Counting
By Linzy Garcia
I lay on the floor a lot these days. Am I trying to make myself small to blend in with the broken leaves and stray dust I’ve tracked in? Is my body reverting to some primal instinct to ground myself to something, or do I just need a new perspective? When was the last time you looked at your ceiling? Maybe I’m trying to disappear.
I think about bodies a lot these days, how they fit and exist within places and spaces. The weight of bodies and the last time my body held the weight of someone else. I bought a weighted blanket, but I don’t think it’s helping.
I miss my mom’s hugs. When I was little, I remember the comfort that would wash over me when I would hug her legs, legs that look similar to mine now: wide, strong, and soft. I try to find comfort from them now; hers were a retreat, a shield, a safe place. I looked up how to give yourself a hug, but no comfort comes.
I imagine crowded restaurants and bars. I remember the people years ago I was crushed against in the London tube when I was homesick, wishing for my California highways back. Weeks into the trip, early morning passengers rushing to work pushed me into a tall man’s chest. I found an unexpected comfort in that stranger, the faint smell of his cologne, the recycled still air of the underground station clinging to his shirt. The warmth of his chest so faint against the chaos of the morning. Now, quarantining alone, I count the touches I used to take for granted: the quick hug from a friend greeting me, comforting shoulder squeezes of encouragement and pride, hugs from my parents, my mom’s arms tight around me, my arms around my dad’s sturdy core, my hand on someone’s back as I pass by them.
I write flash fiction because I love to obsess over a moment. Some writers I know can see the whole scope of their story; it lays out before them like a map – they know every trail, every twist, turn, and cavern. I love to hold small fragments of story in my hands, like a river stone from the Truckee, tumbled to an imperfect smoothness. I am that writer – the one with my back to the map, wading into the quiet swiftness of the river. The small gritty stone and I sit on the beach and I spend the afternoon turning it over in my hands, unable to put it down or leave it behind.
I am alone and lonely. My mind wanders and I let it. Better than obsessively scrolling through COVID articles and projections. Really, I will do anything to stay away from accepting this new normal. What if my family dies and I am still alone? What if alone is my new normal? I hug myself, but I don’t feel better. My therapist says when I think these thoughts, it is my mind preparing myself for the worst-case scenario. She says it to be comforting, but I am not sure anything is anymore.
For two months, my one outing besides the store was to my gastrologist. As I lay on my floor, I can’t stop thinking about her fingers on my ribs. I had to write about the cold stiff way the technician’s fingers worked to complete her task, the way I had to hold myself down and hold tears back from my one glimpse at comfort.
***
The waiting room is empty, which is a small relief. They take my temperature when I check-in, 97.7°, and tell me someone will get me shortly. Soon, the technician walks me back while making small talk. A small return to normal.
I lay on the exam room table, my shirt pulled up to expose my ribcage. I feel like I am in college again, my shirt off in front of a boy for the first time, vulnerable and unsure. I shiver. While living alone I am not seen, not felt. In case the world needed to remind me again how single I am, let’s take any type of physical interaction off the table. This is a sick joke. Sixty days and counting, I tell my friends who Zoom with me because I ask, not because they need me.
“I just need to find the best space,” the technician says. I nod.
Her fingers scale my rib cage like a piano, each bone and space a key. She probably wants to finish quickly, get to her lunch, or continue her conversation with co-workers. Her fingers are stiff – medical – and have no give. I am sure this was part of her training.
On the exam table, shirt pulled up, I count each time her finger presses into me, instead of the passing days. I breathe deep as she instructs; it helps the pressure behind my eyes, too.
Back home, my neighbor and I almost run into each other while taking out the trash. My new instinct is to recoil, run back to my house, and wash my hands, but it is an older instinct I have to resist. I shove my aching hands into my pockets, walk quickly back to my house instead of pulling him in, pressing myself to his chest to feel his heartbeat, his breath, his skin, his humanity.
Linzy Garcia received her MFA from the University of Nevada, Reno. In both short and long forms, she explores women’s pleasure, shame, and experience. Her work appears in The Dollhouse, Lady/Liberty/Lit, Thin Air Magazine and The Normal School. Linzy now lives in Reno, Nevada, with her scruffy terrier pup, Ollie. You can read her blog at http://www.blissbuzz.net/ or find her on Instagram @linzywithatwist, and on Twitter @linzy_garcia.
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