Wish Eater

by Neidy McHugh

Juskteez Vu

After I explain, the doctor says I am not in the hospital for swallowing some coins. A coin, he explains, will pass on its own. There is the rare occurrence of a blockage, but that is not my diagnosis.

My symptoms are as follows: abdominal pain, hair loss, disorientation, mild bleeding from the eyes, and auditory and visual hallucinations. Too severe a reaction, he is certain, to be attributed to a few swallowed pennies.

Later, the doctor is startled by the X Ray.

I got the idea from my mother. I’d watched from the threshold of the kitchen as she rested against a counter, leaned toward a reflective stockpot, and pressed a finger against her sallow cheek until it dimpled. It was July and the sun was yawning awake, the light casting her in amber.

My mother held her finger up, examined the apex, then, puckering dry lips, exhaled her invocation. An eyelash for a wish.

I didn’t move. I was capturing a portrait of a mother, bathed in fiery tones, wrapped in scarves, examining a fingertip to make sure the ritual was complete. The hand rotated and froze. The eyelash was caught, tucked between the middle and ring finger.

Hand rising, mouth descending, her lips pressed against the cleft, and swallowed the wish.

The doctor is startled, but he wants to wait and see if everything, the obstruction and its accompanying symptoms, will pass on their own. In the meantime, there are tests to run, mostly in the form of blood-taking. I like the ritualism of the draws, the preoccupation with sterilization, the tying of the upper arm, the balling of the fist. I ask what they are testing for, and the nurse says lead poisoning, infections, and toxicity. It would help, she adds, if I told them all the things I’ve eaten. Would she believe me if I told her?

She has an unnatural dimple on her cheek, jagged and blazing white at its core. I press my index finger into it, and she is gentle when she pulls my hand away. How, I want to know.

She slipped and a metal straw perforated her face.

When she leaves, I speak to my mother who is not there.

Are you getting better? She asks.

I look at the bathroom. No change, I say, and we laugh.

The first time I ate a wish was in the fall.

I was peeking out from behind the trunk of a thick maple, a canopy of red above, a field of dandelions beyond, and no mother waiting for me at home. I clutched a fat, neon smoothie straw and waited.

A boy blew the tufts from the downy flower. He had the roundness boys get just before they grow tall. I waited for the satisfaction on his face, the assurance he had blown every seed from the plant, before I jumped out and sucked the wisps from the air.

They tasted like dust and I wondered if that was what cancer tasted like when it crawled up from a stomach and took a mother’s mouth, her face, her life. I wished to be like her, to be with her.

I tasted blood and realized the boy had punched me.

At night, I sit on my cot facing the window and watch the stars. Do wishes come true for the devout?

I ate every eyelash that fell from my face. I picked the rest for good measure. On Thanksgiving, I pulled wishbones from trash cans and ate them too. I gnawed birthday candles while pliant and hot. When I realized that luck and wishes were one and the same, I made tea of rabbits’ feet and clover. I swallowed the coins from the wishing well in handfuls, washing them down with their own water.

The hospital bed does not creak when I stand. I am wrapped in blankets like scarves. The light from the bathroom is amber. In the mirror I find a portrait. The hair is gone, the skin is discolored, the muscles have eaten themselves. I’ve wondered if wishes could really be consumed, if they could take root in a material body, in a stomach, if the detritus of ritual could be ritual enough. I press a finger to my cheek.

My mother is staring back at me.

Outside, the stars are falling. They shoot in through my window and I swallow them whole.

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Neidy McHugh is a writer living in upstate New York with her spouse and two sons. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Dodge. You can find her on twitter @ladyneidy or at neidymchugh.com.