Aureations http://ambercunningham.posterous.com Most recent posts at Aureations posterous.com Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:17:00 -0800 As Pigeons Go http://ambercunningham.posterous.com/as-pigeons-go http://ambercunningham.posterous.com/as-pigeons-go

Grandad always said that his office was “off-limits.” The door was always kept shut, the knots in the wood glaring at me every time I walked by. He never told me why I couldn’t go in. He had never told anyone, really.

The_lovely_couple
Original photo.

  There was a very uncomfortable-looking leather chair, its hard foam-filled cushion depressed in the middle from many days of sitting and pondering. Though the chair had been worn out, its curved wooden legs seemed to suggest that one not sit for long.

        As I sat all the way to the back, the chair kept my feet flat on the ground, as if to say, “Don’t rest for too long, there is still work to be done.” At least Grandad wouldn’t fall asleep on the job. Instead of welcoming its owner in for a nice, four-hour nap, this throne of sorts kept one just conscious enough to be unable to escape into sleep.

        His old wooden pipe lay on the dusty mahogany chess table beside the portrait window. Though the office had not been inhabited for years, the intricately carved tobacco pipe seemed to have a glistening sheen on the mouthpiece, as if he’d come back for one last earthly smoke.
        Grandad was always into his books. He had to have thousands of them on the shelves that lined the walls. Lots of Shakespeare. Oscar Wilde and Yeates, too. I always wished I caught onto his fascination, but I’d been too caught up in soccer the past few years. I should have read many books for my classes at Saint Kevin’s, but “higher education” never really appealed to me, to the disappointment of my family.
        His desk was still covered in accounting papers. A mindless job, if you ask me. Punching in numbers and keeping track of someone else’s money. It was a mockery of your own worth. Grandad never seemed to mind it, though. “Gotta keep the spuds in the pot and the pints full,” he’d always say.
       

  “Calum, is the tea wet yet?”
        I heard Gran’s slow footfalls down the hall. Though she couldn’t move fast, her voice sure could strike quick. She gave out like there was no tomorrow, especially after last week. I felt sorry for her; I hadn’t seen a smile cross her face in ages.
        “Calum?” her feeble voice called again. How am I going to get out of this one? I sucked in a deep breath and peered around the heavy door. I winced, knowing that I was about to get a verbal belt across the mouth.
       
        “Calum Aidan Byrne! Are you gone in the head?! You know this room isn’t to be tampered with! Get your arse out of here and put on the tea before I really give out on you, you no good, dodderin’ little...”
        “Yes, Gran. Sorry, Gran.”
        “You bet you’re sorry! All you do is goof about lately. Haven’t you got any work to do for school?”
        “Nope.”        
        She looked me keen in the eye. “You better be keeping up them grades, boy. Maybe it’s best you don’t come here any longer. You need to concentrate on getting a good education.”
        I rolled my eyes at this, apparently too conspicuously, as she said, “Just wait, Mister ‘Soccer Scholarship’. You can’t get anywhere without working for it. Remember what your...”
        She stopped then, her tightened, wrinkly face coming loose. “...just remember what we say.”
        I took my hand off the door, taking a layer of dust with me. “I’m sorry, Gran. Is there anything else I can do?”
        She closed her eyes, her hands balled into feeble fists. “Just go home, Calum. You’ve done enough.”
        “I don’t want to leave you alone, Gran...”
        The crow’s feet in her eyes loosened as she quietly whimpered, “I’m fine on my own.” She took a breath. “Go. I’m having tea with your mother. We need alone time.”


        The days before they aged were a thing of inspiration. Though I’m not a very romantic fella, they were the days that made me believe in something true, as far as men and women went. I’m glad she is young enough for me to watch her relationship with my granddad grow over the years. So many people fall out of love and end up just being “stuck.” Yes, they were stuck, but there was something different. Not like a fly on flypaper, or a businessman stuck in traffic. They were stuck like... two leaves on a stem. They created life, love—the stuff that I seemed to lose belief in.
       
