The Mumblers

You tell me you had a family house in the Mumbles, somewhere in Wales. I imagine darkness toppling out of darkness. Fishing nets hanging rotten. Slipping on shiny fish guts. Dusty clementines in a wooden bowl.

You flash a picture on your phone. It looks clean, hermetically sealed. High cream walls. China red accents every now and then. Wifi, you tell me. I smile.

You shut the trunk on my little suitcase. I haven’t packed much, never did. I like the drama of walking with one small suitcase. The sound of my soles against the pavement isn’t the same that way. I seem more alone.

You haven’t packed, truly. Keys and lighters in your pocket. Coats and boots on the backseat. Wetsuit in the trunk. Books in the glove compartment. You blow dust off the windshield. You don’t drive much. I wonder why you want to drive now.

You tell me I’ll love it. I’m sure that I will. You tell me you love me. I’m sure I do too. You adjust the rear view mirror, and I see myself.

My face is muted by dirt and dust. I seem confused, disoriented. My legs are jammed, I can barely move. I keep putting my cap on and taking it off. I stare at its insides. There are black threads like hairs I would’ve lost. Fat stitches twisting caterpillar-like, but softer to the touch. You once told me you ate caterpillars when you were young. We were at my place, in my bed. My sheets are peach-colored, I grow lavender on my nightstand. You hate that about me. Every time you come, I need to hide the pot behind the toilet and pray I don’t forget it there.

You said you ate caterpillars before kissing me. You wanted me to wriggle my nose, for my face to shrink in disgust. I did it, for the show. So you could have your laughs. I think I even called you caterpillar-tongue.

You start driving. You don’t like talking when you drive. Your family never talks when they drive. I shouldn’t either.

I shiver. The heat is broken. The faux-leather cracks cold under the weight of my body. I wrap a second scarf around my neck, and you scoff.

I don’t want to look at you. Usually, I like looking at you, but if I do, you ask questions. Why am I staring. What am I thinking about. I can never answer them. I rarely have anything interesting to say on the spot, I need time, I need some dirt and a stick to prod spirals with. So I usually shrug, and it is either another reason to fight, or another reason for you to think I’m slightly dumber than you are.

I l ike watching you when you study, you don’t ask questions. Your arms, they’re so much bigger than mine. I could probably slip my slender limbs into your skin, and it would be like a loose sweater. I picture it like an oilcloth, some sort of nineties design you’d see in dusty photographs. You never think you’re ridiculous at the time.

You do not want to go to your home straight away. I close my eyes. First, we drive to the Gower Peninsula, and we take a selfie with a sheep. Its dirty white wool is stained with a drop of pink. Others have electric blue crosses. Lemon yellow arrows. Whose is whose. I wonder where the pink shepherd is. What he does with his sheep. Where he lives. T he tide has receded, we can walk on stones to make it to an island. It juts out of the water, enormous, like a prehistoric back. In fact, everything has an artifact-like nature here. The limestones that serve as steps seem hollow, they exhale saltwater through their many crevices. I leap from one to the other, you struggle. I nearly twist my ankle, but keep leaping. You can probably see me in my tea-green coat, bopping up and down like some vintage cartoon animal. The sun reflects on my sunglasses. They used to be yours. Now I stole them. They are perfectly opaque, two circles like ponds, mercury or blue, sometimes black. They reflect soda cans nestled in the stones. I crouch, waiting for you to catch up, but you rarely do. I keep leaping forward. I try not to fall or hurt myself. The stones feel grubby against my soles or the palms of my hands, like some magnified eggshell.

We go back to the car. You tell me I’m light-footed. The rain beats against the windshield and rivulets of gray water drown the road in front of us. The opacity allows for it to reflect us. We seem distorted and yet truthful. For some reason, the water captures mostly your image. Your beard, especially. I can grow one, but I don’t like it on me. You don’t like it on me. The hairs are weak, they curl and twirl serpentine around themselves, drowning my cheekbones out. I seem fuzzy that way, my outlines and boundaries violated.

