Before I Even Realised

Adeline (no older than thirty- five) bathes me for three weeks before asking me ‘how’ and ‘why’, and blushing to the tips of her dark eyebrows. I tell her what I always tell you: that I seldom think of the severed flesh without thinking of the speed with which it actualised, the speed with which it became estranged.

- But how did it actually happen? she wants to know, rinsing a cloth in the sink and avoiding my eyes.

I ask her how she lost her finger.

- I worked in a butcher when my family first came here, she answers. I was lucky not to lose my whole hand. But how did it come to pass with you, is it true what they say?

I tell her that I couldn’t resist when I saw the caramel driveway set with a million pebbles, melting into the scorching bitumen. Last time I’d seen that bitumen was a few months before, a few scant minutes before work. I found it snap- frozen underneath my purple pumps. Now the road was thawed and baked: opaque barring a few patches of glistening tar. And in the heat I could almost see the caramel flowing down the steep incline and away from the double garage doors at the apex.

- 29 degrees today, another scorching one in the suburbs. Possible showers near the evening.

You jammed the black button with your thumb and wrenched towards the curb. I tucked my thongs under the car seat. I knew the first touch would scald, but my toes remained steadfast and waited patiently for the senses to numb.
Five, ten seconds passed, and they waited; meanwhile failing to deter a wearied troop of crumb- laden ants. Most managed over the awkward contours of skin and nails, but some became confused; atomised. Only the deserters would somehow survive your thundering footsteps as you fetched another full box to carry into the house.

- Did you know the bastards didn’t even vacuum before they left?

I stood as you handed me a clumsily taped box of ‘lighter’ things, and the pebbles now imprinted fully into the flesh. I saw three shirts: your favourite blue polo with the faded tomato sauce stain, the oversized Billy Joel in Concert that I wore to bed, and the one I bought at the annual Ermingvale pear- picking festival.

I carried them through the laundry with the mustard stick- on linoleum, which was bitter after the syrupiness by Sunday I would strip it bare. And then through to the living room, with the brown tapered curtains, finally putting the box down where our future couches would sit you’ve put a pool- table there now, haven’t you? I could feel the pricking of breadcrumbs and wondered how you’d seen them, whether you’d sensed them in your bones like an old crone and the weather. I suddenly became conscious of the frizzy coils descending further onto my neck and ripped out the elastic (and a good clump of hair), making another attempt to subdue them.

- Open some windows. It’s fucking musty in here.

schhhhhhh— and I couldn’t think or breathe. A ‘country’-smelling scourge smothering everything in its path. At last you stopped and the droplets of mist hung heavily in the air. Ermingvale Bed and Breakfast all over again, the odour wafting ceaselessly through its clotted crème carpets and seeping into the crocheted sheets. For you, in reality, it had only been a ‘bed’— you didn’t want to wake up at 7:30 for scrambled eggs. I woke early as I always do in strange places and wandered the sleeping cottage with my body ice-warm in my nightgown. The freshly painted walls covered in goose bumps underneath my seeking fingers. I finally found it; flicked the plastic knob and read the visitor pamphlets stacked by the door until the housekeeper awoke and made black tea without any sugar.

I drove so that your hands were free. You ate hotcakes and hash browns from a drivethru, mixing the syrupy, salty and bitter without any fear or favour. On my request you gave me your half- squeezed wedge of lemon to suck. My tongue recoiled at the burst of tartness but soon yielded; even enveloped the fruit with pleasure.

And then I yelped in pain, the sound emerging before I even heard it, even realised that I was carrying the second box, or saw the pair of ghostly toes. Then I replayed the events and saw the carving knife tumble theatrically and strike: tainting the caramel with the undeniable metallic tang of blood.

- So it was an accident, she ventures bravely.

I ask her if she thinks it was. She dodges the question.

- I didn’t mean your toes. I meant…

I bought my dress from a bargain bin and never planned to wear it, never planned to embark on the ceremonious walk through the rows of pear trees towards an execution, or sink my teeth into something so sweet that it burned. But as with the severed flesh, the sound emerged before I even heard it. Suddenly I was lying in a bed under the very same crotched sheets, wearing a marshmallow negligee and trying to avoid the hotness of your breath as you slept.

- Was that when it happened? she asks, in a low voice.

I tell her that there are so many tastes, so many wondrous tastes and sensations in the world, and each must be separated and respected to the fullest.