Paralysis

You tiptoe down the hall, where one of the Sisters stands. Smile eternal, steam wrapping her in colorful tentacles, patterned silk a noose around her hair. Would you like to take a bath, dear?

She slides your hand into her graceful one, each finger a swallow bone. Pulls you through a labyrinth of stone basins. In each a person soaks, half-drowned, blank-eyed, as distant as the busy cities you barely remember.

The towel slips and you lower yourself into the water. Bettas swirl in the fishtanks lined against the wall: tails indigo, vermillion. If only you could submerge in their tears and they’d caress your limbs as you melted into the glass. And their desire for the lakes would acupuncture you, paralyze you, suck your sadness out like poison from a wound.

The Sister pours something cool onto your head. It touches your nose. Your mouth. Gathers in your eyelashes. Slips behind your ears. Doesn’t sting. Her hands dig into your scalp like serpents. You miss your long hair, they keep saying that it will grow back. You start to think it never will.

But of course, of course it will grow back. Squid-ink strands, just long enough for you to tangle your fingers in. Sweeping like betta tails. The Sisters will wash it with lavender and thyme, braid a beautiful nest.

Don’t worry about anything. Don’t think. Don’t think. We’re here to think for you.

You ascend. Droplets form constellations on your scarred body as the Sister strangles you with a towel. You trace the tulips embroidered on the hem. If only flowers grew here.

Light pours through a metal door near the baths. You wrap a lillied robe around yourself and creep inside.

A boy sits there, owlish eyes tinted ghost, and jabs steaming pipes with a wrench.

What are you doing?

I’m fixing a leak.

No, you’re not.

He grins. Permanent resident?

You wish to say Sadly, but mutter Yes.

I’m the Mechanic.

From outside?

From here.

Sweat glues his hair down. His hair. Cut in the same style as yours. He surveys your fluid arms, the way the water bejewels your forehead. You’re pretty.

Thank you. You are too.

Meet me at midnight. By the bar, where the rich people go. Then we can talk.

No, no, no, you whisper, or perhaps the Sisters do.

You’re afraid?

And his eyes are the only lucidity in the mist, so you mutter Fine.

The pool shaped like a tulip brims with cerulean goddess tears. And the Mechanic kneels before it, traces swoops and curls and angles. His clinic bracelet lights up in the misty glow.

Pale, thin, unbreakable. Just like yours. No name, just an endless number curving all around.

Come on, let’s have a drink. He takes your arm and drags you toward the bar.

Don’t have money.

Don’t need it.

He dives into the refrigerator, grabs a can, sends liquid down his throat.

Perhaps you could once buy this drink, not steal it. Sit alongside those who sipped the cocktails with the olives on a stick. Breathe in, breathe out, alcohol gently licking your nose. Perhaps everyone laughed at a joke you told, and said, “She’s so funny, how would we live without her?”

Do the Sisters know?

He leaned back on the white tiles. They’re omniscient, omnipotent. They even gave me a job.

I want a job. No, you don’t. You want to sit in stillness and peace, submerged in lemongrass, watching bettas swim. That’s what you always wanted.

His gaze is sharp. Want to see something interesting? He jolts up, and you follow the carnivorous echo of his footsteps.

He stops before a wall of hundreds of magnifying glasses. The light hits them. Loops. Breaks. Shatters. Falls upon his face. Kisses his faint eyes.

You stare at your distorted reflections, mesmerized. And for a second instead of hundreds of you, there are hundreds of Sisters. Shaking their heads. Whispering, you shouldn’t be here.

You shouldn’t be here.

The Sisters smear something emerald onto your face. It smells of grapefruits. Perhaps you tasted grapefruits once, let the juice brand mandalas into your tongue.

You’ve made a friend. A friend who thinks.

You shrug.

The Mechanic has been here a while, they say as they paint turmeric tulips on your back.

You shrug.

He has sneaked into places that shouldn’t be reached, said things that shouldn’t be said. He stole from the visitors and fought the guards, broke the pipes, started fires, flooded rooms. You won’t become like him. Of course you won’t.

You stand up, slick back your hair. If only you could curl it into ringlets and stitch lavender through them. Colorful rivers condense on your cheeks. The Sisters smile and whisper what a beauty you are, what a beauty you are. Over and over.

As you tread through the hall, two arms fling around your shoulders. You want to scream, but a cool voice whispers into your ear. My friend, let’s go. I want to show you something.

No.

You don’t trust me?

You can feel the surreal smile of his eyes on the back of your head. Fine.

There is steam in the laundry room, too. Fresh. Chartreuse in hue. It is weaker than the steam near the baths, and you breathe. Breathe.

Mechanic, what are we to do here?

I don’t know. He lifts a skirt from the soapy water. Indigo, sweeping, slippery fabric woven of illusions. For a second a Sister’s frown appears in the suds, but you let it ripple away.

Hangers with gold room numbers trickle all around the room.

All these clothes belong to visitors.

He nods.

