Vacuoles
content warning: substance abuse
Your heart, a simulation within a simulation within a simulation. Your hands unpacking shopping bags as they’re meant to. The tablecloth always plastic, always stained, always waiting. The sigh you breathe before you begin. And here they go: the cheese, the baby greens, the onions. The tasteless puffy bread he likes. And the beer, don’t forget the beer, great men need to have their beer.
The chives, the peppermint, the beetroot. The swirling Romanesco broccoli, with that glitch in the fractal-making of its flowers. The mezzanine on which the two of you fucked, all trembling, on that bright January day. The lab, all those years ago. The deadly amoeba that engulfed a bacterium and called it a day. His phenol-smelling coat when he briefly put his hand on your shoulder and carried on teaching about tiny hollow spaces in every living cell.
The cocoa powder. The alphabet pasta that will never spell your name. Just wait, you keep telling yourself, after his birthday, your crystal anniversary, his father’s funeral. Just wait and see, maybe this time he’s changed for good. The brown sugar. The lemons. All the appointments he’s about to miss. The loneliness. The many sleepless nights. And the years that go by.
Your life, a loop after a loop after a loop. Your hands unpacking new supplies, always the same items. The tablecloth, the waiting. The sigh you breathe before you begin. And here they go: the cheese, the baby greens, the onions. The puffy abomination of a loaf of bread. And the beer, more and more beer, great men need to sail their seas of beer.
The chives, the peppermint, the beetroot. The arteriovenous malformation in his head, that glitch in the fractal-making of his vessels. The mezzanine on which the two of you fucked, all jumpy, that bright January day. The amoebic cells torn apart by centrifugal force, their organelles neatly sorted. Could mitochondria be called a cell’s many hearts? The sterile white around you when the other students left and he told you he was leaving his wife for you.
The wine he likes to drink at lunch when his hepatocytes are not having it. The brown sugar. The lemons. Just wait, you keep telling yourself, after you’ve paid off the flat, after winter has passed, after his ex-wife has remarried, after you’ve both stopped grieving your dog. All his drunken posting, all his drunken falls. The helplessness. The many sleeping pills. The vomit you clean up. And the years that go by, oh how the years go by.
Your love, a trap door under a trap door under a trap door. Your hands unpacking all the years now gone. The tablecloth, an endless plastic desert. The sigh you breathe before you begin. And here they go: all things lost, forgotten, meant but never done, offered but not taken. The tasteless gluten cloud he likes. And the beer, always the beer, oh so much beer, great men need to conquer their cosmoses of beer.
The chives, the peppermint, the beetroot. That glitch in your heart that makes you always stay, never leave. The mezzanine on which you fucked that other boy, all breathless, with oh so bright down covering his calves and oh so bright teeth. The January day when your so-called love walked in on the two of you: a professor and her student, half her age. He stopped in the doorway, blinking, then slowly turned away, his rods and cones clearly dying to see more, and never mentioned it later.
The pills you keep popping. A handful, a roomful. The pomegranate juice you like with your beer. The brown sugar. The lemons. Just wait, you keep telling yourself, after his funeral, after you’ve stopped grieving. After all things have been sorted out. After he’s been dead for ten years, twenty years, fifty. After professors stop seducing their students and labs are only places to dissect the world. After all shopping bags are unpacked, all beer bottles emptied.
Łukasz Drobnik is a Polish writer, the author of two books: a collection of interlinked stories, Nocturine (Fathom Books), and a novel, Vostok (Vræyda Literary). His writing has been featured in HAD, Fractured Lit, Atticus Review, Pithead Chapel, Foglifter, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. His work was also longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions. He sometimes tweets as @drobnik. You can learn more about him at drobnik.co.