Waving Not Drowning

The second glass of Santa Margherita goes down easier, sweet, cool, tangy relief. It's been six weeks, no booze. Against advice from the psychiatrist, just to make sure her health is as optimum as can be. And it is, apparently. Phenomenally low blood pressure, excellent renal function, solid heart health. The social worker told her they'd be taking her left kidney- 50.3 percent function in her right, 49.7 in her left so technically, it was the inferior one. She was planning a Liberating Lefty party, a farewell celebration. It wasn't until Chris pulled her aside in the waiting room last week while running a session for some insurance spot that she began to think about her disease differently, as a potential detriment, a contraindication to her potential to save her friend's life or even some stranger's. He had a resectioning, 31 centimetres, but like her, no drug protocol. It was too risky, he was told, to even consider donating; he wouldn't qualify. But since sh...

The way he brushed her hair from her forehead, the lingering kiss of a finger drifting slowly down her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone and resting every so fleetingly on the rise of her left breast. Her heart raced to catch up, frantic to burst through her ribs, to be held in the palm of his hand, lifted to his lips and devoured whole. Three weeks, 4 days, 13 hours and 36, 37, 38 minutes since he dropped her off the edge of the earth with two small words. Three syllables, devastating in their simplicity, piercing like a hollow core bullet ripping through tissue and bone, exploding every cell of matter in it's wake. Cannibalizing her sense of self, the knowledge of who she was in relation to him. Of another. To be left, discarded. Unwanted, unwarranted in one's desire, wanting. Bereft. Forlorn. Early morning foggy sunrise drenched in misty rain and dewy greens surrounding the abandoned pergola overlooking the mountains cresting beyond the stretch of train tracks rising ...

Old ghosts rise from their graves at the most unexpected of times. Wendy upgrades her phone, from her old beloved 3Gs to the newest, soon to be obselete model. Upload, download, backup, and there they are. Pictures. Videos. Their life together, encoded in bits of data. Files locked away, buried on her hard drive, disguised, encrypted, almost forgotten. With a single stroke of her finger every iota of her being is overcome with the physical sense memory of him, palpable on the screen in front of her, crystalline sharp, tangible. Them. Together. Candid, intimate moments, for their eyes only, painful and raw, full of the best intentions, the most generous of expectations. Pure desire and lust, burgeoning, all consuming love. And texts, reams and reams of text messages, with more pictures and films, none of which will survive the transfer. Sadly ironic how the most communicative part of their relationship will disappear forever, dissipate into the ether. It is untransferable now; like the ...