droolingheart

I have lately been visited at night by an enormous Russian man: forty or fifty years old, richly bearded, whose mother had him finish all of his vegetables and all of his milk. At least I think he is Russian. I can't get much from his accent, because he speaks very rarely, and even then with a mind-boiling softness.

He is focused on his work: he sweats. The skin around his eyes and mouth is pinched, is flushed and rigid. The expression he wears is the expression a razor would wear. I am splayed on a table, mostly nude, and he is tattooing my skin.

I ask What are you drawing? or at least that's what I want to ask. The words don't come. They turn into syrup, and they make the room darker.

He says nothing but glances up, like he has noticed a mosquito in the room, and clears the gutter of his throat and keeps working. His hands are chewed, and ribbed. They are wrinkled from ropeburn and effort and maybe hooks. I can smell him: sour wood and salt, and distance, and patience.

I ask A fisherman? or at least that's what I want to ask. You were a fisherman, weren't you?

And now I realize this is a dream: awake, I not only overlook details of people such as ropeburn, and patience, and maybe hooks, but also fail to piece them together into people.

He looks up again and I wish I could see what he is drawing. He is so focused. It must be something beautiful. But now the needle is gone and he is holding a knife - is wiping it on his pantsleg, is cleaning it - and tenderly he unzips me, and slowly he spills me, and gently he shows me the wires of me.

Ah, I say, or at least I want to say. My heart is a dazed thing in his hand: is gasping aloud: is drooling between his fingers. A surgeon, then.