Life up-side down II,
by Alfredo Behrens

leer en español
ler em português

        When the doctor removed the last centimeter of filament from Martha’s skull, the room seemed to vibrate. Martha arched her back, her breath caught in a sharp, crystalline crescendo, and she collapsed into the chair amid a deep release of her entire body, as if in orgasm.

Martha left the clinic jumping. The air felt different: more oxygenated and sweet like ozone after a storm. Each breath seemed to reach her toes, which had not felt the rush of blood in years. As she walked down the pavement, the world noticed her. Men who hadn’t looked at her in decades now turned their heads; a laborer stopped his hammer and a man in a suit almost tripped, his eyes fixed on the vibrant, electric aura of the woman passing by. When she reached her front door, the key turned with a satisfying metallic click. The house smelled of stale coffee and old newspapers. From the armchair, Harold called out to her. He was seventy years old and smelled of menthol ointment and slow decay. Martha stood in the hallway, recognizing him only as one recognizes a faded photograph in a history book. The connection had been severed; the thread was gone. And without the thread, there was nothing left to bind her to the ghost of the man in the armchair.