Zachary Karabashliev - 18% Gray

I move away from the window and lie down.

*

1988, Varna

An empty apartment, late spring, lots of people, cheap gin, tonic. We were twenty and wild. Van Halen, Pretty Maids, Krokus, Kool & the Gang, Metallica, Judas Priest, midnight, jumping up and down, knocking over furniture, screaming from the balcony, dancing, pillow fights, soccer in the kitchen, infuriated neighbors, and the police. End of the party.

Outside was a full moon. The night was silvery. I took her by the hand and we walked. She didn’t know where I was taking her. I didn’t know what I was doing. We passed the last few buildings on the fringes of town and crossed the railroad tracks. She grew silent, but kept following me without asking questions. We jumped over a small brook and kept going up the dirt road. Two shadows, hand in hand, as if in a trance. The gate was locked. I kicked it open. We went it. I led her through the dark, short rows. Only a few graves away from the fence, I threw myself on her. I remember she was wearing tight jeans and it took me some time to unzip them. I pulled her T-shirt up. Her breasts were white in the moonlight. I didn’t have time to look at them though. I entered her with a strong thrust, painful for both of us, and crashed over her soft body in a few seconds — guilty, dirty, and disgusted with myself. I wanted the grave upon which I had desecrated her to open up and swallow me forever.

She lay under me with eyes wide open, looking at the moon over my shoulder. The scent of lilacs suddenly filled the air. The crickets started chirping unbearably loudly. She pushed me off her. She got up, pulled on her jeans, and zipped them. I looked up toward her outstretched hand. The full moon around her head. She helped me get up.

Then she gave me the world’s hardest slap.

*

I hear a squeak.

I am tangled in a hazy net of images. I dream that my teeth are disintegrating. First — the right eyetooth. Then the next one. And then all the rest. They crumble like river limestone, like chalk. In their place, I can see only small, rotting stumps. I don’t have teeth anymore. I am horrified by the fact that I am losing them, that my mouth is turning into a big, moist wound. I’m crying? I never cry. I haven’t cried since I was a kid, since. . I wake up with a low, muted growl. My jaws are numb and hurt from clenching. Tears wet my cheeks. I can’t figure out where I am. Then reality slips into my thoughts. Discovering that my teeth are right where they belong doesn’t make me feel better. I want to cry even more. I cried in my dream, clenching my teeth until I woke up. I lie on my back trying to calm my breathing. Is this night endless? I turn on the TV. Idiocy and old movies and infomercials and country music and wild fires and ads and no love anywhere. God, what am I doing here? What’s happening, God? What’s the point of all this? What’s the point of me even looking for a point? Is there anything I might have missed, God? Anything I have to know? Am I going bananas, God? Am I going nuts? And if I am, why? And if I’m not, are you sure? God, what if I decide to put you to the test? What if I put you in a situation in which you would have to make a decision? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? A situation in which YOU will have to decide between:

(a) your devout servant in this motel room, or

(b) your stupid principles of non-intervention.

What if I fill the bathtub with water, plunge in, and slit my wrists beautifully — all the way down — with Juanita’s big knife? Who’s gonna bring me back to the living then? Who? That’s what I thought, too — no one. NO ONE. No one, I tell you. No one. N-o o-n-e. No way.

God, I know. . I have to do something. I have to write. I can’t check out of this world before scribbling out a few sentences. It’s not cool. It’s not me. There was some blank, white paper and pens somewhere here. I have to write a few lines for my little sister, for my mom. This has nothing to do with you, my darlings. Zack will just retire for a little while. Nothing personal. Nothing that. . I’m looking for a piece of paper. I open the drawer of the nightstand. There’s no paper there, only a Bible. What’s an American motel without the Holy Bible? Aha. . Here’s a pen “ Dear, ” I begin writing. “My dear little sister, when you read this. .” The pen is running out of ink. The pen is running out of ink at the beginning of the most important letter of my entire life. So much for good luck. I start shaking it furiously. “. . don’t know how. .” What do I want to write, actually? How. . what? What? I need a break. I pull the Bible angrily from its spot and open it to a random page. My eyes fall directly on “. . there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Goosebumps. I read it again word for word.

And then suddenly I feel the chill. A real, physical chill. It comes from nowhere, but it is especially for me. It’s some kind of personal chill. It wraps me in its icy veil and pulls me somewhere. My face quickly gets numb. I feel my muscles freeze one after another. My lips withdraw toward my teeth. My skin thins out and stretches over my cheekbones. Underneath it, invisible nails grasp my skull. I start shivering all over and my teeth chatter uncontrollably. The Bible starts shaking in my hands and falls to the floor. I hear a snarl from my stomach. I’m trembling.

Then the sudden chill releases my body as mysteriously as it came. However, the sense that the male body here in this motel room belongs to me returns far more slowly, so it takes time for me to remember how everything works. I put my body, my feet, and my arms back on and shake my shoulders. I bend over slowly and pick up the small Bible from the floor. It had fallen open to “. . weeping and gnashing of teeth. .” This is the most precise description of the state in which I woke up. I awoke to the gnashing of my own teeth. And to my weeping. Weeping? Oh, weeping. Weeping. I put the pillow back on the bed, sit down, lean back, and start turning the thin pages.

“. . there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And when he said that, he shouted: Whoever has ears — let him listen!”

Listen to what? To whom? I read the lines above.

“And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and. .”

I know this already— “gnashing of teeth.” What is “outer darkness,” though? I keep reading further above.

“For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Serious business.

“So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents.”

Is this the parable of the talents? The same one in which the master goes abroad and calls upon his servants to entrust them with his property? He gives one five talents, the second one two talents, and the third — one talent.

“. . to each according to his ability.”

According to his ability, huh?

“He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So too, he who had the two talents made two talents more.”

And the one with the single talent buried it in the ground.

“Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’”

Sucker!

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’”