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Frostbite

Kyle Hemmings

    They met while she was still hungry and he was about to give up on eating. In college, he drew portraits of people outside themselves, of the German Expressionist who hung himself just so he wife could capture the loose angles.

    His name was Yohji, entertained delusions of the world coming to an end. The girl, Shiatzy, believed that’s all they were, personal fables, until she heard distant bombs at night, the razor edge of voices from childhood. At first she thought: This kind of love leads only to frostbite and death. Later, she wore his frozen smiles to bed.
At times, her limbs felt numb.

    She tried to picture Yohji before the winter, imagined his love of qipao collars, knot buckles, sakura trees in an ink painting. Her trees.

    He took her to a little blue house by the East river. She asked who owns it? He said Nobody.

    The house was almost barren of furniture. The inside was colder than the outside.

    They lived there. She tried to take care of him. He made her forget her old toys, greeting cards: Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Sphere of Light. He stopped drawing fragmented faces, withdrew to a corner of the house. He said: Leave me. Save yourself. The war cannot be won.

    She said: If you love just one person, you’ve saved the world for seven minutes.

    He closed his eyes. His lips turned blue. He stopped breathing.

    She cradled his head, rubbed his hair in half-circles, back and forth. Planted cherry kisses.

    The bombs stopped. She could no longer hear the voices of the child-haters, rainbow-molesters. She sensed the return of blood flow to the part of her that was once his.
    She thought: Single mothers. Single mothers.

    She made a wish.

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