Page 7 - ADU Voice Volume 4 Issue 2
P. 7
Spring 2025 | Voice 6
It’s only really back at my apartment, when I How it has managed to penetrate the skin of
unbind their plastic entrapment and grab hold my ankle, I do not know. And maybe I don’t
of the actual fabric that that sense of fineness want to know. Maybe I just want to get up, as
begins to shift. I wouldn’t say they’re harsh to the I do now, and keep going about my chore. But
touch. I wouldn’t even say they’re unfamiliar. when my hands come to hit the floor, they fail
But the feel of that stitching, that microfiber to maintain any friction with the surface and
weaving, which I hoped would mimic the old launch me slipping forward. They’re smoother
ones, was… ever-so-slightly immaterial to me. now, the lines along my palms on the cusp
That’s vague, I know, but that’s exactly how of fading and the texture of my fingerprints
they felt. It was normal fabric, but with that unswirling into precise patterned micro-
very odd quality of vagueness about it. Or, to squares.
put it as concisely as I can, the new pillowcases,
by virtue of their texture, struck me as more I take a breath, and though my chest doesn’t
real than even the most tangible of objects. So swell up the way it should, I am able to take
real that they circled all the way back to feeling the oxygen in. For that, I am grateful, and with
unreal. the comfort of it, I manage to strike the lower
tip of my palm firm enough down to perch
I want to chalk it up to my lack of sleep or myself up and stand again.
to anything else that might explain why I feel
the tangibility of such simple fabric with an I go to the mirror, hyper-aware, on my way,
innateness that forces me to audibly swallow of the position of my ankles as though another
a slump in my throat, but I’m never one for thread threatens to penetrate them.
denial. It is what it is. I stuff them into the It’s hard to process things that exist outside
laundry basket and make my way to the washing of the typical insanity of life. To the point
machine. If goosebumps wish to slither up my where I think I’m not processing it at all, even
skin, then so be it. They are justified in doing now, staring right at it. Because if I truly did, I
so, but I needn’t stunt my day over this. would scream.
… Until I do.
See, light bounces off human skin in a very
and a certain unravelment around my ankle specific way. It hikes up the bumps and
centered at but one precise dot. Not area, not blemishes and illuminates the organ in such a
spot, dot. At first, I assume that I’ve been special fashion because the skin, in being so
needle-stung, that this pointed pang is the organic, absorbs some of the light and then,
product of a bug bite or my having somehow depending on its melanin rates, reflects varying
stepped on an upright toothpick. In looking degrees of it back.
down to check, though, I realize that not to be So, riddle me this now: why does mine look
the case. I trail along the length of my leg and dull in the wrong nooks and shine where
drop to the floor to check if what my eyes had it shouldn’t? Where have my bumps and
registered is even remotely akin to sensibility. blemishes gone? Why does my supposed
And, wouldn’t you know it, it’s exactly what I human flesh reflect light in such remarkable
saw. Hanging at the tip of my ankle, where it likeness to my shirt? Why do my eyes itch
stings, is a loose thread, long enough to have when I blink, yet never quite manage to
been stepped over by my slippers, but still fairly produce any tears?
short. I reach out and remove it with ease, as And, why, just why, in the middle of whatever
one should a simple string, but still cannot help it is that has become of me, do I miss nothing
the nagging distinction between the simple act more than my old pillowcases?
of pulling it away and the much more absurd
one of plucking it out.
