Lincoln

 

I touched my fingertips to her face but I couldn’t feel a thing. There was no way to describe it.  I wanted to scream, to cry and fling myself to my own death but my body was numb all over. There wasn’t a single sensation within me apart from shock.

Like an automaton going through the motions of being a human, I knelt down and kissed the only part of her face that remained. The rest of it was sprayed against the wall behind her. Digging into the mess with the palm of my hand, I tried to gather it together as though I could place the fragments of her skull back together but there was nothing to be done. I’d been a doctor long enough to know there was no saving her.

“I’m going to take you home now,” I said.

I waited for a moment as though I was sure she was going to reply but of course she didn’t. Her left eye was cast up to the ceiling, the pupil barely existing. How many times had I looked into her eyes and thought they were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, miniature masterpieces in their own private universe.

Now her one eye was just that. An eye. And she was no longer the woman I loved. She was a body. Or rather, pieces of a body.

“It’s cold,” I said and pulled my shirt off.

As I sat her up, I draped it around her shoulders to keep her warm. Her body made the noise of wet meat.

“Come on. Don’t hang around. Your mom’s been so worried about you. She’ll be so happy to see you.”

I kissed her blood cheeky and with a concerted effort and a great big breath, I heaved her up to her feet. When she flopped against me, I knew it was no use thinking she could walk home herself so I lifted her up in my exhausted arms.

There were times when I’d carried her to bed just like this and lay her down before jumping onto her, kissing her until my lips burned. She was heavier now, as though she was the weight of two people.

Her arms tickled the backs of my legs as I navigated my way through the narrow hallways of the house. Then something else touched my shin, the rough fur of a dog. I looked down and saw a mongrel staring up at me with sad eyes.

He followed me out of the house until I reached the gate, his eyes looking sadder by the second.

“Go!”

He stopped at the end of the path and watched me walk out onto the main road.

She was heavier in my arms now but she was still pretty. She moonlight caught the wound on her face and I could see the exposed cartilage, the brittle and jagged edges of her skull and the soft tissue and muscle that held it all together but somehow, I was still sure I could take her home and fix her. I could make her okay somehow and kiss those plump rosebud lips of hers that had given me so much pleasure but were now thin and gray.

“Almost home,” I said.

The road opened out ahead of us. I stumbled on some loose rocks, almost losing my grip on her but I pressed on, gripping the edges of her clothing to make sure I didn’t drop her.

Still I couldn’t quite feel anything. There was nothing in my head. It was just empty, just numb. I waited for the tears to fall and I knew sooner or later they would but still, my brain refused to process what I was doing, what I was seeing.

All I could think was that I found her at last and it was all going to be okay. I was taking her home where she could swim in the pool and lie out all day in the sun until she’d come inside and we’d make love until the night gave way to day.

I could show her my lab, my new lab I had created while I was waiting for to return. She would love it, tell me how clever I was. She loved to call me that, clever. Like I was a child or a very well behaved dog. She even used to scratch the back of my head as she said it.

“You’re so clever, Linx. I don’t understand a fraction of the stuff you’ve invented.”

She’d love my new inventions too. Would sit down in the lab for hours on end watching me tinkering with a mass of wires and contraptions. I’d show her all the plans I’d dug out from the boxes and she’d clap a hand to her mouth and tell me how I must have been such a genius child.

“What were your parents feeding you?” she’d ask with a giggle.

She’d asked that a lot. Somehow she couldn’t fathom that my mind was in any way normal. It had to come from some faraway, mystical place where it was created by a God just for me. I couldn’t possibly have the mind of anyone else. No, my genius had to exist out with of Earth. It couldn’t have been the product of my parents.

I was so caught up with imagining all the things we’d do once we were home that when the villa appeared in front of me, I was surprised to realize that I must have walked for miles through the dust lost so deeply in my own thoughts that I didn’t even notice I was walking at all.

“Norma!” I shouted. “Norma, I found her!”

There was the squeak of the gate and the sound of rushing footsteps.

“Etta!”

Norma hurried around the side of the house until she found us, standing just behind the rosebushes.

“Where is she?” she asked.

“Norma, she’s right here. Can’t you see her?”

She took a step forward as if to run out and hug Etta then stopped in her tracks.

“Wh… What…”

She let out a scream and fell to her knees. Her voice pierced the air. It pierced everything around us until it was bouncing off the wall and stabbing into my head.

And it was only then that I awoke from my daze and realized what I was holding. I fell down beside Norma and a cry escaped my body. We both lay across her stomach. Norma tried to touch her face but couldn’t.

The sound of scuffling came from behind me. I turned round to see the dog watching us from the road.