Saltered States
by Bruce Salter
EN ROUTE TO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—4/26/10—The air was heavy in the bedroom tonight. In fact, the whole house seemed like one great congested lung and she the lone molecule of fresh air, fighting for her life.
Annie turned down her bed and carefully smoothed the white pillowcase, freeing it of the infernal creases that loved to plague her dreams. Moving slowly toward the bathroom, she paused, her ear aimed at the ceiling and her face screwed as tight as it could be, listening for imaginary sounds grown all too familiar. Deciding, after 15 minutes, that nothing was amiss, she continued into the bathroom, where she removed her surgical gloves (they had been on a full three hours, which was far too long), replaced them with a fresh pair and proceeded to ready herself for another long night of fitful sleep.
Everybody called her “The Nun,” but she had certainly never joined any order or taken any vows and didn’t consider herself especially religious. It seemed a fitting title, though, because she did lead a sheltered solitary life in the modest house her late parents had left her. In some ways, she looked much older than her 38 years. Her hair had begun to turn white very early in life and there were more lines on her face than one would expect at such an age. In other ways, however, she was almost childlike. She often displayed a naiveté that bordered on ignorance and an immaturity about worldly matters that belied what most considered a quick, if somewhat insular, intelligence.
Of her many compulsions, perhaps the most eccentric was her abiding fear of being touched. No one had touched her since her parents had left her 16 years earlier—and nobody ever would, if she had any choice in the matter.
After brushing her hair the mandatory 380 strokes (ten for every year of her life) and carefully cleaning the brush of every silver strand that had freed itself from her scalp, Annie slid between the warm sheets and stared blankly at the spackled ceiling, trying to decipher patterns in that intricate topography, until she finally fell asleep.
One particularly hot and oppressive summer day, Annie ventured out on one of her rare forays into town. The hardware store was having a special sale on rubber boots and she thought it a good opportunity to stock up. It was about a 20-minute walk each way, but she had her umbrella to protect her delicate pale skin and she knew that if she could just avoid eye contact with anyone she would be fine. So, locking the door securely behind her and focusing her gaze at the ground four feet head of her frayed Converse sneakers, Annie set off down the road.
As she walked, she thought about the heat and how she would have to change her gloves soon and how stupid she was not to have brought an extra pair along and how she hoped the hardware store hadn’t sold out the last boots in her size—when she came upon the children. They were dropping empty soda bottles from the trestle bridge up ahead, watching them explode on the rocks far below. Annie sped up, hoping they would be too preoccupied to notice her as she passed. But they did notice. They stopped dropping their bombs, turned in eerie unison, and stared silently at her. She too had stopped without realizing it and was staring back at them. The dreaded eye contact had locked them together and Annie suddenly felt as though she were being sucked right out of her body. A nervous panic seized her, a panic she knew only too well. Taking a deep breath, she snapped her head away, breaking the spell, and resumed her now unsteady walk.
But scarcely had she gone three steps when a scream tore through the air. Turning back, she saw the children running from a portion of the wooden railing that had broken away. Another scream rose from beyond the railing and, forgetting herself in the excitement, she ran to the edge and looked over. A young girl, no more than five or six, was clinging desperately to a protruding beam about eight feet below. It was obvious the child couldn’t hang on for long, but she was down too far to reach by hand. Thinking quickly, Annie stepped over the top lip of the bridge to a supporting girder a little below, held on tight with her left hand, and extended the umbrella handle down to the hysterical child.
By now, the townspeople, alerted by the frantic children, were running up the road screaming and crying. Several tried to help but Annie simply said, “Don’t touch me!” in a tone so strange and threatening that no one dared interfere.
The child finally grasped the umbrella handle and Annie, who had remained quite stoic through the entire episode, was able to draw her up until she was within reach of the others, who pulled her to safety.
Refusing help, Annie climbed back over the broken rail and proceeded to calmly dust herself off. The people, overjoyed by the heroics of this fragile looking woman, were unsure how to react. An awkward silence descended and it was broken only by the excited shouts of a man running wildly towards them from the town. He was the little girl’s father and, when he saw that his baby was indeed all right, he fell sobbing at his daughter’s feet. Then, collecting himself, he stood up, looked at Annie and, before anyone could even speak, took her in his arms and kissed her passionately on the lips.
Annie gasped and spun from the man’s arms, indignant at his unthinking violation. The crowd stepped back, forming a semicircle around her as she wiped nervously at her flushed lips and began to pant in the stifling heat. What would “The Nun” do now, they wondered.
A great black crow, perched upon the highest branch of an overhanging oak, cawed twice as Annie swallowed a moan, lurched back, staggered slightly and then began to crack. They were tiny cracks at first, spreading from the corners of her mouth, across her face and down her trembling body. As the cracks deepened, flakes of her alabaster skin, thinner than egg shell, dropped to the ground or blew away in a rising breeze.
The townspeople watched aghast as the strange woman nobody really knew simply crumbled to dust before their eyes. As the wind carried away the last gray specks of Annie, the poor father, horrified at what he had done, turned to his neighbors and, with his arms outstretched, let out a heart-wrenching howl of despair. The crowd, shaken by what they had just witnessed, stepped back, regarding the unfortunate man with fearful suspicion. “Mina,” he cried, kneeling before his terrified daughter and extending a trembling hand to hers. “You don’t fear me, do you, My Sweet?”
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” she screamed, ducking behind the others. “DON’T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!”
And he never did.
In fact, although he lived many years he never dared touch anyone again.
