Untitled chapter
A Wound-down Phoenix
He realized it one day as he sat drinking coffee. He was in a bar overlooking the river, enjoying his afternoon off by reading a novel. Then he heard that phrase: “Mommy, what’s wrong with that man?”
Intrigued, he directed his attention surreptitiously toward the voice. It was a girl’s, no more than ten feet away, 8 o’clock from where he stood judging by the corner of his eye. He lifted his watch to the book he held on the other hand, changing its mode with a touch. That allowed him to observe both the girl, who watched him intensely, and the mother, who tried at the same time to shush her, scold her, and pretend she didn’t know her. He couldn’t hear what she was whispering to her, and besides, his attention had already deviated from mother and daughter to the real cause of the incident, which stood revealed. He turned his head a little to the right, keeping his eyes fixed on the watch. He raised, lowered, and oscillated his head methodically to confirm that which he had seen. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t as serious as a first impression indicated:
They were just three gray hairs. They didn’t even qualify as a lock.
It was impossible anyone else had noticed. They were just above his left ear, on the outer curve of hair that descended from the side of his face, turning above the ear. The waitress hadn’t shown the least disturbance when she saw him, though being sincere, he didn’t think she would have noticed his existence beyond the role he played in the machinery of her comings and goings.
As covertly as he could, he bent his head left and held it up with his hand, index finger turned up in a reflexive attitude, thus effectively hiding his shame. He kept on reading, but with his attention floating around his ears. No one else seemed to notice his problem, and after a few more minutes, he decided to leave.
He asked the waitress for the check and bent over to take his wallet out of his back pocket. Just then the waitress arrived, and she froze before reaching his table. He raised his head just in time to see the direction of her gaze, before she turned her face away, clearly blushing. Visibly heated, he took out his wallet and stood in the same motion, stumbling backward with his chair. He grabbed a couple of bills, threw them nervously on the table, and retreated with his head bowed low.
As soon as he crossed the doorway, he picked up his step, trying at the same time not to draw attention to himself. He couldn’t catch a cab, or the driver would watch him through the rearview mirror, so he decided to walk back to his apartment. He crossed the street and walked close to the building facades, so no one could see the left side of his face. The looks of others passing by seemed magnetically drawn to him. Were there other signs of degeneration in his face? This new thought upset him even more, and he walked faster still.
He reached his apartment and went straight to the mirror. His face was red from the effort, but he paled when inspecting it carefully. The shadows underneath his eyes, which he had grown accustomed to due to lack of sleep, seemed accentuated, having grown roots in a face that seemed to be drying and petrifying slowly. A solitary line, that used to show up only when his forehead contracted in stress or worry, was now showing shamelessly, no matter what. He washed his face, rubbing it vigorously, trying to erase the marks on his face. But they were still there.
He realized he didn’t remember the last time he had taken the pill. He had been working twelve to fourteen hours the last three months, and he had certainly neglected his personal looks, but how could he have forgotten something so essential? This wouldn’t have happened if he was still with her. She would have prevented it, would have reminded him he had to pay more attention to his health. But thinking like that didn’t lead anywhere, so he got off that train of thought.
The only time he had seen faces looking like that had been in a Phoenix ad. Faces like that weren’t around since the Riots.
He took his clothes and studied himself carefully in front of the mirror. There were more symptoms than he expected. The discolored, dead skin around the nipples, fat accumulating below his navel, cellulite gaining ground in his gluteus. Even his heartbeat seemed more irregular and laborious than it used to be.
He was dying, inch by inch.