        Gran would always take me to the park, where we fed the pigeons. I’d never been fond of the scummy things; “flying rats” I used to call them. Once in a while, though, there would be a few white ones. Pure white. “Gran,” I’d ask, “how do they get so white?”
        “Doves’re people who have gone to Heaven, Cal. Pure, forgiven people. Sometimes, they turn into angels and watch us; invisible. When they have no business left to take care of, but still want to walk earth’s green grass and smell its pink and red flowers, they come back as doves.”
        “But why would they want to stay here? Isn’t Heaven where you get to be perfect?”
        She sniggered. “Perfect, Cal, is what you are. We’re all perfect. We just slip sometimes.”
        “Did Daddy slip?”
        She took my hand and gave it a good squeeze. “Love, like these pigeons here, comes and goes. Sometimes, though, it stays forever, like the doves.”
        Love was a cryptic word to my ten-year-old self. Hell, I’d bet any “adult’s” last dollar that they still have not a clue what it means. I rustled my brows. “Why’d he leave?”
        “Hmm, maybe it was ‘cause he was sick and tired of changing your nappies!” she teased, her laugh lightly ringing through the crisp autumn air. “Oh my dark-haired, bright-eyed babe, we’ll never understand everything. Just know that they love you very much.”
        “You love Grandad a lot, don’t you?”
        “With all the drummings of my heart, I do, Cal. You’ll find a pretty bird for yourself. She’ll love you, too.”

        I waited out on the front porch as Mum talked to her. Their voices were so different from what I remembered them to be a few years ago; they were so gentle and smooth before, but now were raspy and rough, like their throats were constantly sore. I opened the door a crack.
        “Evelyn, I’m sure Arden wouldn’t have minded...”
        “Don’t say his name.”
        “He was just curious. He wants to hold onto his grandad, just as you want to hold onto him.”
        I saw her give Mum a look of pleading. Her grayed eyes filled with tears as she tried to blink them away. “Miriam, I can’t. I need to be wide about my heart. I can’t let him see me like this.”
        At that, I ran the five kilometers back home.


        “Alright, Gents, next practice we’re going to work on those two plays. Please, can we at least aim for perfection next time?”
        “Yes, Coach,” the team and I said in unison. I gathered my rucksack and headed off the field, where Jemma waited, a sarcastic smirk crossing her lips.
        “Coach giving ya the puck again, Cal?”
        “Shut it, Jem,” I mumbled.
        “You alright?”
        I wasn’t sure. My game had been off, but that wasn’t what had me bothered. “My gran’s having a bit of trouble coping with the whole... thing.”
        Jemma didn’t say anything then. She knew when to stop.
        As we walked in silence, we passed Dunlavin Cemetery, just as we did everyday. From the sidewalk, I could see my grandad’s headstone, the soil in front of it still freshly tilled. The black iron bars of the fence around it made me tighten my hands. I felt him, trapped by this inescapable cage of eternal sleep.
        Jemma grabbed my balled fist. “Calum, you can tell me.”
        She stared at me with those emerald globes of hers. “I don’t know what to say.”
        I loosened my hand and interlaced my fingers with hers. She gave a slight reassuring squeeze, and began to lead me gently toward the gate. I hesitated, leaning away from her pull, but once again her eyes won me over. Jemma understood my family’s history; she was the only one that knew everything. What, you think the gents on the team would understand? They’d think I was a nutter for lingering. They’d never lost anyone.
        It wasn’t like I knew the old man well. He was very quiet, only nodding to me when I came into a room. He’d always have a paper in his hand, either that or a pint of gin. He never drank it, though, which Gran would always laugh at. “Ardy,” she’d say with a smile, “now why would you waste perfectly good gin like that? It’ll be no good with you just holdin’ it there.”
        “Better to waste gin than to waste time, Ev.” Those words ring through my head still. He was always relaxing, always had his work done on time so none of us would see him in his “professional” mode. His office was always off limits, but the one time I peeked in while he was working at his writing desk, he didn’t mind a bit. “Wanna see the way I bring home the rashers and the spuds?” he said in his deep, whispery voice. I watched him for ages—at least two hours straight—counting and calculating. His big-knuckled fingers tapped the old register like they were born to do it. His silver-framed glasses sat at the tip of his nose, making me wonder how they were balancing there so impossibly. I’d look to his eyes every once in a while as they peered out of the little circles, blue-gray and bright. They would squint every few minutes or so as his cheeks rose into a slight smile, as if to tell me that my presence was still known.

