2004-03-06 - Living Around:

I found the following bits of fiction as I was packing up my stuff for the move. I don't remember when I wrote it, exactly, or why I didn't post it then.

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The methadone was wearing himdown. He couldn't sleep and he was irritable. His teeth were horrible and he had diarreha, no appetite. But he kept on cooking.

When she came home, he was making something with salmon. The fish was whole, laid out on a cutting board, eyes lke glass, skin glistening and wet. Its mouth hung open, revealing even teeth. The symmetry of its scales, perfect. he held a knife, poised to filet it.

She tried to explain to him the effect of the goldfish pond from a few days before, but he was not affected. He stared, his own eyes like glass, too, looking through her.

Finally, he said, "It's just a fish."

"I won't eat it," she told him.

"It's already dead. How can you not eat fish? I know vegitarians who eat it."

"I won't."

He stuck out his chin, and with one quick motion, the poised knife moved. The sound fo the filet seperating from the bone sounded like teeth seperating from her own gums; a combination of tearing flesh and suction from the tooth's socket, reluctantly popping and drawing blood. She did not often cry, but the look on his face, coupled with the sound of the knife, caused her eyes to moisten and sting.

"Asshole," she said, pivoting on her heel, turning away from him, compelled to leave the room.

It's just a fish," he said loudly. His teeth flashed; they were gray and softened in his mouth.

* * *

Sexual side-effects, the doctor at the clinic had told him when he first started treatment. It didn't matter; she was losing interest anyway. He would sit up at all hours of the night, watching cooking shows and she would sleep, curled up defensively on her side of the bed.

If the heroine had made him impotent, which it most probably had, he didn't notice. On methadone, he was aware of it, though. He felt tepid, banal. She said it didn't matter to her, but of course, it was evident that his side-effects worked to her advantage; she would not have to make excuses. She wasn't seeing anyone else - she cared for him dearly, but whatever had been there at first had petered out, died. She loved him like a brother, or perhaps a favorite cousin, more than anything else.