death in the afternoon

He came at two in the afternoon, the sun still high in the sky and the children running through the park. I could hear two boys fight over the slide as I lay, backtwisted, neck purpling, on the studio floor, the blood from the back of my scalp mingling with the canvas underneath me, dangerously nearing the fresh dollops of blues I'd set on a palette not five minutes before. I don't think I'm going to die. I think of how awful it will be when my blood reaches the little blue paint villages it so seeks to destroy. Blood is too thin and uneven, the sickly cousin of ink, and my paint sits, plump, whipped to perfection, an unsuspecting victim, the Mary Magdalene of this biblical parable. I think of an attempt by my college professor to explain rape's symbolism in ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe.

"If they hated them so much, why would they rape the women? Doesn't it defeat their blood purity argument, producing mixed children?"

No, no, no. It's not blood purity, necessarily. It is the abolishing, the erasure, of one ethnicity. And how better do you destroy a people then planting your own seed, your own living reminder of your superiority, in their women. Remember, the rape epidemic we discuss happen during the seizing of cities, which means that the soldiers who rape will be stationed there, and their people will slowly be moved in. That means this mixed offspring will most likely be paired with offspring of the invaders, and their quarter-blood offspring will be paired with, guesses? Other offspring of the invaders. The DNA of the originals will be slowly dimished over generations, until nothing is left but the blood of the invaders.

I had never understood that lecture. The professor failed me with a sympathetic smile. "I know you're a good student. I could see how much effort you put in. Sometimes theory isn't for everyone." I wish I could call her. I understand now! I get it! It all makes sense! I would tell her about the paint and the blood and the pallet. I could picture her office, swiveling her chair with the most serious expression as she tried to imagine exactly which shades of blue stood to be decimated, what pattern my blood was trickling towards, them, and how the wood between was affected and whether or not I'd considered the implications of violence upon natural resources in this little thought experiment.

That's when I saw his boots. They cut from the door to me at a brisk pace in a no-nonsense diagonal. The blood ran undisturbed underneath him, and did not dare to stain the underside of his shoes.

Gavels, I said. I could feel my throat choke on the blood but my voice came across as clear and high as it had been when I was five years old. Your shoes remind me of gavels.

"That'd be the sound, Karly." His voice is gentle. He lowers himself slowly, until his face is in my line of sight. I want to tell him about the blood villages. I want to tell him about Ukraine, but I knew from the sound of his shoes, he'd been there before.

I'm sorry. When I was six, the van Huisens dropped by to see my mother on a Wednesday afternoon. My grandmother was their social friend, and told them my mother was always free on Wednesdays. They were old and wrinkly, and the leather couch my father had just bought kept creaking underneath them, but I couldn't detect a motion from them. It scared me, this blossoming idea that during old age bones just rattle and skin just sags and you creak, and your creakiness can be passed on through physical contact. My mother, in her armchair, was wringing her hands. She had been smoking out the kitchen window when they rang the bell, hastily throwing the cigarette in the sink and rubbing her rouge lipstick onto a kitchen towel. I didn't hug the van Huisens, but they weren't offended. "Her precociousness is delightful," they told her. "So much like Michael." They left with warm smiles, but my mother still locked herself in our empty pantry when their car had pulled away. Caught unprepared, she'd had no cookies, no tea, no coffee or milk, and no excuses.

I could tell he could see the memory. I'm sorry I don't have cookies for you. I wanted to wring my hands like my mother. I felt the same dismay, the frantic panic, the feeling of insufficiency, inadequacy, that came with an empty pantry.

"It's okay, Karly."

Michael was my uncle. Do you remember him?

"I do."

Is it true?

"It is."

How?

He pauses. Leans forward. Blows through a pool of my blood. It ripples forward, leaving behind a strange pattern of stains, looking like a sketch of bare trees.

This makes sense. Michael died in the winter, and he lived in small house with a backyard that led into a forest.

Did it hurt?

He looks at me like, does it hurt you?

Did it fix him?

He looks away. Slowly shakes his head.

When you meet my mother, will you tell her it did?

He nods.

Will you tell her it didn't hurt for me either? Tell her I miss her. That I thought of the dress she had that one summer we were at the shore, the yellow one my dad hated, and how I played hide and seek in its skirt, and how vicious the wind was. I had burst into tears, terrified the wind was trying to steal her away, and I held her so tight the dress ripped. My father was furious, because it had been expensive, but she had laughed and I'd never heard her laugh like that. She loved the idea of flying away. That she was so pretty the wind had to keep her. A canary wanting to be free. I knew he'd know to leave out the part with my dad getting angry.

Can you tell her I paint with red because it reminds me of her? Can you show her–the painting–no, not that one in the corner. The one I didn't get to yet. I meant to, I just...I thought I had time.

A light wind carries the voices of children playing.

I thought I had time.

"Anything else, Karly?"

I try to swallow.

Tell her it was an accident. Tell her I didn't want to go.

He is expectant. The first drops of blood had spoiled the nearest paint village. The weight sinks the paint, the color turning into a purple bruise.

I don't want to go.

"I'm sorry, Karly."

I need to protect my paints. I need to finish my painting. I haven't called my mother in weeks. I was too busy – I am too busy. I am too busy to die.

"Karly." He glances up through the window. "I can't hold the door open forever. They get angry."

I shake my head.

"Anything else?"

I swallow. The copper taste is back in my mouth. My body starts to feel cold. I can smell the blood and paint in the room. My head goes dizzy. I feel like I crashed through the attic of a cabin, bounced off a counter and landed on the garage floor. The corners of the room start to go dark. He gets up, shoes clacking on the floor.

Professor Cohen! University of New Haven. I think she's still there.

He pauses at the door, expectant.

Just tell her I get it now.

He doesn't respond. I cough, a hacking mess, blood spouting out of my mouth. There is a searing pain at the back of my head. Then, with deliberance, he opens the door.