        “Cal, just say what you’re thinking. It’s good for you.”
        I took a deep breath, puffing up my cheeks. I looked at the headstone, my mind blank. My lips tightened as I thought of the right thing to say, but all that came out of the breath was air. “Jem, I dunno what to do. My gran barely wants to see me anymore. She nearly got up to ninety just seeing me in his office.”
        “She still loves you, Cal. You have to give her time. Help her out a bit.”
        “How?” I couldn’t bust in on her again. She wanted to be alone. Her poor old heart was too fragile to be, though.

        Dunlavin was a sad, sulking excuse for a town for the next few weeks. There was no rain, but a damp fog surrounded everything. Granted, we didn’t get very many sunny days, but something about the soggy air made everyone go a little out of their heads. As my friends crawled down the avenue, I’d avert my eyes, letting on the impression that I couldn’t see them. It was complete bollocks for me to feel this way still—it was only my gran, right? She’d come around eventually. Right?
        Somehow, Dunlavin Cemetery became a daily sight for me, even on the weekends. Every errand I had to run for mum somehow led me past the cold, gray headstones. “What, Grandad? What do you want me to do?” I’d ask. As expected, I’d get no answer. No dove on my shoulder.
        As I walked to get mum some bread and spuds, I saw a figure bent over the site where Grandad lay. They looked to be wearing a black cape of sorts, but it was hard to tell through the thickening fog. I squinted, trying to get a better look. The figure looked around, taking a bag out from the inside of their cape. I could feel the heat of the blood rising to my face as I ran over, screaming at them.
        “’EY! You there! Get away from my grandad’s grave!”
        Just as I was about to give the grave robber a milling, the figure stood. “Cal?”

        “Gran? What are you doing here?”
        “Feeding the birds,” she said calmly. “I figured I’d share my chips with Ardy.”
        As she tossed the tiny bits of spuds to the pigeons, I could see which one she was paying extra attention to. A brilliant white dove sat atop the headstone, it’s head cocked to the side, a chip in its tiny yellow beak. “Mind yourself, now,” Gran said gently as she tiptoed among the birds to me. “They’re helping keep the site nice.”
        She handed me a bit of spud, her feeble hands careful to make sure every last chip got into my palm. “Gran,” I started. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt so strongly about Grandad’s office...”
        “He would have wanted you to see it. He was always proud’a his books and trinkets.”
        Her face was peaceful now as she stared at the beautiful bird. “You know, Calum, that one may be a dove.”
        “What’re you on about, Gran?”
        “That Julie girl... the pretty one with green eyes.”
        “Jemma?” I corrected her. “Gran, she’s just a friend...”
        “Pigeons come and pigeons go, but doves’ll stay with you forever. They may seem fleeting or unexpected, my young babe, but they always come back to your heart.”
        She cupped her hands and turned to the headstone. Slowly shuffling around the burial soil, she scooped the dove right up off the slate. It did not shuffle its feet or rustle its wings; it sat there, perfectly happy to be in her warm grasp. “Go on, Ardy,” she whispered, leaning closely to the dove’s tiny face and raising it into the thinning air. “I’m not long behind.”

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2255842/602656_249884811807313_655565613_n.jpg http://posterous.com/users/el4VjO6eaWaq6 Amber Cunningham amberleec Amber Cunningham
Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:17:00 -0800 Blood Orange http://ambercunningham.posterous.com/blood-orange http://ambercunningham.posterous.com/blood-orange

        ...Can’t you just picture it, Aniela? Me, walking down the aisle, in this beautiful gown made by... Dior, I believe it is? His gowns are brilliant, though that tight waist may be a bit of a struggle... Ah well, nothing a Polish woman can’t handle, hmm?

        Sister, you must begin thinking about taking a husband as well; someone who will care for you in this...state. You are twenty-three, after all. Aleksy and I will hold off our wedding until you return, dear sister. And you will return. I believe it, and so must you.