You stroke a crisp merlot dress with your fingers. The sleeves—rivers of wine. Embroidery like veins dyed scarlet. Grape beads. Expressive stitches.

Perhaps you had a dress like that. Perhaps you danced among beautiful people, all eyes on you, all eyes alert. Maybe they’d say, “Look at her twirl.”

Will they kill me if I try this on?

He smiles.

You smile back, sweep behind a curtain, tear off your robe, pull the dress over your head. It embraces you. Gorges on you. Your bare feet peek out from under the hem. So pale and lifeless, mothy with spiderwebbed scars. The Sisters said they almost faded.

Wrong.

The scars are still there. Loud, maroon, without a remedy. Beastly tears blear your eyes.

Why don’t scars fade, Mechanic?

He seizes your hand. See? His fingers have scars, too. Let’s run away.

No. You shut your eyes, and the Sisters dance across your lids. Those liars.

Yet they loved you. Put your night terrors in caskets, cremated your fears.

Want to see something interesting, then? He takes you by the ring finger, and you stand in stasis, eyes attached to his.

Fine.

You’ve never seen the stage so close before. That dark, triumphant titan without claws or teeth.

Come on, my friend, come on. And the Mechanic slithers into the darkness. You have no choice but to follow.

Only an uncertain lightbulb lights shelves and shelves of boxes. Mirrors stand like sirens. Listen closely… perhaps you could hear them murmur.

Performers paint their faces here to look like satyrs and gods from the highest peaks. All so they can spiral across the stage, to the dull applause of the rich people you sometimes hear through your wall. Thud, thud, thud. Hundreds plagued with paralyzed smiles.

The mirror steals your gaze. There stand two phantoms. Same hairstyle, same tint to their eyes. One is small, one is freckled, one is smiling, one is reading the reflections as if they were labels on medicine bottles. Why are they so distant? If you tapped them, they would surely evaporate. A Sister appears there, and shakes her head. You shouldn’t be here. Oh yes you should.

The Mechanic wakens you. Would you like to walk across the stage?

Pause. Fine.

He takes you by the shoulder and leads you up stout stairs. There. The stage. Spanning like a battlefield where nothing died.

You take careful steps at first. Then pace. Back and forth like a chessman in thought. A pawn, in that dress a bishop. Slouched with divinity so quiet the scent of patchouli drowns it.

I once wanted to be an actress.

The Mechanic doesn’t reply.

He paces on the very edge. One step from falling into the hungry void of the orchestra pit. Head hung low. Eyes hazy. Back and forth, in rhythm with you.

And like that his lids droop and he soars into the pit. You screech. There, in the darkness, he lays as if a broken puppet, sleeves blooming red.

Don’t die.

He smiles though his eyes are closed.

You lower your legs into the pit, and fall, fall, fall. Lay beside him, eyes closed, too, as if you were two angels in the snow.

Perhaps you made snow angels once. Perhaps they said, “She’s saintly, let’s hope she never leaves.”

You share a room in the clinic. If you reach out, you can take his cold hand and imprint your smile upon it.

His eyes are open. And his face just slightly paler than before. Stitches like bits of moonlight along one cheek.

Mechanic, are you a ghost?

We’re all ghosts here.

Then why don’t they just seep through the walls and soar away?

He laughs. Why would they? Here, they can exist as perfectly content ghosts.

I don’t want that.

What are we waiting for? He leaps up and drags you by the wrist.

You cling the sheets. The Sisters will crucify us if we run away.

He grins, snatches you, and like bettas you swim through the clinic hallway. The Sisters’ eyes are covered with their scarves and tulips stick out of their ears, yet they still glide. Still smile.

As the Mechanic opens the door, the clinic’s delirious hand releases your lungs.

The Sisters outside wear their scarves around their eyes, too. Mechanic, they can’t see or hear us anymore.

His eyes light up with a smile as he juggles a hammer. Let’s break some glass, shall we?

Where did you find a hammer?

He shrugs. It was right here.

Five tall windows are the only border between you and the raging rain outside. Lightning crumbles the sky, just as the Mechanic crumbles the glass. Shards soar everywhere. Tinted green. If only you could sink them into your mouth. They must taste minty. And fresh. And a tiny bit sweet.

The storm breathes. Palpitates. You wait, droplets touching your face.

Let’s go outside now, let’s go, let’s go! My friend. His pale eyes wound yours. So you and he walk through the glass into the embrace of the gentle serpent.

Perhaps you knew thunderstorms once, and let the water gather in your hand such as now. Perhaps you kissed someone in the rain, lips laced with mist, fingers tangled. Perhaps you laughed. Perhaps you had a name.

The Mechanic stands quietly. The scars on his body have never been so bold. But the rain washes all away. Patchouli, turmeric, lemongrass, thyme.

He lifts his face to the sky as if praying. I remember now.

You nod.

Look, there is a light in the distance. Let’s follow it.

Arm in arm, you pace toward the blooming glow. At last the mist has cleared from your mind.