Her first memory was of maize.
Her grandmother would sift through it every morning whenever she prepared arepas for breakfast.
Those fingers never let go of the past, but somehow hid the act.
It must’ve been obvious to everyone. Like the smell of expensive perfumes are obvious; or immaculate rooms.
She was obviously hiding something.
Maybe the perfume was to conceal the smell of the rotting corpses that used to be aspirations in her closet.
And the rooms to hide that they stayed so clean because she barely owned anything.
The only time she ever had to concede to the fact that she didn’t always have expensive perfume, or immaculate rooms, or couches too nice to sit on, was when she sifts through the maize. An act she’d been doing for the last 60 years.
Reina opened her eyes and saw the credits were rolling on the TV. She had slept through the last half hour of the movie. She looked to her left and saw Henry sleeping in a lotus position on the other side of her bed, his neck craned back so far his forehead was touching the wall behind him. Reina touched his arm and his eyes flew open. He gasped in pain and grabbed his neck.
“Henry are you alright?”
“Yeah yeah, my neck just hurts a bit. Sucks, I was having an awesome dream too, but the pain made me forget it.” He let go of his neck and moved it around slowly. It cracked and he sighed in relief.
Reina sat up from the fetal position she had been sleeping in.
“I hate dreaming,” she said.
Henry stood up and started stretching his whole body, bones popping with every stretch.
“Really? I love dreaming.”
“I think I’d like dreaming more if my dreams weren’t so surreal. All I dream about is things I’m worried about. Friends. Relationships. Boring stuff really. Only the whole time I’m having a normal conversation I’m simultaneously trying to find my way through intestines or something.”
“Oh wow, that does suck. My dreams are always about zombie invasions and trying to save the world.”
“Lucky. My dreams are just lots of talking.”
“My dreams are lots of dramatic music.”
“Maybe you watch too many movies,” Reina said and threw a pillow at Henry. Henry just let the pillow hit him and fall to the ground, and then stared hard at Reina.
“Maybe you need to stop avoiding so much shit in life.”
Reina’s smile faded when she looked at Henry.
“Excuse me?”
Henry started pacing.
“You’re going through life avoiding confrontation.”
Reina groaned and closed her eyes.
“You’re afraid no one likes you or cares about you, but you have no idea, nor wanting, to project this aloud. So you dream. In the words of Walt Whitman, ‘Your neck’s snapped from the heavy thoughts you’ve pushed to the back of your head. Avoidance will leave you dead. But you can’t hide in dreams.’ “
“I don’t think Walt Whitman ever said that.”
Henry sat down on the edge of the bed.
“He did in my dream just now. I remember.”
Reina sat still, her head leaning against the wall, her eyes still closed.
“Hey Henry, do you like me?”
“Why don’t you wake up and ask me in real life?”
Reina opened her eyes and saw her friends Henry, Grayson and Megan playing Trivial Pursuit: Book Lover’s Edition. They were all on the floor with the board in the middle, while she lay on top of the bed in a fetal position.
“Well Reina, what’s the answer?” Henry asked.
“Uh, ask me the question again?”
Henry sighed and read in a fake announcer’s voice, “What Czech’s unpublished manuscripts were published posthumously, and against his wishes, by the critic Max Brod?”
“Is it Franz Kafka? I only know one Czech writ-“
“You’re right!” Megan screamed and threw a pillow back on the bed she’d been using on her lap.
“Megan, why the fuck are you screaming?” Grayson asked as he rolled.
“Because that’s the first ‘Authors’ one she’s answered correctly! She can never remember authors-“
“I think that’s the first one I’ve landed on Meg,” Reina said, her voice muffled through the pillow she had wrapped around her head when Meg started speaking.
“I know! I just mean in gener-“
“Non-fiction! Henry, ask away” Grayson interrupted.
“What non-fiction book discusses the theory of vortexes with a colorful anecdote about a stroll on the Gulf of Galvinhide and a flock of ducks?”
“Are you kidding me right now? Are you sure you’re not reading the fiction question?”
Reina sat up, “He’s not. I have the book. My great-uncle wrote it.”
She reached out and grabbed the book The Galvinhide Vortex Guide Book by Nathan Waves. “See?”
Henry grabbed the book from her. “Is it alright if I read the anecdote right now? What page is it on?”
“Yeah sure, it’s the page with the post-it note on it that says ‘crazy shit.’”
Henry turned to the page, cleared his throat, and began to read.
