Stacey Levine - Dra-

“All right.”

“And my clothing will never touch a toilet seat, either, if I have control over anything in this world,” Frida continued expressionlessly, then mouthed several words to herself before jumping from the toilet, landing hard on her soles. In a moment she had dressed, and looked at Dra— earnestly.

“Once I finish with the bathroom I don’t feel so alone, and it’s all over ’til the next time. That’s how I live, do you see? It’s not so bad, really; some people have worse.”

“Some have spells,” offered Dra—, but Frida did not seem to hear this.

They flushed their toilets in tandem, staring at the wild motion in the bowls. After a moment Frida gripped Dra—’s arm, pointing to the water, which was rising dangerously close to the tops of the toilets, and began to spill over. “Oh,” Frida sobbed, “Dammit! Dammit!” She took up her shoes and barreled through the doorway, wildly upset; and Dra— ran behind her through the sour-smelling hall until they reached an abandoned worksite covered in rubble.

Frida fell against the wall in relief, saying between sharp, heaving breaths, “I just hate when that happens! It’s as if the world is coming to an end!” then gradually breathed more slowly, saying she felt much better, and hoped to be married soon.

“Oh,” Frida smiled warmly at Dra—, now strangely relaxed. “Shouldn’t you think about it as well? I never thought I’d say this, but — elope! We both will! Shouldn’t we elope? Yes, it’s best. Not for us the nervous preparations. Elope, that’s what I’m going to do,” she said looking upward and smiling tremblingly. Her hands pressed against the tile wall. “Anything else would be much too inconvenient. Of course we will need blood tests for diseases. What if it all were to happen so suddenly, say — tomorrow? We would need the tests today — right now, in fact. The grooms could be tested later, in their sleep. What do you think?” Her face was flushed and imploring. “As a student nurse, I can administer the test now, so we’ll be nearer than ever to elopement,” Frida concluded excitedly, turning to run again.

“Blood is always drawn through the right wrist, provided the skin is intact and unremarkable,” Frida shouted over her shoulder, far down the corridor; Dra— followed, wobbling. Ahead, she saw Frida jamming various keys into the lock of what appeared to be a small closet, but which on approaching she saw to be a fully equipped laboratory, its shelves loaded with suture, gauze, and other supplies. “I will draw your blood, then my own, as is the way of the schools,” sang Frida as she settled onto a stool and reached for a set of small hollow needles, which she began to moisten.

She produced a black cord and wrapped it tightly around Dra—’s wrist, causing the heel of the hand to bulge and redden. “Blood is an enormous transporter of nutrients,” Frida said breathlessly, and tied several more cords in an elaborate fashion along Dra—’s entire arm, attaching to each of these an additional, longer cord, which could be tugged from a distance, it seemed. “I hope you realize that. We must be vigilant around the blood and bodies of other people but — how close is too close? is my question. Why is wanting to sniff the scent of someone else’s blood, or even wanting to swim in it, too close? Why? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know either,” Dra— answered sullenly, eyes taking in a shelf stacked with wrapped, sterilized scissors.

“Ah, I think I’m beginning to understand you!” Frida exclaimed, holding the needle ready in front of her.

“This blood—” Dra— began to say, perspiring, pointing to her arm, but she could not finish her thought; and Frida, her curly hair rising with the heat, awkwardly grasped the top of Dra—’s forearm with one hand and pointed the needle in the other.

But Frida used too little force, and the blood did not issue from the vein; she tried a few more times, but without success. Unsustainably tired, slumping, Dra— realized that she was dropping off to sleep, possibly due to the unpleasantness of the blood test.

She awakened not too many minutes later; Frida, still seated next to her, was angling and aiming the needle in the air as if in practice. She looked at Dra—, then quickly brought a moss-colored cloth to the side of her mouth, wiping, remarking, “You have mucho saliva!” Frida’s dark eyes were excited as she went on, “Do you think it’s better to keep relationships cool and contained, or to let all hell break loose?”

And Dra— said she surely did not know, and then grew sleepy again, perhaps only because of the fearful anticipation that she would, in fact, fall asleep. That would displease Frida, she thought — and at that moment, Frida pricked the needle on her inner wrist, hard, so that a tiny drop of blood emerged, and giving a great cry of delight, Frida wiped the drop onto a white tile.

Gushing with sudden warm emotion for Frida, Dra— raised her head and gave forth a large, awkward smile, asking if it was really true about the moment of death, that it was much easier to endure than all the years of illness and combustion leading up to it; and she also asked if the wish to be holy was out-of-date.

Rubbing her wrist, untying the cords, she then decided to tell Frida about The Man with No Hair — his peculiarly weak, absent quality, the numerous times she had seen him pass in the hallways, and his strange, diminutive shoes. Having said this, still sitting on the stool, she lowered her head to the lab counter as Frida looked on and by degrees felt the pleasure of sleep softly coalesce within her; in a dream, she looked down to see a hole in her hand. She saw ruins of smashed elevators and airplanes, and then the Nurse, distant and statuesque, stepping into a hallway to dispose of a beaker of blood. And in sleep she recalled the dark, humid, desire-making cloakrooms of her school days, the small washstands in the corners reeking with mashes of socks and old cafeteria food and soaked notebooks, and in these cloakrooms, the muffled shouts of grown women who stood there every afternoon for long terrible minutes, perhaps on their coffee breaks, small groups of women silhouetted against the old coat racks, all wailing phantasmagorically, teetering as if standing on a balancing-wire, calling out, “Why do you rule?”—perhaps as a general cry directed to the whole world, but also directed toward someone very much in the particular, someone close at hand who was about to receive her just due for inexcusable ignorance and cruelty.

The women in the closet beat their jaws variously with their knuckles, screaming for the airplanes to stop their terrible roaring; and they cried that they couldn’t distinguish the word “kiss” from the word “crumble,” nor “stop” from “inculcate,” and as Dra— peered through the door, they stamped and gasped how they hated their jobs — though that was the least of it — and how they wanted revenge for their vulnerable, sick bodies, and how their disease paralleled the state of the world, and how, after taking their weekly medicine, they despised filling out the Nausea Questionnaire; and how they wanted more than anything not to be burdened anymore by their illness, and by their lack of control in all situations. They cried about never having gained an edge in the world, and how at every turn, tiny, cruel details worked to prevent this, for example the way they felt compelled to be physically small. And at the cloakroom doorway had stood only Cookie, the pragmatic olive-green-faced school ward, who announced over her clipboard, “If you have twenty-four months or less to live, see me,” then complained that the women did not understand limits within relationships: “Just because you hadn’t any mothering you think you can climb all over me with your bony hands like I was a hill, imagine it, grown ladies with needs so fierce they’d take the breath out of someone if they could — don’t you know what ‘respect’ means?” and then Cookie had sighed, more than disgusted, purplish lips pressed together, and disappeared far into the cloakroom and out its rear door.