Suitor

(Part one here.)

There were bed-ridden months. The arm, half nude frame; the repairing cells, unable to keep up with the break down, inconsolable.

Months in bed. Curtained, halflight days. Water sucked through a twisted straw. Whole days finger-framed through his one good hand, close concentration on the sheet and blanket and pillowcase weave, off-white thread over and under off white thread. Stained dark sometimes.

And a wriggling. In his leg, a wriggling. Something usually dull. Something sometimes sharp.

Told he was bed bound no longer, he rolled up, and sat seated on the edge of the bed. For a minute full, he moved air in and out. Pushed arms against the mattress. Hopped down. Stepped with the left.

And when he raised the right leg, it came up faster than familiar. The familiar weight of his leg, gone. Something else in its place.

He stepped forward with the right, and came down. And heard a crackle. And felt a splintering. And he buckled. And he fell.

Your bones, a doctor said. A worm is in there eating the bones of your leg. Tunneling through you bones. He made so many in your right leg, it shattered from your weight. Holes and holes and holes. See? Look here at the fragments in the x-ray. Holes everywhere. He's done with the leg and moved on, but damned if I know where. We'll have to make you a new one. Leg. A new leg.

***

Me, Twittering.

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Me, running for breast cancer research.

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In case you missed it, me in love with CAVES.

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You? What about you?

***

Go listen to Yoko Ono.

"Don't worry, Kyoko. Mum's only looking for her hand in the snow."