2 Pieces

By Isabelle Newson

Road Rage

There is valor in walking across a night road like skunks do. To rank first in the most double takes. Coming close to flying over a blood waterfall. Taking a shadow and sculpting it bowling ball style, rolling suave to silence drivers minds. Since drivers defenestrate those who interfere with their plans.
It was daylight when Casper was sobbing in his Volkswagen. His forehead was denting his steering wheel because a doctor at Urgent Care informed him that he did not have lice. The doctor was a man. Dr. Raffi. When Dr. Raffi picked up a wooden tongue depressor and skimmed through Casper’s hair, he felt like a pretzel. More so that a hand was sifting through an empty bag of pretzels.
Casper was prescribed an antifungal shampoo, for dandruff. He asked if there’s a chance he’d have bedbugs instead. Dr. Raffi grabbed Casper’s arms, turned them upwards, and said there were no bites as he turned back to his computer. Casper stilled his breath. He wondered if Dr. Raffi was as stony with other patients. Dr. Raffi typed, plainly, while asking if Casper had any more questions. Casper didn’t. Only thirty seconds of accumulated tears. This was when Dr. glanced back before fully closing the door. Not plainly. Not saying anything. Casper tucked his chin over his shoulder and let out a fake sneeze. The door shut. Plainly.
Casper had therapy an hour before his lice examination. He was asked to open up about ongoing resentment towards the men in his life. He didn’t really say much because it was 8 am, he told himself. He was also timing the patterns of crawling, tracking his scalp’s hot spots.
As Casper dried his face with his shirt and started his car, he imagined Dr. Raffi having skunk-like road rage.

Smile Like Ceiling Fans Do

I salute the rocks in my pocket like wartime clocks sitting on shoreline for two reasons.
One: to throw down from the cedar tree whose branches I curl my arms around.
Two: to use them as a vessel for my hand to form percussion because that kind of thing
perks your ears up like a wet dog getting the chance to puddle family blankets because the
squeak of his owner’s spiked ball insists upon it.
If a father can carry a fan for fourteen miles, whisky-infused Coke inside my stomach is just another reminder that I’m warm enough to spend the night up here. Because the walk isn’t even what sucks, but tearing the cardboard box to see a futile manual that thinks it’s handy since it’s in both English and Spanish. Nobody uses manuals. Fathers don’t. So the father will suck on beer infused lime, grab his ladder, and rattle the loose nails once in bolsitas and now in his palms to mimic Bolero from the den’s radio. He’ll invert air by spitting out lime strings that reach no destination as he yells “Giselita,” whose room he’s in, the only enclave he’ll mount in this house because she’s the youngest child and daughter. His only daughter who he’ll stay alive for after his comatose because she told him with ardent eyebrows that he must meet her kids one day. He’ll have her search videos on how to install a ceiling fan, and she’ll storm out with her overbite before he makes her put on a fourth video. He’ll call his friends to see what they know and hang up when they don’t. He’ll ignore his wife who insists he takes a break para croquetas de arroz frito because where do breaks get you if there’s yet a reason to get on that ladder. So he’ll pick up his manual. So blades and bulbs will meet as water that was once ice. So hands are Namaste like after killing a mosquito.
Rocks can be a manual. Their use is the only time you’ll walk backwards and examine me with the same expression as spotting a powerline on a bygone hill.

Isabelle is a writer from Los Angeles. You can find some of her works on ExPat Press. Or on instagram: izzynews0n.