Hot Pot Magazine

By Aisling Ní Choibheanaigh Nic Eoin

A north wind blows, and April moves in to dry out the land.

At night you dream of planetary realignments that alter the makeup of the world, of the
atmosphere. A world where you can be what you most want to be. And what is that, your
only friend asks you. What is it you want to be? You think about this yourself for a long time,
unable to come up with an answer. Only friend says that she wants to be rich, have
uncountable money in offshore accounts, dodge taxes so she can spend what should go to the
state on an eyebrow lift. You don’t understand what it’s like to be born with your dad’s
forehead, she says, poking herself in the mirror. This is true, you don’t understand. You look
at yourself, wondering what it is that you would change if you could dodge tax, or if you
could have enough money for that to be of concern. Your nose is the real problem area, she
says, noticing your studies and touching the bump in the cartilage. You nod, but think that
more than anything else you would like to be shrunk down to some nanoscopic size, and to 
move around in that body instead. Worm living, bug living, the living of some tiny, shallow-
breathed thing.

Only friend swims in the university pool before classes every day, arriving with wet hair. It’s
good for your constitution, she says, we’re biologically designed to be both in and out of the
water, you know. You did not know this, but you accept it from her as you accept everything
she says; as a transient shadow upon a much larger landscape of truth. That’s why some
people have high webs between their fingers, she continues. It's an evolutionary legacy. You
nod, and her smile warms from your core out your extremities, out to the typical-height webs
of your hands. You watch her eat broken pieces of biscuits from out of her bag, and wonder
about a world where she gets rid of her father’s forehead, or where you are small enough that
nobody else can see you. Wonder about the speed of this new, scaled-down heart. Feel it
thumping away.

You listen to this heart, the mouth of some man against your carotid artery, wonder how
much faster it would beat if you were the size of an insect. Turning your head to the side, you
shrink yourself down and crawl around on the ground, into the pocket of his dirty shirt. You
sit behind pieces of lint and an empty filter packet. The sky in your dreams this night is
upside down, like you are viewing it from the southern hemisphere. Its patterns are inverted,
its colours blend upwards, rather than down.

When you tell only friend about this experience the next day, she touches your arm and a
little humour warms her eyes, her cheeks. A flush of pink across her whole person, you even
hear it in her voice as she says it’s normal to think about other things sometimes. You nod,
and look to the sky as it begins to white-out the rest of the world, a strange reflection of light.
The days go by like this, the sky hanging over the buildings of the city. You listen to that
drumming, the rhythm of buildings and roads and people, all breathing together. The nausea
of a collective living. You catch a cold from a man in a beer garden, and spend a week in bed.

By May, whatever day of the month it is, you are recovered. You see the world in tiny dots, a
pointillist landscape of blues and greens and the tones of a warming sun. Waves move
through this vision as the weather changes, colouring the dots in different shades. The month
is wet. You lie on only friend’s bed, all her smells moving around the room, moving through
your clothes. The two of you meet back here on those mornings after nights out, those nights
that bring you both to different houses, different beds. You lie beside each other, recounting
stories and breathing in the weather from the open window. She tells you about the men she
is seeing, all their various deficiencies. Their rough faces, rough bodies, their rough manners.
You tell her about how you shrink yourself down somehow, experience this roughness from a
different place. The curtains move a little in the wind, the rain coming down harder and
harder with each moment that passes.

Summer eventually warms itself up against the concrete streets, the buildings. Your hair
lightens a little, and you suffer occasional sunburns. Only friend rubs aloe vera gel into your
shoulders as you complain about the heat. You whinged about the cold all winter long, she
says. If you’d only wear suncream then we wouldn’t be having this problem. You nod, and
continue to seethe quietly about global warming, and all its various consequences. That night
you go on another date, pink from the neck down, and wearing a strappy dress.

In his apartment, you are nanoscopic again, listening to the happenings of that night from
another space. You are brought back to your body the next morning when he traces the lines
of your sunburn across your back. You could do with wearing a bit of suncream, he says, and
you climb out of the bed, dressing quickly. I know, you respond, pulling the dress up your
body. The walk back to only friend’s flat is quiet, the air stirring only with the early Sunday
sounds of people sleeping, rolling into each other’s arms. Of people sitting in their kitchens,
with bedroom doors half open. You swing your handbag back and forth as you walk through
the streets. Shops are beginning to open, grocers restocking fruit and vegetables. You are
warmed by the sun, its heat reflecting up off the footpath, touching the high points of your
cheeks.

When you arrive at the flat, she is lying on her bed, curtains shifting gently in the breeze.
Their pale bodies, made of a gauze-like fabric, shimmer a little as your eyes adjust to the
room. Beside her, then, you feel the long days stretch out ahead of you both. Endless hours. I
did it again last night, you say. I felt that thing again.

She touches her forehead against yours, and you think about the beauty of it, of this forehead.
This strange link between her and her father, between her and her family. And here it is,
pressed against your own, softly. That’s okay, she says. The day is buzzing gently in the
street outside, everything is slow.

Aisling is an Irish bilingual writer. She studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin, before completing a Master’s degree in The University of St Andrews, and she now co-edits a multilingual literary journal called Aimsir.