Awaiting your safe return,

Cecylia


        Aniela blew a bit of blonde hair out of her eyes as she stared at the magazine clipping just below Cecylia’s signature. The satin corset encased the boning that seemed to hold the entire dress together, and the tulle fabric of the skirt ran in ruffles. Looks like my fifteenth birthday cake, she thought, scrunching her nose. This reflex startled her, as the polio that infected her killed even the subtlest of movements.

        How did Cecylia expect her to think of getting married at a time like this? Her family’s values were so warped. This was 1957, for God’s sake; time for women to start doing what they had to do to make it on their own. Besides, what kind of husband would want a wife who couldn’t cook or clean?

        Aniela willed her hands to move. Just a lift. Just enough to flick the letter off the table. The letter remained on the metal stand, mocking her as one corner flitted in the breeze of her frustrated breath.

        “Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing. Again. Three months of nic.

        Polio was a lower class disease. How could she, the daughter of a senator, be subject to something normal people called their final suffering? Zaleski had guaranteed a better life for her family, and that is precisely what they had. While everyone was eating mush and stepping around sidewalks filled with defecate, Aniela had her own room and a full bed, with those who begged for better conditions serving at her feet. Her feet, which barely moved during the day, except for standing in front of her closet to examine the many jewels and lavish dresses she could not wear in front of the “commoners.” She was rich in secret—but rich, nonetheless.

Blood-orange

(source)

        “Miss Malec? Your lunch is here.”

        Aniela turned her head toward the voice of Feliks, the hospital’s newest inpatient nurse. She had always had Agneta deliver her lunch, and this change made her nervous. Any change made her nervous. She could remember her father begging Zaleski to let them keep their life at the chateau as members of the Party, even after her mother was disloyal to him. They lived in separate wings of the home; different existences under the same roof. But even this could not alter their need for consistency—any change to their routine way of life was turned away, as if they were trying to repeat history over and over again.

        “Where is Agneta? Where is my nurse?”

        He seemed to dismiss her question as he placed the tray on the bedside table. “Here you are, Miss. Kielbasa and onions with potatoes.”

        Aniela’s nostrils flared as she looked down at the tray. “Where is my blood orange, boy?”

        He cringed at her sarcastically casual tone. “Miss Malec, I’m sorry, but the citrus fruit is being rationed. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen one—”

        “I have had a blood orange with my lunch every single day since I have been here to cleanse my pallet of the cold, disgusting slop you excuse for meals. I demand you bring me my dessert, or my father will hear of this and put you back into the factories where you belong!”

        The boy stared at her in disbelief before being scoffed out of the room. Aniela tried to calm herself down as visions of the iron lung passed through her conscious. Huffing a breath from her nose, she turned to the tray, glaring at the food in front of her. It will be frozen by the time he comes back, she thought. Though Feliks was about her age, he was just another servant to her. Just another boy she could push around which, in all honesty, made her feel great. At home, even.

        “Here you are—again—Miss Malec. I went to the market and got a bushel full of the finest blood oranges in stock.” He dropped the orange onto her tray noisily as a bead of sweat trickled down from his mahogany hair.

        This service was different. He took the fork and knife up off the tray and sat down in the wooden chair by the head of the bed. Leaning over her slightly, he cut the kielbasa into small pieces, just as her mother had when she was small. “I could do it on my own, you know,” she sneered. “If it weren’t for this damn inconvenience...”

        “Miss, if you could keep your mouth open, please? I’d like to feed you your lunch.”

        He had the power over her at this moment. The space between her lips and the fork was the reminder that without him, she could very well starve. She needed him, as much as she hated to admit it.

        Aniela sneered as his hand reached behind her back, lifting her gently toward the fork in his hand. She cursed her body as the back of her head rose from the backboard, wishing she could rise herself and give him a disciplinary smack across the cheek.

        Mother speaks of you everyday, Ani. She wishes to come see you, but it has been difficult getting away from our home nowadays. It isn’t good here, Ani. It is dangerous and sickly outside these doors. You are safe.

        Mother is standing over me as I write this—she says she misses you very much.  Things will get better from here. I miss you. Please come home.

-C.

