Helpmeet

by Naben Ruthnum

Edward only knew the deep complaints of his entire dying body, an intermittent throbbing beacon calling death.

When he was still pretending he had a future,

While I dressed afterwards, Jean pretended to sleep, but I saw her eyes slitted open, saw the pupils move through that narrow opening, saw her smile when she caught me catching her.

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

oh

Louise had seen two tiny, questing fingernails emerging from her husband’s tear ducts.

oh???

Inside that flower, in its hidden workings, were eyes and a tongue, for it tilted: it mimed looking, as Edward had when this thing had taken its eyes for its own use.

For a second, she was breathing inside Edward’s body, the arid red dust of it, the bone powder, a digestive burn at the edges of the scent.

Louise felt the outside of her fingers against the inside of Edward’s as their hand curled around the doorknob.