Every night the roof of the small cabin we live inside is blown away and replaced with packages from Amazon.com. The packages have everything we need to construct a new roof and I do that every morning in the hours before the rain starts. I’m thankful my husband orders these packages or I don’t know what I would do. I don’t have the patience to order them myself.
“Hey, thanks for getting the roof kit again today. It really helps me out a lot.”
My husband is looking at LA Apparel on his phone, a site he’s told me to get familiar with more than once so I can wear a skirt and knee socks the right way. LA Apparel isn’t American Apparel, unless it is, I can never keep it straight. Anyway, this image is a woman who looks a lot like me but with enormous breasts wearing only pink elbow length gloves, something he knows I cannot do because of The Work, the gloves would mold the first day and I have coveralls that have to be worn in the greenhouses.
I’m definitely a medium glove, maybe even a large, but that’s beside the point.
The roof begins to rot, a fact I do not point out and my husband does not point out.
The road has moved again but the packages still come each day. If lava should come closer the house is built in such a way that we can carry it to higher ground. The cinder is very good for the orchids and is keeping both me and my husband looking pretty young indeed. There’s a sound in the roof I’m sure is a rat. I will have to go up there. I can see straight through the ceiling. If he comes down it is him or me, and I hate that but it’s true. Go outside, I tell the rat. And wait. He knows once I’ve said it there’s no choice but to comply, there’s nothing here I don’t control with enough time. There are a series of large sculptures my husband made at Berkeley on the porch. I pick up the largest one and let it fall on the rat. That’s that. Back inside I can hear the same clawing, scraping. I reach up into the rafters but there’s nothing there but a blue vase with a basket of flowers on the front. I recognize this vase, but I can’t say how and for the first time in a while I feel the terror of the supernatural fall all around me. No, I haven’t seen this vase before, I’m known to have poor memory for objects without utility.
Someone is coming to visit tomorrow from the school of Arts and Crafts. We have a lot of visitors, even though I would rather not, and with a single shot Will kill anyone who interrupts my peace, but the work is interesting to a lot of people, and I can’t fully deprive them of it. Besides, my husband likes the company. Maybe whoever they send will know how I can get back to where I came from, alone or with my husband. I can’t outright ask, but just seeing a new face might spark some recognition for me. I have to believe that’s possible. She might know something. She might have some news. She might remember the moons. I believe most of our visitors to be spies, but I’ll have to greet them all the same.
My husband asks me what could make me feel better here, but there’s no actual comfort here. There’s words, promises but no real peace. What did I come here for unless to penetrate the secret heart of the place. But not once have I met anyone by chance though I walk the road most of the night, somehow I haven’t lost interest or hope.
The new roof kit is here but my husband refuses to even open it. The QR code scans as a counterfeit though it’s identical to the ones they always send, my husband says it’s a fake and must go back. The QR code links to a cam site. I’ve heard 500 kinds of rain in this cabin alone.
R. Khosrowshahi’s work has appeared in Expat Press, Apocalypse Confidential, and Michigan City Review of Books. She serves as an editor at Apocalypse Confidential.