The Physics of Imaginary Objects (Pitt Drue Heinz Lit Prize) by Tina May Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

then he slips the needle in, and then the dark. I wake, I feel my face; my mouth is numb. The dentist tells me this is good. He asks what I remember, this part, this part? I think I heard a saw, a drill, no, the buzzing of my heart. The dentist keeps on talking, but I am tired—all his words begin to sound like love.
     
    I wake again and search for absence with my tongue. It's there behind the packing, that black space. I eat ice—the cold's supposed to heal. I feel the chill spread from my throat into my lungs. I think I can no longer smell or taste the place where my tooth used to be; an excavation was completed while I slept, while I dreamt of nothing, well, not nothing—I dreamt of sounds, my heart, my heart, a gray streak on a page—I dreamt of nothing real.
     
     
     
    7
     
    I dream of nothing real. Winter continues to drag out; I move from north to south to hasten its undoing. Even in the desert, things have closed upon themselves, acacias dead, agaves topped by withered plumes. Monsoon rains have warped my door; the swollen wood protects a house in which nothing costs enough to steal. Inside, the dust has formed a shroud, and sunburst widow's webs festoon the windowsills. A black-bulbed spider decorates each room. I leave them there, a charm, a prayer; their poisonous precision soothes. At night, I swear I hear them spinning, each fat egg-sack an axis, the swollen moon the wheel.
     
    The lizards crawling up my walls have changed from clear to rust. I find their bodies in my cupboards ironed flat by dehydration and line them up outside the door in regiments of waiting. Their parched skins rustle, speaking soon. I wake one morning to whispers of crenulated claws, the red scent of petals crushed. From my bed, I translate sentences of dust the lizards left behind, a souvenir of their departing. The sun has risen earlier today, and as its tissue-papered light inflames the room, I see the tree out-side my window is in bloom.
     

By the Gleam of Her Teeth, She Will Light the Path Before Her
     
    After dinner, Father folds a swan out of his paper napkin. Mother says, “My, how early it grows dark.” First Daughter laughs at a flickering outside the window. She thinks it is an out-of-season firefly or a spark from the chimney, but really it is someone creeping through the trees with a flashlight.
     
    Father folds triangle over triangle, smaller and smaller, until a head and wings appear. Second Daughter watches the ghost of her grandmother walk around the table and touch everyone's plate. Second Daughter wonders if the dead get hungry and she eats the last corner of her tuna sandwich in one bite so grandmother's ghost will not stand too long by her. Birds fly up from the apple orchard in a cloud blacker than the sky. Only Son screams for his bottle. Mother says, “He has such strong lungs. Perhaps he will be a soldier.”
     
    First Daughter goes to the fireplace and pretends to do homework. She writes numbers in long columns and eats the eraser of her pencil in secretive nibbles. Second Daughter follows grandmother's ghost into the kitchen and catches her trying to chew through the rims of cans. Second Daughter wonders if the dead feel pain. She whispers, “Stop,” and grandmother's ghost throws a can of pureed tomatoes at her. Father places the swan in the bowl of grapes where it rocks over the uneven fruit and watches everyone out of its mustard-spot eye.
     
    Mother clears the plates from the table. She says, “Goodness, these dishes are so clean, I don't believe they need washing.” Father tears Mother's napkin into small pieces. In the garden, rows and rows of green beans tangle closer for warmth. The eggs in the henhouse mutter in their sleep. The light outside the window draws closer. Second Daughter sees it and knows what it is. Someone is moving through the forest toward them.
     
    Only Son screams because grandmother's ghost is biting his upper arm. Mother says, “Perhaps he will be a