Two Rosaries

by C. Cimmone

Isabella Fischer

That day draws itself in my mind like a broken piece of plywood — jagged angles and wisps, spiny picks and thick chunks — being forced back together by angry, exhausted hands; but I will try to tell you the story without conjuring sadness or sympathy. I will tell you about the two rosaries and you can let it sit and weigh, but only for a few seconds — and then you must release it back out into the universe. Let it rest. Let the story of the rosaries rest in time and hollow out a piece of the past where it shall remain — never relaying to me a mention of its cause or place.

***

Rosary One

I don’t think I ever really knew who he was or what he wanted. I don’t know if anyone ever knew him that way. Maybe I had known him; and perhaps too much time had gone by now, and I didn’t know him anymore.

His face was gaunt and his eyes were large and sticky. The left eye was swollen inside, and the lid didn’t close like the right. The machines kept pumping and feeding, breathing and testing, dripping and draining. The trays were clean and the shelves were empty. Bags hung all over — small, large, full, empty, and almost— and doses were scribbled on the same napkin which had my name handwritten in blue ink.

His shoulder peeked out of the striped gown, revealing the bone’s rigidity. His body was sheer existence, bled dry of anything good one can put in to be pink and pliable. He had fed himself with pain and smoke, cut up straws and crushed up particles the body would never choose for itself.

He was eaten away with self-loathing and lust. He was lifeless with concoctions of the wrong sort. He was full of dead, of death, and of dying. His hands were swollen with secrets and stories. I pushed under each finger, raising it and wondering what act it had committed. I wondered which finger had been burned or cut. I wondered how much each finger had seen go into his body. I wondered if they were about to burst of shame — now idle and repenting their owner’s mistakes — now regretting the substance and fuel they helped sort out and push up.

I wiped my face and dug into my coat pocket. The box was flimsy and clear for display. I cracked the side open and the beads dripped out into my hand, shimmering with each blinking light behind the bed. I looked up at the monitors and the digits. There was no direction in their glow. I looked at the rosary. I wondered what it could do for this man that I knew in one lifetime or another. I hoped the rosary knew what he had said before he closed his eyes. I hoped the rosary knew my true heart…and his…and how to help us both.

***

Rosary Two

He seemed so simple — with kind eyes; a bottle of something; and a long drag. I always wondered if I loved him. People asked me, over the years, if I loved him the way a woman should, and I answered much like a young girl lies about an abortion she never had.

I thought about him and I and everything we had built and destroyed. I stared at the ceiling, light with moonbeams and peaceful with a spinning star hanging from its plaster. The gold star turned with the air of the house, this way for a while, pausing, and then that way for a while. Its corners were strong and bold, but the center’s designs were delicate and private. I looked inside the cut-out shapes, into its darkness, hoping to find a secret path of serenity and peace.

I opened my eyes to find myself driving in a high gear towards a broken-down town. A car stopped half-way and a woman got out. She was told to deliver his letter to me and to tell me he was fine. He wanted to tell me he loved me. She left upon my acceptance of the letter and as I sat in the cold inside of the rumbling car, I realized the words and the angles weren’t from him at all.

She was long gone but I drove faster to the falling town. There was no light with moonbeams or peace on the horizon. I drove until my brain was aching with fear and determination. I found him on the very first street of the town. He was crouched in a consumed position down an alleyway — like an alleyway painted on a movie screen — with beat up trashcans and tiny fires to keep the dying warm. Newspapers whipped into the brick walls until they ended at the alley’s dead end. His body rested here — near the end — and I reached for him with whispers. His mouth was open but not breathing anymore and his body was loose but stiffened.

She blew out from the alley and stood above me. She had been with him, watching, preying, gnawing on his insides. She told me with her eyes that she was his power and she would remain. I should turn back, she pointed. Her long white hair and white dress flowed and swam in the cool air like an angel. Her beauty was captivating and I stared for another moment before she began repeating my words of hope and of release. She mocked my hope. She mocked my dreams of his release. She laughed at the power I thought I beheld.

I reached into my pocket. The rosary, which had once been placed on his dying hand, was curled up and hiding. I pulled out the beads and the twine. I wrapped the rosary around the white woman, twisting and laughing with great, deep tone. I pulled the rosary in tight, cutting the white dress in half. I screamed, with billows of my soul,

LET HIM GO! LET HIM LIVE!

She laughed and grew larger, fuller, more powerful with command. Her eyes remained calm, but her desire pushed the rosary tighter and tighter. Her beauty seemed to fade and her shadowy figure seemed to mix in with the night.

She is leaving, I whispered.

I pulled and pulled, feeling the rosary tear the skin of my hands. I let go to rest the bloody skin, believing the white woman was vanishing before my eyes, at my request. But in the same muscle to let go of the rosary, the white woman puffed and belted out like the devil,

HE IS MINE! HE IS MINE!

Her fists were drawn toward the night sky as his body laid limp down the alley. I pulled tighter and tighter on the rosary, crying and fighting my arms and legs for more power and strength. I breathed with labor and defeat,

I CAN NOT DO THIS. THIS IS TOO MUCH.

I closed my eyes and beared down with everything inside of me. I thought about his smile on the day he told me he loved me and I thought about his soft voice. I thought about eyes being eaten away by this woman who mocked every decision I had made. I pulled the rosary around her even tighter. I yanked her down like a rogue kite with a strong thread and I screamed at her once more to

LEAVE!

And like falling from a parachute ride, I hit the humid ground of the dark alley. I looked up. She was gone. I turned to see him open his eyes and spin them around to find me. The rosary rested in my right hand, still looped, as if something had been inside of the beads trying to survive.

***

He called me today to tell me he missed me. His voice was pure and well-known. He said that he hung the rosary I gave him on his rearview mirror. I told him I had a dream about that rosary. He said he was getting better. I didn’t tell him I loved him; I just had a feeling someone else did.

---

C. Cimmone is an author and comic specializing in blue and observational comedy, short fiction, and narrative nonfiction. Cimmone serves as contributing author for Arouse Magazine and editor-at-large for Trampset. She also is a contributing journalist for The Austinot and has served as a volunteer reader for The Literary Nest literary magazine. Her prose has been featured in The Fiction Pool, The Penmen Review, GNU Journal, Embodied Effigies, and Belle Reve Literary Journal. Her creative non-fiction piece “Chip” was recognized as the Judge’s Choice in Heart and Mind Zine literary magazine in 2016. Print publications showcasing her narrative nonfiction include Crux Magazine, 2015 Story Shelter Anthology, and Jokes Review inaugural issue. Cimmone’s chapbook When I Was Alive was released via Underground Voices and is available on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Follow her on Twitter @diefunnier