Rodney gave the woman a glass and sat close beside her.
“Thank you,” said Phyllis, tears brightening her eyes. “One week, tops. That’s what they said.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” Rodney said. He put his arm around her, and while she wept, she allowed herself to be drawn into the flushed hollow of Rodney’s neck. The infant at her breast began to squeal, and the sound inflamed the pain in Rodney’s temples, and he had an impulse to tear the baby from her and carry it out of the room. Instead, he swallowed his wine at a gulp. He poured himself a second glass and knocked it back, which seemed to dull the pain a little. Then he settled against the cushion and pressed Phyllis’s tearful face into his neck. While she quaked on him, Rodney stroked the tender skin behind her ears and stared off through the picture window. Far above the eastern hills, a council of clouds shed a gray fringe of moisture. The promise of rain was a glad sight in the mournful scene, though in fact this was rain of a frail kind, turning to vapor a mile above the brown land, never to be of use to women and men on earth.
PEE ON WATER by Rachel B. Glaser
Though alien to the world’s ancient past, young blood runs similar circles. All those bones are born from four grandparents. Baby teeth and baby teeth all down the line. Jackets didn’t used to zip up. There wasn’t a single door.
—
Earth is round and open, whole and beating in its early years. The stars are in a bright smear against the blackboard. A breath pulled so gradual the breath forgets. Winds run back and forth. Clouds idly shift their shapes. Stubborn ice blocks will not be niced down by the fat sun. Melted tears run, then freeze. Tiny cells slide into tiny cells. The wind learns to whistle. The sun starts setting in a colorful display. Ice melts into oceans, lakes, and ponds. Plants have their first batch of leaves. Guppies shiver in the lake. Shiver, have babies, babies shiver. Crawlers. Diggers. Stingers. The plants get bit and chewed. Leaves grow more intricate. Beings start dragging with them, little lives. Moments where they crawl on sand. Moments where they look behind them. They eat plants. They eat stomachs. Lick bones. They pee on grass. Pee on dirt. Pee on snow. Their skin is cut by teeth, by claws. Water fills their lungs. Blood cries itself in a blind pool. Blood dries on leaves. Blood browns on fur.
Creatures big as mountains stomp on top of mountains. Then new ones. New ones. Feathers, spikes, hooves. Clouds crawl smugly. The air smells cool. Atoms bump and lump. Birds have sex. Bears have sex. The sun gets better at setting. Monkeys play with sticks. Monkeys eat ants. They get sexy about each other’s butts. The monkeys fuck from behind. They sleep in leaves, in mud, in trees. They protect their babies and teach them. The sun glares in their eyes, making spots.
Ants amble on, self-consciously changing direction. Rain makes them flinch, makes them happy. The monkeys make faces. The monkeys get smart. Two monkeys look at each other with knowing eyes. The trees sway. The birds chat. The knowing eyes are locked in a gaze. They look away. They look back. They have sophisticated children. The new monkeys need less and less protective hair. They have babies. They fight, throw punches, show teeth and bite. They think each other are sexy. Raise their babies away from the others. The new female monkeys have vaginas more between their legs, less likely to snag on branches. Males try sex with females from the front. Boobs get bigger to remind males what butts felt like.
This is the nice time of early men and monkeys, before cigarette butts cozied fat into the grass. No plastics, no prayers. Wood isn’t sliced into slats, it’s still living it up in trees. The rain is surprising, usual. Men and monkeys leave their lives with their bodies. Early men paint, cry, stare into fire meditatively. Pee on grass. Pee on dirt. Wear furs, have babies, catch dogs. Fall in love with dogs. Pause at oceans and their rambling edges. Sticks complicate grass. Grass complicates sand. The ground and every thousand thing on top of it. Curves and lumps. Uneven clouds. But click the clock radio through a.m. to p.m., spin the equal sphere like a sonic hedgehog. The leaves live the leaves fall, the leaves live the leaves die.
—
Men ride horses, roam plains, live in trees, in caves, wipe the sleep out of their eyes. They dance to a beat, carve wood into arrows. Pleasure and fun plus boredom and loss. The fun of hands gliding on top of water. Of mud oozing between toes. Knotted hair is pulled back. Dirt gets comfortable on skin.
A band crouches in the bushes. Horses down, blood on ground. Blood on grass. Blood on brains. Legs are separated from bodies. Trees stand still, sway, stand still. The first restaurant opens. Families look alike. Caught dogs love man back. The middle of the night waits for people to run bravely through it. A toothbrush with bristles is invented. Dandelions lose petals, grow big fluffy heads.
Days of work. Hands on rakes. Hands on shovels. Hands on rocks. Hands in clay. Hands in water. Aches in bones, aches in muscles, aches in head. Night chases day. Seasons switch slow. People pee in bushes, in open trenches. There are jobs, schools, songs. There are moms and dads. Young and carrying their children haphazard down the street. Older and with their hands in dough. Men feel cool riding horses. Arrows are pulled on tight bows, yanked back near ears, released in wild flight. Blood dries in sand. Blood dries in hair.
—
The sun casts pyramid shadows on packed sand. A girl awakens to be seventeen. The heat is hot on the street. Sand in teeth. “Sister!” her boyfriend says. He gives her love poems written with the picture language. They are about bathing together in the river, touching and holding red fish. The girl laughs, “Brother, what fish?”
“The ones that feel right in hands.” He nudges her. He hunts honey all day. He and others sacrifice an animal. Remove its lower entrails and fill the body with loaves and honey and spices. They offer it to a god. The boyfriend sneaks out to meet the seventeen-year-old girl. They get drunk, tongue on tongue, tongue on lips, tongue on cheeks. She puts honey and crocodile dung in her vagina to block out sperm. They sniff water lilies, get high, fall clumsily asleep.
—
Chairs are rare. They sit patiently in rooms. Mutton fat is boiled to make soap. Rocks are fired out of bamboo poles. Condoms are made from fish and animal intestines. Men feel cool playing the lute. They pee in private. Fish are caught with hooks. Held in rigid hands. Unhooked with fish eyes wide and watching, wishing for water, wishing for water. Diseases wriggle, latch on to cells, to genes, to skin. A bishop writes a book that recommends letting children have a childhood. He says babies should have their spirits stirred “by kisses and embraces,” that “children should learn to play.” Children say their jokes a few more times aloud. They balance their spoons on their noses. They lie in the flower field and hum.
—
A lake sits still and wet, creating dynamic calm. Girls no longer swim lakes. “Fish bite our thi-ighs!” A collective whine. The ducks don’t give a fuck. “More for us.” The ducks stick their face in their feathers. “You’ve chay-yanged!” They eye the girls: “You used to wear your hair in knots.”
“Don’t remind us.” The girls watch the lake with the others, for the dynamic calm.
—
A rebellious inventor is sick of shit on the street. Of shit in bushes, of pee in puddles. He takes his evenings by himself, working hard on a necessary for his godmother, the Queen. His wife laughs. His friends laugh. He tinkers with pipes. Meanwhile, he shits in the outhouse. He smells pee on the sidewalk. He wants a machine that will whirl it all invisible. He succeeds in making a flush toilet. A plumbing wonder! He tries it out. Pees into the toilet. Each drop twinks. A pull of the flush and the toilet answers, a magic wave! The sewage system is not advanced enough to handle the water disposal. A smell creeps out of the pipes. The inventor’s friends laugh. He never builds another, though he and the Queen both use theirs.