Helpmeet

by Naben Ruthnum

But she never tended to anyone who mattered, until she married someone who did.

It’s sipping at my eyes now, Edward had said in October, less than a month after he trimmed the last of his nose away. He used to speak this way to patients, giving their ills verbs, explaining diseases as intrusive creatures that could be bargained with.

Violets and reds, then a white turning prismatic, pushing the spectrum into my brain. Blindingly bright, like having the sun in my skull, like nothing I had ever... Edward said, then laughed.

It doesn’t seem fair that you have been inside my body but I haven’t been inside yours, Jean told me.

“There are no ethics to wanting life. I’m not alive when I’m not incarnate. I wish to be alive.”