       

        It was an effort to fall asleep. Even after five months, the moans of the patients in the ward just outside her door were still startling her out of her sleep. Cries of horror rang throughout the halls, slipping underneath the door and piercing Aniela’s ears. The weakness showed on her face as she slipped into a dream, and she could feel her limbs free up as she saw herself cradling her precious jewels and gowns, admiring herself in a handheld mirror as her servants prepared a feast at her bedside.

        “Miss—I mean, Aniela?”

        Her eyes flashed open, and her body felt heavy and lifeless once again. “What is so important that it couldn’t wait until after I stopped dreaming?”

         “It seems you have a visitor,” Feliks looked from her to the window. It wasn’t much more vibrant outside as the white walls of the hospital—fog settled in among the trees, and she hadn’t felt the sun in ages, it seemed. She took a deep breath as Feliks supported her back, raising her up to see over the windowsill.

        “M-matka?”

        It was she. Five months had gone by, and she hadn’t heard or seen her mother’s face since the day she left home. She was a bit overdressed to be standing in the middle of a courtyard; her best pearls hung around her neck, complimenting the light pink dress suit she had worn to many of her father’s campaign conferences. Her heels dug into the ground, rising up out of the dew-covered grass as she saw Aniela’s face. The iron fence broke the gentle green of the gardens behind her, preventing her from the possibility of feeling her mother’s touch. Though she was but twenty meters away from her, Aniela felt further away from family and her own life at this very moment. They shared a glance before Feliks came around to the side of the bed.

        “Your medicine.” He lifted the tablespoon of syrupy medication to her lips. She took it in absent-mindedly, spitting it out as she became conscious of the taste.

        Ja pierdole! What is this?! Are you trying to poison me already?! We haven’t even tried to fix—”

        “It’s just an experimental medicine, Aniela. The first of it’s kind. You’re very lucky to be able to afford this; most of the patients here won’t be able to even get near paying for a cure.”

        A cure? “Sorry, we don’t add the cherry flavoring to this one,” he chuckled, giving her another spoonful. “It’s better than the awful booster injections Salk invented, at least!”

        Aniela suddenly felt a twinge of fear. The world was so different now, and had gotten worse in her absence. Part of her wanted to stay in that room forever; at least she was guaranteed a bed.

        She could hear the minister repeating last rights down the hall—two, three...Lord...four times. Stay away, she begged, though part of her wished he would see her soon. Staving him away was the proper thing to do. Stay far away.

        Aniela looked back at her mother. Imagine, she mused, my mother’s prized pearls could pay for at least ten people’s return home.

        “Some man—Sabin, I believe—developed this only a few months ago. It’s in the experimental stage, so it’s not proven to work just yet. We figured, since this is an experimental facility...”

        “So you’re not sure it will work?”

        “Unfortunately,” Feliks wiped a bit of the black syrup from her bottom lip. “But we have high hopes.” He placed his hand on hers, and although she couldn’t feel it, her mind still warmed up to his touch. “You just have to believe you can make it through this.”

        Aniela looked toward her mother once again, giving her a weak smile and nod, dismissing her from the pathetic sight of her own daughter. “Like Mother always says, there’s nothing a Polish woman can’t handle,” Aniela joked, forcing a half-smile as she watched her mother walk away. She pulled her eyes away to meet Feliks’ and, for the first time since she was a young girl, Aniela blushed. She desired to pull away, but soon the warm sensation in her cheeks was a welcome one. Her instincts told her to smack him for coming in contact with her, but her body forced her to remain under his skin, perhaps in an effort to let him under hers.

       

        Thursday. Squinting at the schedule hung on the wall, Aniela let out a frustrated sigh. She didn’t understand why psychiatry appointments were necessary. There was nothing wrong with her mind; all she had was a fever and the inability to move her limbs. She was perfectly stable, as far as mentality went.

        “Good morning, Aniela!”

        An overly enthusiastic woman walked through the door, clipboard and pen in hand. “And how are we today?”

        The woman’s fat nose distracted Aniela for a moment. “...Just fine. Yes, everything’s great here.”

        ”Good, good... Is there anything you’d like to talk about today? It has been a while since we’ve really talked, and I don’t seem to have a lot of notes on you after being here for eight months—“

        “I am just fine, Doctor. Really.”

        Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Feliks peering into the room.

