Television Light by Ruby Howard
Television Light
I can feel her trying to unmake me.
The light from the TV is blue and flickering like a gas stove. Artificial warmth of the coldest colour. The toast crumbs on the coffee table are casting long shadows that look like pointy mountains that warp and twist where they meet my shin.
My hands resting against my hipbone, I press down on my thumb and watch the skin turn yellow-y white. When I let go, the pink floods back in under the surface. I think about the ocean.
The air is thick tonight. Viscous. She taught me that word in the kitchen one afternoon. We were making honey joys. I watched the honey dribble off the spoon on to the bench and she wiped it up without getting angry. She told me about lava and glaciers and how they get maple syrup out of tree trunks. She let me lick the inside of the bowl when we were done.
Tonight, the air feels viscous like honey and the house feels smaller than it ever has before. Everything is so close to me, the crumbs, the dust, the bowl full of bottlecaps, the light from the TV, it all right up close to my face and if I move it will all topple over and fall down and apart and away and leave nothing behind. And there’d be nothing left to look at besides each other. And ourselves. I imagine my body dissolving like one of those vitamin tablets you drop into water that go all fizzy and disappear. The television light is made from tiny bits of me and I am making the whole room blue.
The cushion beneath my knee is suddenly too stiff, too lumpy, and I can feel every bone in my body. They’re stacked so haphazardly, too many bones touching other bones; too much skin. I start to think that maybe I’ve been put together wrong. Or maybe there are just parts missing. I can feel every single thing in the room and I can feel her seeing everything except me.
I scrape at the frayed edge of my sleeve with my chewed-up thumb nail and push the last of the air from my lungs.
A sharp intake of breath. “I—”
“I’m trying to watch the telly.”
This is the seventh day in a row that the TV has been on. She’s never gone this long without turning it off for at least a few hours. I look at the screen and try to see what she sees but I can’t. My eyes don’t focus. All I can see is continuous movement; water pouring over water pouring over water. I can’t see what she is seeing. The light is getting brighter and brighter until it blinds me like the sun rising, like a solar eclipse that I can’t look away from. So I just let it pour in. It flickers and brightens and blinds. I let it fill my eyes. Let it fill me up completely. The flickering like a tap dripping. The light like water. The flickering like a tide.
I remember once, before we bought the grey couch and moved the old orange one to the porch, and before the lamp was moved to the far corner of the room, I used to lie here with my head on her lap. She would absentmindedly stroke my hair over and over in the same spot until it felt numb and tingly. And I’d want to move but I wouldn’t because I didn’t want her to stop in case this was the last time she would touch me. And she would watch the news and shake her head and I’d fall asleep to the sound of politicians arguing and wake up in her arms in the hallway as she tried to carry me to bed.
I feel the water that’s filling me hit something deep at the bottom of my ribcage. It's something soft. It’s desperation. It’s a girl on the outside of the kitchen window banging and scratching at the glass screaming LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME PLEASE but it all sounds like a whisper and it blends into the wind and gets drowned out by the rushing water. It’s strange because I feel so close to bursting but I know my skin is that little bit too strong. All I want is to be carried to bed, but I know that even if she wanted to carry me, she couldn’t. Her arms are weak now, and I am too heavy and too full of water. She couldn’t carry me now, even if she wanted to. She couldn’t carry me even if she wanted to.
“It’s past your bedtime.” Her voice is dry and rough and sharp like gravel. I close my eyes and the water stops. I open them and look down at my hands and I can see half of her in my peripheral vision.
Her eyes not leaving the screen, she reaches to the remote on the cushion beside her and switches off the television. All the light and the noise are sucked into a vacuum taking the air with them, and we are left with only ourselves and so much empty space. Curiosity takes over hesitation and I turn my head to look at her before I can stop myself. Her finger is still on the button, her gaze fixed, her whole body unmoving.
I think that maybe if I don’t move either, if we both just stay here in the stillness and the silence, then one of us will be compelled to say something true and profound. Like those religious groups where they wait quietly until the spirit moves them to speak. I can’t remember the last time we talked about something real. I wonder what happens in those meetings if the spirit never moves anyone. If nobody ever speaks. There is a part of me that believes I could stay here forever. And that she could too. I want to believe she’s searching for the words but can’t find them. I want to believe there are so many things she wants to say to me but they’re just too big to say out loud.
I stand up. I didn’t know I was going to do that. I guess the spirit moved me. I stand up and walk in front of the tv and past the lamp in the corner and I don’t look at her. I step onto the cold floor of the kitchen it makes my feet ache and I don’t look at her and I turn on the light and I don’t look at her. I open the cupboard above the toaster and I take out a glass and I walk over to the sink and I fill it with water. I don’t look at her and I don’t look at her and I don’t look at her. The water is so cold inside my throat and the light is flickering in a way that makes me feel seasick.
I finish my water and put the glass on the bench, then take a fresh one out of the cupboard and fill that too. It’s slippery in my hand, from the sweat and condensation, and I’m gripping it too tightly because I don’t want to drop it and because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.
I take the glass and stand with it cupped in my hands and I’m in between the television and her face but I’m still not looking at her. I need time to construct my face so that she can’t see right through into my brain. A sharp intake of breath. I put the glass down on the coffee table. I look at her and she looks at the water. I look at her and she looks at me.
And she looks at me. Really looks. And I feel her see me and it feels so real that it makes my chest feel like a black hole. And it feels like she’s saying I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry I didn’t want this to be your life I didn’t mean for this to be it I want better I want to be better but I can’t and I’m sorry. And she still isn’t moving.
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