— except on Art—or tries to preach, or judge, or try to change you or anything. He’s a journalist, too, and he climbs in bed with me. The tray is on the floor on my side of the bed—the left looking out. He looks so fragile lying beside me. I’m afraid of that too, so I jump out of the bed and walk towards the window.

Outside there are mists everywhere.

"Why don’t you come back to bed?"
Fabian says, sophisticated as hell.

"It’s so cold outside".
I say.

"The more reason to come back to bed".

I don’t. Instead I walk to the mirror beside the window. I had almost forgotten my hair was low now. I cut it yesterday. Because Kay wanted me to. Kay’s my husband. Fabian is still on the bed. He has been watching me watch myself in the mirror. Now he has a book open. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"This is such a good book", He says. "very good. But, of course, you know I only read fiction when I want to escape. If I want to be caught – like really want to be caught – poetry’s the stuff".

I pay him no mind. I focus only on my hair--or my lack of it. I think it makes me prettier. Fabian said so himself. Fabian says nice things. Kay, on the other hand, says anything. He’s the type to lick the plate and then disparage the chef—then disparage the fact that I’m not the chef. I’m not even kidding. For instance if it was Kay on the bed, and I was staring at myself in the mirror like that, he’d probably say something like: "Babe, you shouldn’t stare like that, you can’t really find anything in there". And then: "What’s outside you is inside the mirror, of course, but what’s inside you, really inside, is outside that thing". Those are nice things to say, of course, but not necessarily nice things to hear. What would be nice to hear, for instance, looking in the mirror this cold morning, is something about escaping and being found; something about fiction and poetry. Then something about insides and outsides, just for good measures.

That’s what I’m afraid of, you see. That I want it all. I’m never not afraid, you see, of being afraid, even while I am. I’m always afraid of the next fear. My whole life is fear. Standing in front of the mirror beside the window, feeling Fabian’s stare on me; feeling the reverberations of the damn generator; feeling the cold air on my scalps; feeling, too, the damn egg and bread in my throat, I have something akin to what people call an epiphany. That this is it. This is what I’m afraid of. I’m already there. You see, I’m used to living in fear, and living my fear. Now I realize in the end I have to say to myself, this is it. And console myself with the fact that having already started it, the only possible scenario is that I’d finish it. And whatever comes next, I’ll finish that too.

So I go back in bed with Fabian, and pick up the tray by the left side of the bed.

"So you will finish it at last".
Fabian says, smiling.

"You don’t happen to have a book of poetry lying around",
I say.
"I feel like being caught".

END.