        The doctor ran through routine questions, asking of her comfort level, how her breathing was, and if she’d begun to feel anything in her fingers or toes. “Fine.” This bed is too lumpy. “Perfect.” No matter how hard I must breathe, you will not get me into that giant tin can. “No.” What good were they, anyhow? The answers were flat and timely, suggesting mental competence. Just leave me be.

        “Well, things seem to be going very well with you. We have high hopes for you, Miss Malec.”

        Hopes. Hadn’t they exhausted them yet? Prayer could not save her. If the good Lord made it so, so it would be. If his will was to cripple her, then it must have been a test. After all, she had always had it easy—inhumanely easy. This was anything but easy. It would make her worthy of something greater beyond the bonds of a disabled reality. Again, she thought, another vain hope.

        Feliks nodded to the doctor and squeezed his way past her through the door. Aniela watched him with suspicious but gentle eyes as he took up a chair next to her bed.

        “How are you, Aniela?”

        “Fine, Feliks. And yourself?”

        “No, no,” he smiled at her, his warm brown eyes lighting up at this new game. “Talk. Really talk. As a friend.”

        “Just as I said, I am completely and totally fine.” She was going to give him the least amount of information to work with, and he knew that. He pushed her further still. “Tell me about your days here. What’s happened to you?”

        “Why do you ask me such things? You’ve been here the entire time, idiota.

        “Yes, I know,” he laughed. “Just describe it to me through your eyes.”

        Furrowing her brows, she searched through her perceptions of a typical day. “Well, I sit here, unable to move. Breathing hurts and is harder to do each day. I can’t sleep, and most of the time I am unable to think. I eat what tastes like the bark of a tree and spears of grass for every meal, and there are times when I am hungry and there is no meal to call for. I am cold, and I hate this room. I hate the white walls, the cheap vinyl flooring, that ridiculous abstract painting of God knows what. I do not wish to be here.”

        “I apologize for the lack of interior decoration, Miss Aniela,” Feliks chuckled. “Is that all that has you troubled? It’s an easy fix...”

         “I miss my home, my dresses... I miss having everything I want in one place. I’ve done the same thing every day for eight months now, and I can’t take it anymore. I can live without being able to move as long as it is back home where I belong.”

        “In the arms of wealth, am I correct?”

        “That’s what I am used to, Feliks. I am wealth. That is what has defined my family for centuries, and our president has been gracious enough to allow us to remain who we are and what we are. Status is everything.”

        Feliks set down his clipboard and slid a bit closer to Aniela’s side, looking at her as if he’d known her for years. “What feelings do you get when you put on those clothes? When you tell others what to do, even? What do you feel?”

        She smiled to herself, imagining the lavish life she had before she got into the ambulance eight months ago. She saw herself in bed, ordering her servants to bring her food, jewelry, and fabrics for her custom-made dresses. Aniela was a mid-century monarch—she could get whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.

        As her memories grew stronger, however, she realized that her normal life wasn’t much different than her time in the hospital. She’d hardly spent any time with her mother or sister, exiling herself to her room, showering her existence with every bit of gluttonous behavior she could possibly imagine: dining on the finest pastries from Poland’s most esteemed bakers, watching in silence as her servants scrubbed the decadent frosting off the floor after dropping the ones she didn’t like. Not once did she move from her bed. As far as her servants were concerned, she was already paralyzed—inhuman.

        “I don’t really know,” she breathed. “I feel...power. I was taught that was happiness. My father chased after it, my mother constantly craved it, and my sister married for it. It was somewhat satisfying. Who has servants nowadays, really? I was—am—privileged. I’d be a fool to throw my father’s benefits away...wouldn’t I?”

        He wouldn’t answer. “Feliks, I have never lived on my own before. All my life I have had others do my bidding. I lay in bed, as content as a pig in warm muck, every single day. But I lay here now, and it is torture! Even when I do not have legs to stand on or arms to reach with, I still have more than anyone else could ever have at this very moment. I have so much more.”

        “Who is he?” Feliks said softly, casting his eyes down at his folded hands.

        “Who is who?”

        “The man that you love,” Feliks looked her dead in the eye. The usual smile on his face was gone, and Aniela could almost feel the tension in his lips. “Who are your friends, Aniela,” he continued sternly, his voice growing louder by the second. “Where is your family? What do you do for them?”

