The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

  Around a month ago, I lost my left eye in a snowboarding accident. Well, most of it. Eighty percent, according to the doctors. Without telling you the entire story, let’s just say that I tried to get fancy on a big jump. Anyways, I get rushed off the slopes and to the hospital and without anybody needing to tell me, I start getting the sense that any vision I had in that eye is basically done for. As I was lying in the emergency room, I had tried covering my right eye while keeping the left one open in order to find out the extent of the damage. And it was bad. Muted shapes, blurred colors, impossible to decipher anything. And getting worse by the minute. By the time that they broke the news to me, I had already steeled myself for the outcome, almost feeling numb as the doctors rattled off what I guess was the standard procedure for these things. A bunch of medical lingo as well as my options moving forward. They ended up havin...

    So I decided to go. I realized that the more time I spent thinking about it, the closer I'd get to talking myself out of it. And that couldn’t happen. Somehow this felt important. Important that I figure it out. I drove over to the neighborhood and parked on the street opposite the house, in the exact same spot I had as last time. It didn’t take long for the unease to set in, and I tried not to look over at it, even though the burnt wood was always there, creeping into the corner of my vision. Thankfully the street wasn’t as empty as last time. There were a few cars parked in some driveways and even a couple of kids kicking a ball around on one of the lawns. It took a while for me to settle my nerves, to make a firm commitment to stay there and wait. I'd gotten there an hour early. I suppose it was a way of giving myself an out, a chance to bail at the very last moment. A few minutes later, I got a call from my sister, asking if I’d be...

  It was three in the morning. I stumbled into my apartment, wasted, starving, carrying a bag of greasy takeout boxes filled with ginger beef, BBQ pork fried rice. I wolfed it down and then passed out. Typical Saturday night. Wake up the next morning with little memory of the night before and the kitchen’s a mess, dirty plates in the sink, grains of rice scattered across the counter. Feel nauseous and head to the washroom and puke out everything in my stomach. Typical Sunday morning. Start cleaning up and notice a half-eaten fortune cookie sitting on the table with that thin strip of paper right beside it. I walk over, eat the other half of the cookie, and prepare to throw the paper out. But before I do that, I decide to give it a read. For shits and giggles, you know? “The people in the basement remember you.” I almost laughed at first, because it seemed like something that I would do. Some cheeky young hire at the fortune cookie compan...

    Used to be when I’d shut my eyes real tight - squeeze ‘em closed hard as I could - til it hurt, til I’d start to see colors behind the black and feel my cheeks scrunch up tight, somethin’ would happen. I remember exactly when the first time was. Remember bein’ there, a little girl, barely seven or eight at most. Standin’ outside the bathroom door and waitin’ for mama. Mama’d always tell me she couldn’t take her eyes off me more than a second. Didn’t trust me not to fall and crack my head or wreck up the place. So when she’d go in the bathroom with her special bottle and tell me “You stand outside this door and wait, and don’t you make a damn sound. If I hear those feet pattering away down the hall, girl…” She never needed to finish. Even at that young age, I knew. Knew the kinda person mama was. She’d only act this way when daddy wasn’t around, which was most times, sadly. Daddy drove a big rig, one of the best truckers around way I always heard it. A g...

  The apartment was bugged. I didn’t know it when I moved in. Otherwise, I would’ve run screaming from the place the very first day. I was desperate - my relationship and the lease on the apartment I’d shared with my long time boyfriend Adam had both run out around the same time. In the midst of debating whether to search for a new place or re-up on the old one, things between us had reached their long-awaited breaking point. In a snap, we were finished. A bell that you can’t un-ring. If we were both being honest with ourselves, it hadn’t been good for a while. Maybe years, even. I’ve never been good at that though. Being honest with myself. We held on for as long as we did because that’s easy and it’s safe. Even when the moment came, I still didn’t want it. Wasn’t ready. Adam made his choice though. Anyway. The apartment. Adam left and like I said, I was desperate. I couldn’t stay in the unit that he and I had shared - not only would the bad memories be n...

  I figured it’d just be good for a laugh. That’s all. No deeper thought behind it, no grand plan or expectation of genuine results. I was just trying to fuck with Caden. I’ve known the guy since I was ten, maybe eleven. That was when he transferred to my middle school, and I don’t exaggerate when I say we’ve spent the majority of the ensuing years busting each other’s balls. You know how it is. You know somebody your entire life, get to know them so well and reach a point where you’re so close that sometimes the only emotion you can really feel toward them is annoyance . We had that from pretty much the moment he strolled up to my cafeteria table and laughed at my “faggy” Toy Story lunch box while simultaneously asking for a seat. I fired back at his dumbshit haircut and told him to pull up a chair. He was a stranger in a strange land and right away it was clear that our senses of humor meshed. He’s my best friend. Well, he was anyway. See, as we got olde...