butterflies and sutures

[Cicada]

Gyu-ri worked ceaselessly through the night and through silence, the Christensen kitchen’s dull bulb still burning long after the stars had wandered away.

Of vegetables she cut sizes only infinitesimally variable, winding tension through the spring of her joints such that each motion was exactingly precise. The skin around her knuckles slowly began to grumble in red and pink, she stayed the sensation of inflammation with only the promise of inevitable rest. A routine she knew well, in ever small adjustments of her knife, usually three but sometimes four and whenever it was four back-and-forth shifts she needed a moment to recollect her thoughts and start from zero. Such that she could take precisely three practice swipes of the blade before she kissed it against organic plant flesh.

She meditated on the silence, though she did not particularly like silence because it tended to expand in size until it was oddly larger than her own skull, obtusely heavy.

She checked the time. 3:58 AM.

Her thoughts remained painstakingly mundane- the knives were arranged, the cabinets were restocked, and the fridge was cleaned with the exact same initial and final states, in regular intervals. The sink’s knob was twisted to precisely one wrist’s swivel worth of degrees, wherein the temperature was perfectly cold so as to not dry the skin, and this would also follow in regular intervals wherein the knife she used was always washed after every single few cuts made, and soap was of course used, with fractionally precise measurements others vaguely called dollops.

She continued to parcel out moments of the future with unerring accuracy. The little snips of the knife clicking into place against the cutting board all sounded the same as the prior and as they would sound in the future, on penalty of her impotent rage.

Though the energy for anger was, perhaps, lacking in her system. Not for a lack of eating, though she did suddenly realize she couldn’t remember the last time she ate. She had certainly eaten, she always ate in a timely fashion. A distorted memory then. A symptom of amnesia.

She checked the time. 3:59 AM.

The knife was just stained enough by meaty juices that it demanded another bath in cold water. The sink’s knob was twisted to precisely one wrist’s swivel worth of degrees. She ritually clanged the broadside of the blade against the basin of the sink which produced a familiar hollow metallic tone. She glanced over her shoulder, vaguely concerned someone would be watching. That rarely stopped her, but it did make her feel more self-conscious about trying to scratch the itch of her occasional repetitive compulsions.

The knife was cleaned until it was polished, then the rest of the sink passed a visual inspection, that no errant amount of wetness had settled outside the metal of the basin. Gyu-ri focused on only the feedback of her eyes, intent, rich as her kitchen was with scents billowing onto scents in a confusing cacophony. She didn’t like the kitchen being this lively and chaotic. Normally she used spartan amounts of tupperware and could only smell the tones and hints of one particular dish- whatever she’d cooked that day. Now her cabinets were empty and her lungs were full and it rather upset her, but only in the usual range of her being upset at everything anyways. The perpetual feeling of malaise, rarely overcome, rarely made issue of because it was never relevant.

Funny it had been relevant this time. She’d only complained to herself because nobody would have wanted to hear, but she’d thought a senior trip would have been trouble.

Unfortunate she’d had to be right now, of all times. She dismissed the thought for it’s irreverence, it bled into the sea of other impulsive assumptions about the who and the what and the where the corpses would be by now. She checked the time.

3:58 AM.

Cut vegetables were now packaged into salads, sealed by plastic to maintain the dew of their own freshness. Ratios were even, measured by hand then by cup then by hand and then said hand was washed briefly despite her already having on sterile gloves. Then, one more measurement by cup, a quick pat of hand to rim to ensure even proportions. Cubes and ribbons of color decorated a bed of lettuce leaves evenly trimmed, slightly wet with their having been washed twice-over-four times apiece. She admired her handiwork with a straight stare and a welded frown.

She supposed she could still be wrong, too. About the reason, for the occurrence. She supposed because she always did anyways.

Her presumptions were unwanted and unneeded, what was needed was food. The countertop of the kitchen was efficiently arranged into a neat grid of foodstuffs, such that options were clearly displayed and did not overlap- Gyu-ri had carefully tested this by measurement, by parallax of her own thumb and her own back-and-forth blinking for a few straight minutes uninterrupted, such that dishes could be optimally spaced out and not compete with one another for attention. The Christensen kitchen was Gyu-ri’s and Gyu-ri’s alone, she shared it with nobody through no particular choice or willing of her own. The smell was her signature smell diluted- a heavy cloud of fresh tea spiced up gratuitously by innumerable other scents of oils and flavors.

Gyu-ri knew well that her family ate out whenever possible when she wasn’t around. But this time she’d cooked all the comfort foods- the greasy and fatty junk that carried little nutritional value by most metrics Gyu-ri accepted. She’d even mildly surprised herself to the point of wondering if she’d changed too much by picking up the old cookbooks again- but she supposed any recipe no matter how buttermilk-fed was doomed to success when every line and every step were double checked. She supposed Mom had a hand in this somehow, wherever she was watching on from. This old style Southern cooking was still in her blood, still part of her fractured heritage.

She hoped Jiji and Daddy would enjoy. She hoped it would bring a little spark of joy back. It was a quieter house nowadays, ever since.

She checked the time.

4:00 AM. The minute the very last of the messages had reached her from that bus before they’d all at once stopped, frozen in time in this odd little capsule of all matters of pettiness. Not even a week prior Gyu-ri had been playing chess with Parker, asking Ivy for advice, using said advice on Jon while feeling herself a childish imposter at romance all the while. Not even a week ago she’d heard the last thing she’d probably ever hear from any of them. In the form of being seen zoned. One last time.

She closed Messenger and checked the actual time.

6:58 AM. June 15th. A few days later and they all would have graduated.

She packed the rest of the lunches into a pair of tote bags and set off into town, now on the hunt for familiar faces. Or at least the ones still left. She was blessed with busy body and busy mind. Thoughts of the inevitable truth did haunt her, of course. But everything haunted her anyways. The merciless belligerent named her own thoughts raced with the best of them, and didn’t stop until long after the class of 2018 was long gone.

((Gyu-ri Christensen, Meanwhile Begin))