Other Voices Magazine

The Monthlies

Winner August 2009

“Our families are our greatest source of love and support. They are also the ones who are, statistically, most likely to kill us.” – Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss

Bubblegum Toes
By Heike Adams

I looked at her toes from my grave. They were still pretty as ever, soft around the edges, like her. Her toe nails were painted a fuchsia bubblegum colour, in sharp contrast with the green grass blades re rising around her flip flops. She was staring hard at the death date on my grave stone. I knew why. We had been there before. She would try to connect with me looking at that day. The day it all ended for me and began for her. Or should we rather say it was the other way around? By looking at the official engraving of my departure she thought she could call me up, pull me close; in the beginning just to soothe her own guilt, later because she simply missed me. Whatever her reasons, I would be there. I didn’t have much of a choice after all, she would jerk me right back to earth.

In the beginning I had always somehow hovered around; it’s just what you did, no matter what grievance they had evoked on you. Judgment was a superfluous emotion from where I was now. But sooner or later they had to let go, and so did you. So it had been a while, and yet, here she was again, after all these years. She stood there and begged my name, and though I was busy doing other things now, I had taken the call. “Beam me up sissy”, I said to myself- I had kept my sense of humour. I was curious, after all, I had to admit; why again, after all this time? Then I remembered; of course, it was THE anniversary. People and their rituals…

She was deep in thoughts, drowning in her own sorrow; so I waited for what was to come and lingered. Sometimes you just had to give it time. And I had lots of that anyway. I had a peek at my bones, I liked to do that, once in a while. It was like looking at your old wedding dress in the back of the closet; you knew you would never use it again but you still remembered the beauty of wearing it, for a little while. I inspected them, then I had a look at the coffin, the two-inch crack in the grave stone, the weeds growing around my resting place…and then I saw them…her bubblegum toes. We had both had a deep adoration for the perfectly painted toe nail our entire lives –and beyond, speaking for myself. To find the perfect match of polish to go with our ever-changing mood had been a sign of uttermost respect to ourselves, one of those little indulgences of life.

I was hit with a pang of melancholy. This did it to me every time. The sight of a nicely painted glossy toe in an elegant heel, or even flip flop for that matter, a whiff of perfume, baked oysters… to be reminded of these made me yearn for my earthly existence, my good, old body. I know it should have been something less materialistic that would bring back the longing for life, considering I was supposed to be “spiritual” now and all that. But I couldn’t help it. Everything else seemed mortal enough not to miss.

She was now sniffing, the remorse, I could feel it, pulling at me for forgiveness, I could just tap into it. A huge wave of regrets, the failure to understand the why, the complicated confusion of her love for me. Ah, these human emotions, crammed in a body like in a tin of sardines. I knew she needed redemption, an all embracing pardoning vibe from me in which she could relish for a while. But those toes… I just wanted to look at them a little bit more. Life oh life; the beauty of it, the mere simplicity of it, and the regretful “after-life” realization of just that.

A crow flew up from the trees above us, barking, as if judging the both of us. She startled and quickly wiped her tears off. Momentum interruptus; time for my angelic task now. I vibrated my fix-it love to her in supersonic waves. She closed her eyes, received them and relinquished, a sigh of relief and then a deep breath. There, it was that easy. “Sorry sis” she whispered, “Sorry I shot you”. And off she walked, bubblegum toes and all, flip flop, flip flop…

In his free time Heike Adams strives to put his imagination into words; a process both boundless and limiting at the same time.

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