You have a brown beard, it’s such a rare thing. I’ve always seen them passport-colored or tar-licked.

We have lunch in a pub. You have gravy stuck in your mustache. It thickens your upper lip like a seal’s.

You ask me who the guy was. I ask you who you’re talking about, putting down my glass of lukewarm cider.

T he guy you said hello to before we left. I barely remember, I don’t remember much, people don’t like that about me. I forget names, faces, secrets. It seems like I don’t care, but I do. I keep little folders in my room, little notebooks filled with data, I make patterns. That way, I’m either the most informed person in the room, or the least. I like these extremes. They make me seem more interesting than I truly am.

T he guy with the red sweater you insist. I remember, but his sweater was a darker shade of maroon, like cheap cinema velvet. Just an ex, I say, and I drink again. I haven’t eaten for a while. You once told me my teeth were very big. I don’t like showing them now.

W hich one, you try to act casual. The one that tried Buddhism for a hot minute, loved everyone since he thought that would get everybody to love him. Took cocaine on rainy days. Pretty good drawer.

You ask me more. I do not know why. You make me uncomfortable. My fork screeches against the plate, and I apologize. I tell you he said he was a good guy. You do not ask more questions. I have already discussed this. I do not trust good people. I trust people who want to be good. Good people do not process that they hurt you. That they ever could.

You nod and chew and swallow. You ordered fish. I can smell the lemongrass on top. I pick it out and place it on the edge of your plate. You never eat it. You thank me, and pay the bill. On our way home, you put your hand on my leg. You have Welsh feet, you tell me. Especially for a Frenchman. I try and pretend like we’re both in on the joke. As if obscure classes had both taught us some kind of historical burn on the French through the point of view of the Welsh, and we’re both remembering it now. I try to recreate that circle. I realize my laugh was so soft you didn’t hear it.

We’re there. The roads have become emptier and emptier. You have a house on the pier. Your family does. You do. The owner always changes, depending on the position of the sun in the sky, depending if I promised something or if I don’t look pretty that day.

T he pier is encrusted with small boats lined up tacky. Most of them have viridian green covers. It rains a great deal here. The covers sag with puddles of rancid water. I see you unlock the door. You’re only wearing a plain black tank top. I do not understand your system, how you operate. You point at my hooded raincoat, and at the boat cover. You’re probably trying to tell me it looks alike. I look at them again, blankly this time, not really looking as much as I am resting my eyes.

We don’t even look alike, I think. This is viridian green. My coat is tea green. I feel vaguely superior in this moment. The hood smells of fresh vinyl. It makes me slightly nauseous. You tell me to come in. I look at the boats again. Scabby white paint cracked away in skeletal winks. Welsh flags too heavy and matted to fly. Rusty wheels pricking the black road with copper eyes. The rain starts beating down, it curtains into thick eyelids. I come inside.

I put my suitcase on the bed, and you try to have sex. I let you. You go to fix yourself a snack afterwards, you walk around naked. You always bare more skin than I do. I find about ten dices in the nightstand, and mistake them for a necklace before they rattle in my hand. The absence of string startles me for some reason, I really thought that’s what it was. Their white has passed, it’s more like the color of light bulbs now.

You come back to bed with some biscuits you found on a high China-red shelf. You offer me one and I refuse. I cannot bear them. They are circular and dry, sand-paper eyes you gobble down. On the package, there’s a flat little bear winking at me. There must be a leak, his left leg has turned gray and bloated.

Your bedroom, is it your bedroom ? Am I slipping on my plain gray underwear in your father’s sheets? I refuse to ask this question. Your sense of property is so askew, you probably wouldn’t know how to answer. My back feels cold against the wooden headboard. The pine finish is tacky. You stroke it delicately with only three fingers.

You stare at me, the light has changed here. The bed has become dissociated from the room. The floor, the wall, the ceiling, they glitch.