“The first time I realized vortex’s weren’t an everyday commodity was when I went on my daily stroll with my comrade Jordan down the board walk. He had come down to visit me; we hadn’t seen each other since our University days. There was a flock of ducks on the other side. As the ducks walked along the crumbling, chrome, chrysanthemum beaded boardwalk, on the Gulf of Galvinhide, the horizon began to shatter as time began to unwind.
The sound of their distressing quacks grew distant as they got sucked into a vortex through the endless cosmos. People continued walking on the boardwalk, the vortex being a mild disturbance in their busy lives. However, the vortex still sat there dauntingly in their minds, forever pressing the backs of their eyes without reason; leaving the people to only ask “why?”
This was the exact question Jordan asked me after the ducks had disappeared.
“Nathan, why?”
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t anyone save those ducks?”
“Everyone has the same risks on the board walk. There are signs everywhere warning-“
“Ducks can’t read! They can’t comprehend the danger!”
“How do you know?”
“Because they’re fucking ducks you imbecile!”
“Good sir, there is no need for such harsh words.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you!”
“F-U-C-K. Y-O-U.”
“What the fuck?”
The ducks seemed to be falling from the sky. Floating slowly, as if being gently put down, back to the other side of the boardwalk.
“Maybe, God?” Jordan said in wonderment.
I chuckled and said, “Do you honestly believe we can live in a world where both God and vortexes exist?”
“Maybe you’re just close-minded, Nathan.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Wait! Nathan! Look inside your coat pocket!”
Quacking seemed to be coming from my coat-”
“He goes on to say that there are vortexes everywhere, and that if we looked hard enough, we could go through one at any time we wanted.” Reina said, taking the book back from Henry.
“Your uncle sounds like a crackpot.” Henry said.
“Or a quack-pot!”
Everyone groaned at Megan’s pun.
“Whose turn is it?” Henry asked.
“Wait, so the answer’s Galvinhide Vortex Guide Book? That’s so obscure! There’s no way you could expect me to get that!” Grayson moaned.
Reina sat up angrily. She closed her eyes and tried to speak calmly.
“Dude, there’s over millions of books in existence. And over thousands of questions in this game. We’re only in our late teens, are you seriously complaining about not knowing the answer to one question?”
“Well, I thought I knew everything.”
Reina opened her eyes and saw nothing. It was 3 in the morning and her parents were yelling in the hallway right outside her door.
“The difference between me and all your little girls, Bob, is that I have stayed by your side through thick and thin. Your little tramps only Witness the rise. I’m a part of it. I’m the one lifting your fat ass up you piece of shit-“
“Nina calm down! Reina’s sleep-“
“Don’t you dare utter my daughter’s voice in your mouth! You’re not her father! You’ve never been a father to her! You’re too busy “tutoring” your grad students at all hours of the night. What kind of grad student needs her advisor to come over right away at 8 at night? A fucking tramp. And the sad thing is you go! Your beeper goes in the middle of dinner, and you jump up, like you’re relieved to leave your wife and daughter. You know what’s even sadder? I let you go! I let you fucking go!”
“Nina you’re not making any sense. You’re upset right now. Let’s just calm down and try to talk reasonably.”
“Do you find it reasonable to abandon your wife and daughter for some 22 year old bitch who can’t even imagine paying her own bills? The stress of being a single-parent, essentially? IS THAT REASONABLE TO YOU BOB?”
“Sweetie, please-“
“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF OF ME!”
Reina heard a slap and closed her eyes.
Reina opened her eyes and saw Henry in her bedroom doorway.
“Henry? What are you doing here? Where are my parents?”
“They went through a vortex.”
Reina sat up. “What did you say?”
“I said they went to buy some more tourniquets.”
“What?!”
“Your parents didn’t tell you? Your grandmother cut herself on her wrist this morning while making breakfast. She refuses to go the hospital so they’re getting tourniquets.”
Reina jumped out of bed. “How did this happen?! You don’t need a knife to make arepas. Oh my god is she alright?” Reina scrambled around her room, hastily putting on shoes and a jacket, and finding her glasses she barely wore since she usually wore contacts.
She turned to her doorway where Henry grabbed her shoulders and stopped her from moving.
“Henry what the fuck are you doing! My grandmother’s bleeding to death!”
“Reina she’s fine. You can see her in a minute. It’ll take you half an hour if you go on your bike, I’ll give you a ride over there. I have to go back home anyway. Kinda lucky I’m her next-door neighbor huh? Reina?”
Reina was crying softly, her whole body limp, Henry’s hands the only thing keeping her standing.
“Reina what’s wrong? Are you alright? Didn’t you sleep well?”
“I feel like I’ve just been dreaming all of my life. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what’s real. Henry, am I dreaming right now?”
“Why don’t you wake up and ask me in real life.”
