The Four Senses of Tiresias

Touch

his beard constantly. It’s rougher than his old one and (he is told) redder. At night, he traces the bruises on his ribs where he bound his chest and the marks on his belly where he carried his daughter.

Smell

the fear when he enters a room. That one, they whisper, speaks for the gods. It’s as true as anything you could say about his life these days.

Taste

a ripe melon. This, at least, remains the same as ever.

Hear

the birds sing omens, marvelous and mundane in the same breath. She will Doom us all. You will fall for the wrong person. Don’t get that haircut. Remember to feed the cat. They should have left you alone. The war is Lost. You are Lost. You are Lost.

 

 

I can’t do naps these days.

I wake up with my bones crunching together and my brain displaced from its cranial nest. I spend the next 48 hours in a caffeinated haze, occasionally finding bits of lost grey matter in the IKEA couch, and vow to never do this to myself again.

 

 

Fish Son

We cared for you best we could, converting the upstairs bathroom into a nursery. We signed up for Zoom preschool. We had big dreams for you, kid.

It was a normal night. You did backflips for Dad while I made cioppino with mussels and clams. We stopped eating fish when you were born, of course, but seafood was always our favourite.

Something tasted off that day. Repellant yet oddly familiar. We both realized what had happened at the same time.

We ran to the bathroom and retched together into the tub where you once swam.