by Michelle Sinksy
I wanted out after I signed the forms. They were going to make a pink airplane trail down my right side; my sister thought it was something we could memorialize with a tattoo, but I didn't want her to forget in any way what she had asked of me, what her weak body was asking me to do with its whisper, you don't have to, you can say no. My never-born nephews and nieces, their eyes were bearing down on me; her thin bones laid out, a plea, an imperative.
Every organ would fail after this, lights in a building going out one by one. I wondered if everyone's insides were the same color. I imagined hers brown and rotting at the edges, mine pinker. I thought that health must be a lovely flesh pink. I thought of a dog; a dog's must be smaller, but still pink, darker maybe. Their tongues are darker, maybe their esophagus and lungs, all the way to their belly. If your white blood cells are down, is your blood more red or less? Does the infection make it look more or less like health?
I think of the trees in autumn in front of our house. The yellow and red are beautiful but the trees are really sick, they're going to die. The leaves are my hair falling out. The tree is shredded, bark jaundiced like her. They've chopped her down and placed her in a hospital bed. They're going to do everything to save her, little sapling, youngest child. They've asked me and they've asked politely, appropriately, in concerned, unbroken voices and without promises.
Every time I think of the transplant, I think of my abdomen, the trunk of a tree, replanted for a larger pot; the infirmary where they'll drape the sapling at the roots with a blanket. I'll be wrapped in hospital gauze, catching glare and seen from my gown, specked with pale, dissatisfying shapes and tied far too loose, my stomach pink and bruised and sore, the color of leaves and dirt; recirculated air, a thin view of the sky between my room and the neighboring wing, a curtain to separate us. I'll have the window, because she'll be wheeled in and out, because she'll have more visitors. In case they might have to wheel her out suddenly they can close the curtain between us, sedate me so I don't ruin my stitches.
I have one of those stupid cylinder candles with the Virgin of Guadalupe; they've placed her on my windowsill but they can't light her, so I watch the light come through. Her heart glows bright red and transparent, and when the sun is finished setting I can sleep because no visitors are allowed at night.
Every organ would fail after this, lights in a building going out one by one. I wondered if everyone's insides were the same color. I imagined hers brown and rotting at the edges, mine pinker. I thought that health must be a lovely flesh pink. I thought of a dog; a dog's must be smaller, but still pink, darker maybe. Their tongues are darker, maybe their esophagus and lungs, all the way to their belly. If your white blood cells are down, is your blood more red or less? Does the infection make it look more or less like health?
I think of the trees in autumn in front of our house. The yellow and red are beautiful but the trees are really sick, they're going to die. The leaves are my hair falling out. The tree is shredded, bark jaundiced like her. They've chopped her down and placed her in a hospital bed. They're going to do everything to save her, little sapling, youngest child. They've asked me and they've asked politely, appropriately, in concerned, unbroken voices and without promises.
Every time I think of the transplant, I think of my abdomen, the trunk of a tree, replanted for a larger pot; the infirmary where they'll drape the sapling at the roots with a blanket. I'll be wrapped in hospital gauze, catching glare and seen from my gown, specked with pale, dissatisfying shapes and tied far too loose, my stomach pink and bruised and sore, the color of leaves and dirt; recirculated air, a thin view of the sky between my room and the neighboring wing, a curtain to separate us. I'll have the window, because she'll be wheeled in and out, because she'll have more visitors. In case they might have to wheel her out suddenly they can close the curtain between us, sedate me so I don't ruin my stitches.
I have one of those stupid cylinder candles with the Virgin of Guadalupe; they've placed her on my windowsill but they can't light her, so I watch the light come through. Her heart glows bright red and transparent, and when the sun is finished setting I can sleep because no visitors are allowed at night.
Michelle Sinsky has been transplanted to Chicago, where she looks at flowers, notices things, and is an anemone. She is an artist and MFA in Writing student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her writing can be found or is forthcoming in elimae, Midwestern Gothic, Metazen, The Rescription Project, and others.