I'd written something on my way home, about a story I read earlier this morning, by Carlos Fuentes, called The Doll Queen, but I don't care to post it now. The always sudden swing from ecstasy to agony has humbled me, once again. When I arrived home, happy to see the sun still shining, the doorway to my bathroom proved itself troublesome as I tried to exit. Somehow, though it remained still, the doorframe positioned itself for impact with my unsuspecting hand as I pivoted from the sink to walk towards my room. Pain shot through my finger, then my knuckle, and finally into my wrist - the precise spot where I had broken my hand previously - as it collided with the wall. Immediately I thought I must have re-broken it, given its weakened state after the initial break. My mind swelled with worry as the tissue around my knuckle swelled too, and I clutched my hand hoping I could still move it. The wall stood staring, its facade seemed to smirk at my carelessness and lack of grace. What does it understand about broken appendages or fractured phalanges? It knows nothing about pain. A wall is simply erected and eventually demolished - either by man or time. Its purpose is to protect and divide, to reinforce and buffer. I guess it did try to divide - my hand from my bone - and I guess it did try to protect - me, from safety.
But don't fret dear readers, I'm okay. My fingers are fine. My pinky is just a bit bloated, like a sad, short, paltry erection, swollen with just enough blood to keep it fat but not hard.
My hip is fucked up, too. But not from the incident in the bathroom. The actual cause of the injury is unclear. Clouded by rampant alcohol consumption and confused by lewd conduct, the inciting action has been kidnapped from my memory. If I had to guess, stairs might be the culprit. Envision me sliding down a flight of steps, hitting my hip off of each one as I, clumsy, piteous and comical, perfectly mime the word: schadenfreude. Those damn Germans, ruthless. I should've known it was ze Germans! The ghost of Hitler was responsible for both of these misfortunes, I know it. His little sideways pussy-hair mustache; muffstache. What a piece of shit:
I'd discovered, perhaps too late, that it was he who was terrorizing me. It was a realization that was both absurd and inconceivable, but not entirely unbelievable. The evening light outside of my window had retreated over the hill, two floor-standing speakers played the tinny warbling vocals of a famous female jazz singer, while I lay in bed writing. All the lights in my apartment were out, save for the three hanging tiki-lights beside the bed. From the next room, somewhere in the darkness of the kitchen, I heard a faint rattling. Cautiously now, I turn down the volume on the stereo, until the singer whispers. The room is quiet, nothing stirs. After a few moments, when I'm about to resume the volume, there is the sound of footsteps, of someone wearing boots, against my kitchen floor. They are swift, deliberate paces, militant in their precision. My timid heart bolts, collides with my chest, and my cold blood crackles. I remember when I'd first developed a fear of ghosts, when I was twelve. I woke to find the figure of a man staring down at me from outside the window of my second-floor bedroom, his face obscured, covered in shadows cast by the orange glow of a streetlight behind him. I tried to scream out, but my voice only weakly displaced the air, like a tire deflating. Too panicked to actually leap from my bed and escape the thing's gaze, I forced shut my eyes and tried to will it away, hoping that once I opened them the apparition would be gone. This time, I wouldn't be so lucky.
The memory recedes and the phantom from my kitchen crashes into the room like a wave, holding a glass of chocolate milk angrily, brandishing a narrow darkly-colored milk-mustache. Hitler, no doubt. Why is he here? His presence is peculiar and nonsensical, and in spite of his dictatorial demeanor, and his tip-toe tyranny in my kitchen, he seems sullen. His Hitler-mustache seems to frown. He peers disgustedly from my doorway.
"Nesquik," he asks reproachfully. "What the fuck!? More Ovaltine, please!"
I cannot muster a response and I just stare. Did they even have Ovaltine during World War II, I ask myself.
"You do NOT LEARN," he shouts, gesticulating fiercely, spilling milk all over the floor, onto my expensive rug.
"C'mon; watch out for the fucking rug, bro," I tell him.
He begins stomping madly all over the rug, with impunity, kicking it and dragging his heels across its delicate Persian stitching. He shoots me a look of incredulity, as if to say: I said please. I remain silent, awaiting a reaction from him. Instead, he continues to glare. I look at my rug. It is covered with Ovaltine stains, its fibers badly uprooted.
Does renter's insurance even cover something like this?
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