        No one. No one. Not here. Nothing. Each timely answer she had planned began with a “no.”

        “Come on, Aniela, don’t be stupid.”

        Her nostrils flared as she mustered all of the air her weak lungs could take in. “I am not stupid! How dare you insult me in such a way! You are here to serve me and make me feel better.”

        “I am not here to serve you, much to your surprise,” he sneered. “If that’s what you think of me, then find someone else to fool, Your Highness!” Feliks stormed toward the door, swinging it open to the mass of beds in the ward. “See this? This is what you deserve to be living in. Everyone in here is grateful to even have a bed to sleep in after being shunned by their families!” His breath was heavy as he looked upon Aniela, whose mouth had fallen open in shock. “While they lay in the iron lung, just praying for some sort of miracle that may never come, you sit here in the most privileged of situations, worrying over things like a damn blood orange! What is the matter with you?!”

        Aniela felt her throat closing up and began to panic as she watched a little redheaded girl’s chest rise and fall underneath the metal monstrosity. She let her tears flow freely, hoping that this would be enough for Feliks.

        And it was. He calmed himself and came back to her side. “Anyone with as much of a stubborn footing as you must believe in something. Pardon my wording,” he smiled, “but I can see that you stand for yourself, and won’t let others get in your way. That is strength, and that strength comes with consciousness. Please,” he begged, “just look at what you had at the chateau. Sure, you had amazing gowns and jewelry, but who did you share them with?”

        Aniela felt her stomach churn in embarrassment. “My mother hasn’t even put her own shoes on in thirty years,” she thought aloud. “Is...is that what I have become? A mindless puppet for others to dress?”

        Feliks picked up her immobile hand. It was the first time any man had ever reached out for her. A twinge of warmth shot up where she believed her arm to be. “You may need people, but everyone does. You have the potential to be great on your own—without wealth, without servants, just you. You just have to believe you can be.”

        Aniela was entranced by the feeling of his hand on her own. She could not feel it, but a fluttering in her chest told her it was there. “Here, only three more doses until the prescription is complete. This won’t do much if you don’t believe, though. Keep those blue eyes looking upwards.” He tilted the spoon into her mouth, and she took it without sputtering, without a blink away from him. She took it in, hope and all.

        “Lunch time, Aniela.”

        She smiled toward Feliks as he brought her the very same tray, in the very same bed, in the very same room she’d inhabited for nine months. “Thank you, boy,” she teased him. She looked down at the tray and, once again, there was something missing.

        “Boy, where is my blood orange?”

        Feliks winked at her, pulling it out of his lab coat pocket. He placed it on the tray and slid the bedside table over her lap. As he did so, the intercom called him to the nurse’s station. “I’ll be right back.”

        “Promise?” A bit clingy, Aniela, she thought, but good.

        He gently placed a hand under her chin. “Promise.”

       

        It was a lovely day. There was no fog in the trees, and the warmth of the sun reflected off of the windowsill onto her plate. Just below, she could see her mother, watching her as she had been doing each Sunday of each week. They exchanged a glance, and Aniela returned to her meal. It’s taking him awfully long to return, she thought.

        Closing her eyes, Aniela imagined her hand reaching out toward the blood orange. Just be, she prayed. Po prostu.

        She opened her eyes and looked out the window at her mother. Doctors and nurses were rushing out to her, as she had fainted in the courtyard lawn.

        Aniela rose off her back to see more of the scene. “Matka?!” she shouted. Just as she was about to leap out of bed, she felt something cool in her hand. She turned to the tray and saw the blood orange in her hand, slightly punctured from the pressure of her fingernails. The red juices flowed from the fruit onto her fingers, forming rivers in the microscopic valleys of her own skin. She took it to her mouth, watching as her arm rose smoothly with no conscious thought. She took the orange to her own lips and, with wide eyes began to gently drink the juices that flowed from the most spectacular blood orange she had ever been able to grasp.

 

 

 

 

 

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2255842/602656_249884811807313_655565613_n.jpg http://posterous.com/users/el4VjO6eaWaq6 Amber Cunningham amberleec Amber Cunningham