There are flashes of old trophies in this room. Strawberry-red watches piling near the window. Salt crystallizing on eager feet. Plastic shovels with handles shaped like rhinos. Jump ropes knotted thick with cold ocean water.

T he bed exists on its own, I have trouble connecting it to anything else, like a sticker on an oil painting. It is as old as the rest, but there is this alien presence, is it my thinning presence? Your family must be strong, you seem strong. You don’t shiver. You don’t offer tissues when I sniffle. That’s it. The walls, the ceiling, the walls, the ceiling, they’re fragile. Not in a glass-like way, in a gooey way, porous. You can escape through them. The bed will stay here. Solid black like a lagoon.

I want to draw the curtain. You want me to stay in bed. You want me to stop sitting so far away from you, even though our feet are still touching. I see what you mean. I uncross my arms. You look at me, you look at my face. I imagine it moon-like, heart- shaped and flat, drops of dark circles falsifying shadows. You tell me I have a Victorian face. I tell you you are not the first one to think that. You do not like that answer.

Your brother is a good father. I meet him at the St Davids Bishop’s Palace. The ruins here are disappointing. There is too much to imagine. Every wooden beam I try to conjure to fill in the picture comes out too light and too shiny as if bought at Ikea’s.

Your brother has a little girl. There’s a game for her. There’s always a game for little girls. She has to find symbols in the ruins, replicate them in the correct places in a little leaflet, she’ll be rewarded with a drawing, maybe a synthetic red lollipop at the end.

She’s not very focused. Her little blue raincoat swallows her and runs around like a shiny animal. She nearly bumps into me twice. You pick her up when she charges at you. You laugh and make funny faces, sticking your tongue out. Your tongue seems pinker like this. Up close, you can see its fleshy gray cracks, and you can guess blood pulsing underneath, beating against the tip.

Your brother picks her up on his shoulders. She is tired, her head bobs forward, but she still squeals with delight. Her little hands are pressed hard against his temples. Your brother asks me how I’m doing.

I’m fine. Can’t complain.

We go out the next day. We drive to a waterfall, but the tour is closed. They sell thin tin keychains with your name engraved in it. Behind it, a blond with shiny teeth gives us direction to another one. We skip stones there. A family comes, wrapped in synthetic garments. They look so fragile, bundled and carefully putting one step in front of the other. We leave. You do not like to swear in front of children. I do not like them at all.

T his irritates you. Once we’re home, you open the car’s door and toss me the keys. You want to be alone.

I stay in your home, your family’s home, my home.

I find your games, I’ve never played Mortal Kombat. The deaths fascinate me. The blood spills out of headless necks in equal streams, primly red. The characters flash their muscles and skin, showing every angle, highlighting technological improvements. I like playing with the bigger ones. Those who kill with their bare hands.

You come back and challenge me. I win, then lose. You tell me you want to surf.

You eat a banana, before you go out, we are both huddled in the car. The rain falls in thin droplets like needles. I look at you, gathering sustenance. You offer me a bite. I shake my head. It wouldn’t seem right. You are the one who eats. I sit on a pebble beach watching you carefully get up on your board. The waves roll into themselves. I sigh. I feel fleshy, dense. I think about my lavender plant. I used to grow flowers back home. Baby-blue cornflowers. Butter-yellow cosmos. Coral-pink roses. I don’t think my father takes care of them.

You look at me once you’re done. We barely notice the rain anymore. You wiggle out of your wetsuit. Slipping out of a black frog’s skin. Your hair falls around your face, I want to touch it. Hair, out of the ocean, seems synthetic, plastic. You stick your tongue out, smiling. You seem younger that way.

You look at my feet, I’ve slipped off my shoes. They are a waxy shade of white striped with crawling lines of pure purple. You touch them with your wet hands, but I feel nothing. My toes don’t even move. You do not manage to warm them up. I lie, and tell you I feel better. Good, you answer. Good.

B.J. Hollars