memories_like_clouds_1 unhinged she could hear the beeping of the machines that were helping her breathe. she could see the nurse checking charts, flows, drips, making sure the i.v. was still in her properly. she tried to move her mouth to speak but it was a horrible effort just to part her lips. even the meager smile that ended up being all she could muster practically knocked the conscious out of her. the nurse saw her struggle to speak 'hello marian' professional smile. never show the patient any reaction other than forced mirth. 'dashawn will be in shortly to help me give you a bath today. won't that be nice?' marian blinked her eyes languidly in response. it was vaguely embarassing for her that one of the male nurses' assistants had to help give her a bath. she could barely blink and smile so she was unsure why she even needed a bath. but that question, like all the others, was trapped inside her. her frustration and embarassment overwhelmed her and marian slipped back into her mind, retreating. marian and her sisters, stella and mary, stood at the ledge of the choir loft so the rest of the congregation could see them. their father stood behind, half turned to them, half directing the choir. they sang a trio in latin written by some long dead russian orthodox church composer. the melodies sounded ancient. marian looked out in the congregation and saw many of the older ladies crying. the levchenko sisters were a congregation favorite. their heavenly voices inspired piety in the hearts of many. their father took them out to dinner that day after church. a rare occasion, he said their voices were particularly beautiful that day and that their service to God deserved a small reward. 100719 ... cr0wl "excuse me. I'll be right back," marian, stella, and mary watched their father leave the table and head for the restrooms. marian could feel stella's clammy flesh pushing up against her leg as the three of them crammed into one side of the vinyl booth. "did you see who was sitting in the third row with his older sister?" stella, said,elbowing marian. she turned abruptly like she had grabbed on to an electric fence. her strawberry blond hair, coarser than her pony's tail, whipped stella in the cheek. a waft of sweeter than it should be perfume hung in a cartoon cloud above them. "i saw him," marian said, thrusting her face into her hands with exasperation. "how am i ever going to get him to notice me?" "he noticed you," mary shot forth, turning her water glass upside down until the ice rolled out and clinked against her braces. "why do you think he came?" her words came forth gobbly but understandable. "but isn't he just here for the summer?" stella said, stretching. she sat up as the waitress brought a plate of crostini. mary grabbd one immediately. marian rested her face in her palms. she closed her eyes a minute and remembered the first day she met him. he was walking across the same railroad bridge she walked her german shepherd across. "nice dog," he told her and there was a sincerity in his smile like he really wanted her to know her dog was beautiful. she opened her eyes. "yeah," she said. "i heard he's going to go live with his god parents in montreal." stella and mary munched at the appetizer. marian adjusted her face to her right palm and a stiff elbow to the table. she felt another memory of the boy. the day he was at a party for a mutual friend. clink of spinning glass on a cement floor. the damp musty smell fading into a blur of silent warmth of lip upon lip. "hey save me one!" marian felt herself yanked back to reality. her dad had returned to the table. 100720 ... unhinged one of her daughters sat next to her, holding her hand, in one of the ugly and what must have been uncomfortable hospital chairs. 'oh look ma. it's one o'clock. judge judy is on channel three. let me change it for you.' marian's voice was still inoperable. she blinked slowly at tina. tina smiled. tina was always the strong one, the brave one. the oldest daughter of the seven of her children, tina became the second mother. marian hated that tina wasted away her afternoons sitting next to her in the hospital, but she tried her hardest to be alert when tina was there. even tina's eyes welled with tears when she thought her mother wasn't looking. her mother laid silent in the hospital bed like an overgrown doll, all the horrible machines and needles and plastic tubes protruding from her. she wanted more than anything to hear her mother's voice again. she sat back down and reached out for her mother's hand. her strong hand, spotted with marks from her failing liver, swollen to the point that the nurses had to take off her rings. tina looked up at the tv, but didn't see it. tina, david, joseph, and lizeta were running in the yard. lizeta was just a toddler. sarah, isaac, and abraham weren't even born yet. david, the oldest, was trying to organize some game, trying to dole out the roles he wanted his younger siblings to fill in the play in his head. tina's rebellious streak was already evident even as a small child. she didn't want to listen to david. she was tired of his bossiness. 'no. i don't want to be the monster. why do i always have to be the monster?' she wailed. 'because i said so.' david stomped his foot. 'no.' tina folded her arms across her body and flung her nose up in the air. 'i'm the oldest. you have to do what i say.' 'no i do not.' joseph started to cry and lizeta just toddled to a far corner of the yard chasing after a dragonfly. 