Bones

 

                        There was a time when Sylvie didn’t think about bones. It wasn’t that long ago that Sylvie gave no second thought to drumsticks from a meal the night before, and took parents for granted. It all happened very quickly from her perspective. The events leading to her current situation sped like pages of a book rippling past her fingers.  The sky is weeping great bullets of rain, and she’s out on her back lawn. One hand is stabbing the soggy earth with a small spade, while the other grabs into the deepening, soupy hole. The deafening rain masks a gasp. Sylvie’s hand closes around a long primordial bone.

{`,==,`}

            Mere minutes ago Sylvie was cashew-curled up on her futon listening to tires in the rain, feeling the heavy thunder in her joints. For a moment, she watched as her backyard was illuminated. A slivered beam left an imprint on her eyes. The sky had lit up to point with its lightning finger at a spot in the far reaches of her backyard. It was a tip off in the most natural sense. Sylvie took the spade from beneath her pillow, and slipped seamlessly from her house.

{`,===,`}

 

A week ago Sylvie dug a hole with this same spade. She made the dinner’s chicken bones a bed, and tucked them in that night. She did it when all the lights on her street went out. Sylvie knew she must conceal her growing obsession. Twelve year olds were supposed to hide diaries not bones; worry about their hair, and not their spine.

She loved to clasp one delicate wrist, and then the other. Those bones were hinged bridges, just like her knees and elbows, taking her movements smoothly from one limb to the next. There were other things she loved. How her collarbone never moved despite its closeness to the heart. How her cheekbones brought a sense of tautness to her face. How her hip bones extended to armor her otherwise vulnerable sides.

Hers weren’t the only ones she noticed. Her mother cracked hers, every bone in both hands after she clasped them in prayer. The boy sitting in front of her in math class had jutting shoulder blades. They pressed against the back of his shirt, making her think of sprouting wings. Her grandmother, in a hospital gown after an elderly tumble, bared her spine. An indent down her back, each crooked notch was like a staple. 

 

{`,====,`}

A month ago Sylvie guessed, or, rather hoped, there were bones in her back yard. Real, long lasting ancients, dwelling just below the surface. She had just taken a school trip to the natural history museum. The excavated creatures stared down from their high beams, and Sylvie longed to touch them. Paleontologists knew the importance of bones. She learned how they extracted bones from the earth. Each skeleton would tell a different story: See the size of this skull, now that is where the brain would go…See those plates, they’re for defense…See this ribcage, large enough to hold a child. 

{`,=====,`}

A year ago Sylvie’s mother sat her down, and clasped her pudgy wrist. Her father leaned on the door frame, mining his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the floor. Someone had pulled a plug from the floor, letting all the good air exit the room.

Your father is going to be spending some time out of the house.

Why?

Now that’s a good question isn’t it.

Honey, her father snapped into action, handing her a slip of paper with ten digits. Call me everyday. It’ll be like it is now, just…

Just the same, she thought, just the same only with dad not at the dinner table; with dad not there to pull the covers up to her chin; with dad not snoring softly in his bedroom. He’d be a fallen limb left alone to decompose. No one was safe from this family leprosy.

She ran from her toxic room, and took the stairs, all fifteen of them, at one time. Sylvie’s parents heard the wallop: soft mass on tile. They heard the snap before they could reach her. Sylvie saw white shards jutting. She saw her mangled leg, and seceded parents before agony took her.

The doctors fixed her; every single shard. Bones that healed with ease brought about Sylvie’s frail trust. She ate less to see her inner guardians more often. She had to. No father to heap the ice cream in her bowl and no guardian present in the house.

The private burials went on like any other loving tradition. The first time was spontaneous. Sylvie was clearing the table after a meal. An entire picked-clean carcass waited to be disposed of. She put her hand in its hollowed ribcage, and felt the ridges. It was still warm, and Sylvie’s pulse quickened. It may as well be alive; the bones were still intact. The garbage can was not a suitable end. The frame must continue to live a hallowed existence. By its wings, Sylvie carried it outside. She whispered thanks; thanks that the bird surely would have felt for its structure and protection, before digging it a grave with a serving spoon.

Bones became the marrow of her existence.  Bones were tangible, reliable, uniform, symmetrical, and most unlike her family, able to mend.

{`,=====,`}

The temperature had dropped twenty degrees in one hour. Sylvie hasn’t noticed; not the grime beneath her nails; not the sleet. She gently places both hands on her clavicle, and takes in the monstrous ribcage she has unearthed. Her teacher had told her that skeletons were a shadow of a past. Sylvie disagreed; they were the essence. Its long sturdy frame was stained brown from the soil. That was it, discoloration, and a handful of fractures. That was the extent of its damage. That was nothing compared to an exiled father, a secret obsession, or a plummeting dial on a scale. This was a safe place to rest her bones.

Slowly, accepting a new embrace, Sylvie nestles her waif body in the spine, allowing the ribs to cradle her. It is an enduring hug, however jagged, just the same.