THE RAINY SEASON, Laura Sanger Kelly, 9/11
9.
“Arrange for Recovery.”
Barb knocked at the door, dressed in black.
This time he meant it.
The sky was gloomy. Cumulonimbus clouds rode the warm air that fueled their instability. Soon, they would rain out, die, and be no more.
Tomorrow afternoon, more clouds would take their place.
Rachel had volunteered to drive Barb to his Aunt Veronica’s funeral. After all, she had experience arranging them now. And a part of her had questions waiting to seize an opportunity to be asked.
"Thanks," he said, as he got into her car. He looked towards the back of his house as they turned on to the street and searched the new rain at the back porch. The ghosts wavered slightly in the veil of falling water.
"No prob," she said. "I brought an extra umbrella. Just in case the sprinkles turn to rain too soon." She had never experienced things like this before—ghosts and suicides and strange young men with evil smiles—and suddenly they were almost the totality of her life. Her emotions played around in her like a sickness with no origin.
She concentrated on the road, trying to become preoccupied with the weather.
“Are you angry?” She asked.
He opened the top of his black cloth bag, just enough to glance inside. “No. Suicide runs in my family. I’m ashamed.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she hoped she was doing no harm, having read only one book on the topic of suicide.
“Our bodies are given to us to use. We don’t own them. We have no right to destroy them.” There was a new rectangular cube of bleached, soft wood in his bag. He looked at it meaningfully.
Rachel saw the cube, observing the way he kept a careful eye on it.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked. She meant: Are you feeling suicidal now?
“I have ways to keep myself from destroying my own body,” he said. “I’m not going to piss off any god. I took Saint Barbara’s name for a reason.”
“I thought she was the patron saint of artillery.”
“And against suicide,” he said. He caressed the edge of the wood. “But Ixtab has a surer way. She showed me how to see to it that I never lose my body or my soul.”
“You’re upset,” Rachel comforted.
“I’m protecting my body, like I’m supposed to.” Barb said. He ran his fingertips along the cube of wood, tracing the outline of a female form. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
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