The Numbing Water by A.C. Wolfe

Bitter wind lapped at my feet like an ice crusted dog. Ice-cold, foot numbing water was pooled up to my knees. I had been standing stock still for so long that I could no longer feel the cold burn.

“Serbi? Serbi, where are you?” My grandmama is looking for me. Her scratchy voice almost manages to pull me from the water, dry myself off, and go home.

Almost.

But my feet remain in the water. A chunk of ice brushes against my kneecap. I bite my lip.

“Serbi!”

I bite harder.

“Serbi, honey?”

I bite so hard I draw blood. It drips from my mouth to the water. Small beads of red lay on the surface of the water, spreading until they all but fade away. I take a knife and slash my arm. So much blood pours into the water. Soon, the pool I’m in is pink.

I still can’t feel my legs. It’s fun not to feel anything. The water is magic like that. It can numb you.

The water is bright red now.

My legs are beginning to prickle now. I hope they aren’t regaining feeling. They look blue. How interesting that my dark brown skin could turn blue. How fascinating.

How fascinating that my bare breasts are paler than my face and back. Maybe it has something to do with sun exposure, but maybe not.

How fascinating that my blood is red. How can the red come from my brown? From the fleshy pink of a scrape? Where does the red come from?

The pool is dark red.

How fascinating that the simple knife can take down the strongest man.

How fascinating that I can carve lines into my skin the way the men do to trees, creating art and beauty out of an ugly slab of rough wood.

My skin is like rough wood. Brown. When I run my fingers over it, scrapes and scars and all kinds of mountains and valleys appear as if by magic. As if my fingers can shape the earth.

My dress is short. The pattern of stars is melding together in the water, blurring together, refracting, bending. But when I pull it out of the water, they are stars again.

The water is so dark it is almost black. The sun is going down. I can no longer see my legs. My blood has clogged the water.

“Serbi?”

How fascinating. Grandmama is still looking for me. Why is that? I don’t know. Some questions can only be answered by the great spirit.

How fascinating.

How fascinating that my coat is made from wolf skin, the fruits of an animal that was once alive. Like me. Maybe one day, when wolves rule the earth, they will use my skin as clothing. Or maybe a tent.

How fascinating. My mama says I shouldn’t think. She says I am a woman, and woman aren’t made to think. But I say that I am. I can think just as well as anyone else. And I think that I don’t want to marry that man, Andreas. He is so much older than me.

How fascinating that the white man seem immune to the diseases that plague us. There is one going around right now, one that has killed many. My people jump into ice cold rivers and drown to escape the pain. It starts in the legs. Then the chest. Then neck, then head, then arms, then death. That is why I’m standing in this numbing water. It is the only thing to soothe the pain.

The water is very dark now. I stick a finger into it and stir my finger in circles. Circles supposedly release tension. I hear an almost sigh from behind me, as if the great spirit himself is relaxing.

Then a crack, as if the great spirit is not allowed to relax. I continue to spin circles of relaxation. My soul is tense, like a wolf preparing for the kill. My dad says my spirit animal is a wolf. He says I am a fighter. Mama did not agree. She says I should be a dove, sweet and docile and caring. But I like Dad’s explanation better. I am a fighter. Just like him, before disease beat him.

I want to be like my father. But I am not a man.

If only I could have been born a son. My mama says she prayed for a son. I told her she had a son in a woman’s body. She had no reply to that.

My cuts have stopped bleeding. My legs have stopped tingling. I am truly numb now. My eyes stare to the ceiling of the cave.

“Oh great spirit; I thank you for your mercy!”

The roof falls towards me, rushing in like a vulture to pick my bones clean.

I pull my feet out of the water to run, but as soon as I do, the pain is back. My three hours of standing here waiting to be numb, all wasted in a moment of panic. I tremble in the ground. My veins are bulging so much they must have popped out of me. I must be bleeding. The roof comes closer, cracking, breaking, shifting, trying to crush me. I position the knife so it is above me heart.

“Holy Spirit, have mercy...”

The cave ceiling crashes down.

Right before it hits me, I see the stars. They are so beautiful tonight.

Then nothing.