Bronson Gao

July 30 20XX

Deadra’s Aunt’s House

AUNT BETTY II

Desensitization is nutrition, I guess. I got a call from Deadra’s aunt on Monday. I never knew they lived together. Whenever I dropped her off, what few times those were, she never specified who she was with. And I never went in the house, I guess it makes sense from what she told me.

“You knew Deadra, didn’t you?” Betty asked me.

“Yeah, we were friends,” I said, not sure if that word is accurate.

“Oh, I thought so!” She sounded very cheerful, warm and deep on the other line, a pleasant variety of those feelings.

“Um, I’m calling because Deadra left a note for you,” Betty says.

“She did?”

“Yes, she did, and I’d like you to read it in-person if you can.” It’s a soft command, one I find the nerve to follow.

“What would be a good time for me to come over?” I asked her. And that would be today, at this time. So I’m here, sitting with Betty in a set of chairs from the ‘80s, in a house from the ‘60s, in a world where things get older, and everything new is never progress, just a cheaper replacement.

“I first got to know her in my English class,” I tell Betty, about Deadra, figuring out the right tone of voice for my delivery. “She was a really good writer, I remember.”

“Oh yes, she certainly was,” Betty says. Her body language is subtly dramatized, made of circular, buoyant motions. She was a very beautiful woman, I could tell, voice like a tasteful wedding band three decades out of style. She gave off an enriching, syrupy energy, but only great in small doses.

Anyways, I can’t tell if her comment was flattery or not, but then she goes, “Oh! And here it is,” handing me an envelope with my name on it. “Would you like some privacy, while you read it?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind,” I say, flipping it over. If she isn’t going to be present as I do this, I have to wonder what the whole purpose of my visit was. But either way, she rises and leaves into her bedroom. I open the card.

“This place is the smell of slow death. Never before have I been this: ‘I disgust; I need to think deeply; I’m going for a long walk,’” the first paragraph goes.

The second starts: “But that’s what you’d expect me to say, isn’t it, Bronson? Looking through the reason I’m doing this I am using my hourglass. I flip it upside down and I see your face through the grains, you.” And it goes.

“Yeah, feeling okay today, despite the minimal details of my situation; I haven’t eaten yesterday. If nothing else it made me feel understood, I think to myself.

“I am the abyss and you are my edge, hun. Water erodes the coast and drips the remains into me. Dive into me, you, who stands motionless all the time. Can I not tear you down, I think to myself. Graze my cold hair.

“I could praise and discuss you for the rest of my life, Gao, which is probably only a couple hours. Your life has had the most inspiring soundtrack of any game I’ve ever played. It is one of the truest revelations I have ever seen, that has ever touched my face. Give me your level of interactivity, baby.

“You know, I never wanted to be like my older sister, but now I’m starting to remind myself of her,” she writes. I never realized she had a sister. “And oh, here’s her phone number and address in case you’re curious.” And there they were.

“I’m not really afraid of anything anymore. It’s gonna happen to me eventually anyways, boy. But this is for you.

“Love, Deadra Acosta.” The thing in the envelope my eyes tried to avoid the whole time was a polaroid. She took all her clothes off and stood.

She painted herself with the abjection from all the openings, soft red skin poised in a death game. Few incisions flaked at the edges, frayed like old clothes. Most molten like dog shit in the sun, sanguine stuck like semen.