Saturday's Storyteller: "Trying to think."
by Belinda Roddie
Trying to think. Trying to breathe. Trying to do either right now. It's tough. Exhausting. A mental experiment that goes awry the moment I try to turn my scattered thoughts into actual speech. Into language. I can't talk. If I can't think, I can't talk. If I can't breathe, I definitely can't talk.
There's not much oxygen left in this room. The chandelier above my head is caught in a tornado of flames. It's burning off the rest of the air around me.
I'm standing in the middle of a fancy restaurant with a towel around my arm and red trickling in a Rorschach test across my forehead. I can still feel where the champagne bottle hit me. It didn't shatter, but it cracked just enough. Enough for a sharper edge to slice into my pale skin. Crimson on white. Your body was black on gold. Lit up by the lamp on the stage as the piano player clutched his chest and gulped down whiskey so he didn't collapse.
I can't remember what he was playing. It sounded familiar. But in the end, I knew I had never heard that song before in my life. And I don't remember how the chandelier was set on fire. An electrical issue? An angry waiter's molotov cocktail? Embers and gasoline in an empty wine bottle, spraying red instead of pouring it?
Everything now is red and white. Nothing is gray except for the smoke.
The past two days, I was thinking of quitting. I was tired of serving the elites, handing them literal silver platters. Half of them smoked cigars. Half of them wore black. Their waistcoats burst open due to their immense corporate girth. The buttons hanging by threads. One man laughed at my accent. He asked me if I was from Russia. I told him that in Soviet Russia, he could go fuck himself.
That was back when I knew how to speak.
I know someone will find me before I faint. A firefighter, a manager, a random custodian who tries to brave the proximal inferno. And I know you're safe. Comfortable. Far away from brass fireflies.
I don't think you'd recognize me in a hospital room.
Come to think of it, I don't think you'd recognize me at all.
This week's prompt was inadvertently provided by Justin Tack.
Trying to think. Trying to breathe. Trying to do either right now. It's tough. Exhausting. A mental experiment that goes awry the moment I try to turn my scattered thoughts into actual speech. Into language. I can't talk. If I can't think, I can't talk. If I can't breathe, I definitely can't talk.
There's not much oxygen left in this room. The chandelier above my head is caught in a tornado of flames. It's burning off the rest of the air around me.
I'm standing in the middle of a fancy restaurant with a towel around my arm and red trickling in a Rorschach test across my forehead. I can still feel where the champagne bottle hit me. It didn't shatter, but it cracked just enough. Enough for a sharper edge to slice into my pale skin. Crimson on white. Your body was black on gold. Lit up by the lamp on the stage as the piano player clutched his chest and gulped down whiskey so he didn't collapse.
I can't remember what he was playing. It sounded familiar. But in the end, I knew I had never heard that song before in my life. And I don't remember how the chandelier was set on fire. An electrical issue? An angry waiter's molotov cocktail? Embers and gasoline in an empty wine bottle, spraying red instead of pouring it?
Everything now is red and white. Nothing is gray except for the smoke.
The past two days, I was thinking of quitting. I was tired of serving the elites, handing them literal silver platters. Half of them smoked cigars. Half of them wore black. Their waistcoats burst open due to their immense corporate girth. The buttons hanging by threads. One man laughed at my accent. He asked me if I was from Russia. I told him that in Soviet Russia, he could go fuck himself.
That was back when I knew how to speak.
I know someone will find me before I faint. A firefighter, a manager, a random custodian who tries to brave the proximal inferno. And I know you're safe. Comfortable. Far away from brass fireflies.
I don't think you'd recognize me in a hospital room.
Come to think of it, I don't think you'd recognize me at all.
This week's prompt was inadvertently provided by Justin Tack.
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