'oh yes you do.' david ran up to her and pushed her over on top of joseph who was standing behind her tugging on her pants. joseph's head hit the ground hard and tina bit her down on her tongue. the next thing she could remember, her mother was holding her in her arms. 'hush hush teeny. hush. mama loves you.' her mother pushed her head into her soft chest and tina closed her eyes to the smell of onions and the fancy department store perfume their father bought their mother for christmas in the good times. 'hush. hush little darling don't say a word. mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird. and if that mocking bird don't sing mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring...' 100727 ... cr0wl marian watched her daughter staring zombie-like at the tv. her throat was dry but she felt compelled to study tina's intense, concentrated gaze, unable to deny her own stoic likeness at that age. she saw herself in the shoulder length brown hair the color of tree bark. in the way her flecked eyes were half closed even when she was alert. in the curve of her plump bottom lip. the way she turned her feet out, pressing against the sides of her soles. how she swallowed and held on to her left wrist with her right hand and slowly twisted her silver bracelet. she knew she would be the resilient one. loss would become the soil that understanding would grow from. marian knew tina wasn't watching the screen. she knew she was deep inside the spiraling maze of her private worlds just like where she used to go and still did, especially now that she realized she was dying. 100731 ... unhinged vladimir paced back and forth in the hallway. marian was being treated in the emergency room; he was too worried to stand still. he had witnessed her slow decline over the years. everything the doctors did seemed to be useless. but today her decline had taken a nosedive. all the years of her quiet but insistent complaints 'i don't feel right' came back to haunt him. as he paced the hallway, one of the seminal moments in their young life together as a couple came back to him. as a young man vladimir had a thing for the ladies. he often dated many at once, usually juggling them all in ignorance of each other. he met marian at the neighborhood corner store and the first moment he saw her he knew she was supposed to be the mother of his children. throughout their relationship, he remained entangled with other women. marian discovered some evidence of his infidelity early in their relationship but turned a blind eye to it. after they got engaged, however, was a different story. she was not answering his calls. he went to her house and rang the bell. stella answered the door. 'you should get out of here vlad. marian is not happy.' 'i have to see her. i won't leave until i see her.' 'alright. you are just lucky pa isn't home.' when marian came to the door, she radiated anger. she came out onto the front porch. 'how dare you?' she slapped him. 'how dare you come to my home after what you've done?' 'i didn't...she lie' marian cut him off. 'i know this wasn't the first time. don't lie to me on top of it.' she took her engagement ring off and threw it down the street. 'if you find it, why don't you give that ring to her?' vladimir scoured the street for the engagement ring. in the dark it was next to impossible to find. for the next two weeks, vladimir called the house everyday and asked stella if marian was still mad. when she had cooled down, he went back and reoffered her the ring. as he paced the hallway, all vladimir could see was the fire in marian's eyes as she threw his ring into the street. 100816 ... cr0wl tina slowly turned around, her sneakers squeaking against the hospital room's polished linoleum floor. her mother was asleep. a troubled, rasping noise swirled around her hospital bed like angry bees that had been disturbed and were looking for something, anything to attack. it was punctuated by random beeps of the lifesaving machinery and seemed to compete with the blurring white noise of a senseless tv commercial playing unwatched behind her. marian's song of survival was winning. there was a stale smell of shunned food that threatened to make her puke. she swallowed and tasted sorrow. she stepped over to the bed and leaned into the stiff edge of the tucked blankets. she was drawn to the sight of her mother's limp gray hair which she had stopped coloring when she first fell ill, the deeply etched lines on her forehead creased with worry, the rapid movement of her eyeballs rolling like marbles under wrinkled eyelids. suddenly a sense of overwhelming sadness enveloped her, beginning at the top of her head like a nearly imperceptible fall of rain. it moved down with fingers of fire and wrapped around her throat, squeezing, choking, until she couldn't breathe. she tried to reach out. she wanted to touch her mother's face, but she couldn't. it was as if there was a dangerous electricity. she felt the impetus building, coming to her from a buried, distant place where memories disguised themselves as watercolor paintings. tears leaked out, like dew pressed from the tip of a blade of grass and one gave into gravity and fell to marian's hand, laying on top of the sterile white sheet like a bird claw. she imagined it sizzling and watched as it slipped off her stretched skin, a raindrop awkwardly tracing down a window. 100822 ... unhinged memories_like_clouds_2 100908 what's it to you? who go blather from