A SHORT STORY

WHAT DOES BLACK TASTE LIKE?

1

Only imagine how would it be if couldn´t open your eyes anymore. What would it be if you couldn´t breath without a tube attached to your nostrils anymore. How would it be if you couldn´t even decide anything by yourself anymore. Now sleep over it, will ya?

2

I heard this sound. Some days ago I was supossed to pick up my sister at school as usual. A box with china in it being dropped from a guy at the penthouse of that fancy buildind next to your place may convey the image, the sound.

You see, I have this thing with run-down sidewalks. I keep wondering what it might have looked like from someone standing pretty high ,right above us, right above that street.

A freaking old school video-game game, damn it! That´s what it might have looked like. An arrow moving slowly towards me. Yet, so darn fast, that car.

Coconuts, with lotsa coconut water in it. Beaches. Sunny beaches. Ok then, happier analogies, so you can picture my head hitting the curb.

And everything didn´t turn into darkness. Just me.

3

September 4th 2004?

Don´t know.

Don´t remember.

4

Ok, you guys. That´s about it. I can´t do this, can I? I can´t pulled it off, right? Here, I mean, lying on this bed all day long. Communication, right? You cannot follow me, can you? Is this teenage rock-bottom, me here, all by myself, despite the fact I can hear them and I can feel them and I cannot see them and I cannot feel them.

5

This is worse. I mean, my situation.

During the Second World War, all the hospital all around Europe were jam packed.

So the German soldiers would came in and mistreat all patients who were already on a pretty bad shape, those with no legs and no arms and no heart left to be smashed but this wish to be buried by their beloved ones, their kins.

Then, the nurses and the doctors would relief their patients´suffering, would speed up the whole process, and in their mind they were just nipping the bud, cutting things short,

letting the jews

free,

to go.

6

October 13th 2004

This is fast. And nothing but clichés pop up. Remember when that guy told ya about the beauty of life? Remember that? About doing things while you can, while you are able to? So I know this story about a lady who was doomed to spend the rest of her days suffering like a dog because of a terminal cancer. She could talk, though, and so she chose. "I´ve lived long enough. I´ve had the time, and if there´s something still working inside of me, it´s telling me this could be a good ending, an honor, in fact, to be able to say SWITCH IT OFF, DOC.I WANT TO END IT AT THIS PART."And so she did it. She ended it.

7

Can you sell something you haven´t even finished paying for? I guess not, so the beach flat wouldn´t count.

Mom´s car.

College money.

All the savings.

Minor stuff too.

The new tv set.

The camera.

My laptop.

Someone once told me that music box is worth a good money. Hope they remember it.

My kidney.

My bike.

Jeez.

How the hell are they affording this hospital?

8

I actually try to show them I can feel their presence when they are in the room. Quite easy, actually. I´m getting good at it. For some moment, when I hear the doorknob turning (and that is one loud rusty doorknob) I think of uncle Joe and the pool. This summer day, a while ago, he grabbed me and threw me in the water, to my total dismay and resistance. Not knowing how to swim can easily lead one into panicking. So now, when my folks come over, I try and go back to those two seconds right before hiting the water, and my heart beats up faster and faster, and the beeping they hear from the machine is, in fact, me saying hello.

Natasha Bosch wrote this piece and we are really proud of her.