Chartreuse by Kyra Kyle
TW* self-harm, suicide
1
A shadow rushed behind Lindsay as she strolled from the hospital’s parking garage, but the shadow was more than the wind could carry. A woman had fallen from the sky. Her body clacked on the sidewalk. Her bones, a lost game of pick-up sticks, rested on the concrete.
Lindsay glanced at the parking structure’s top floor. No one was there. She examined the woman. The woman wore a red cardigan around her waist and Supergirl medical scrubs. She stared up at her with leaden eyes.
Her breath popped and gurgled. Lindsay ran to her, called 9-11, and performed CPR. She remembered her nurse training: think of the Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’ as you pound on her chest. She pushed the thought of what would have happened if the woman had jumped a second sooner. She didn’t know why the woman had jumped or if she had jumped. She scanned the parking structure again for a suspect.
“Help!” She remembered that she was outside a hospital. “Somebody, help.”
No one came. Ha—ha—ha—ha—stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. The woman’s breathing was labored, so Lindsay sucked in the air and filled up the woman’s lungs. It was late, well after visiting hours, so the parking lot stretched wider than the woman’s arms, dead.
No. She wasn’t dead, not yet. The woman had on a Supermom lanyard. She couldn’t be much older than thirty. Had she taken her life? If so, why?
Ha—ha—ha—ha—Lindsay felt her pulse. It slowed. “Help!”
But no one came until after the young mother’s eyes turned to mirrors.
2
I had lost myself. I felt discomfort living underneath my skin, so I cut myself to find new skin. If I dug deep enough, I could become something other than a Supermom to Charles and Sally. I could become something more than a nurse working the night shift. I could become more than what people saw on the surface.
I was neither a woman nor a man. I didn’t have the words, so I borrowed one from Shel Silverstein, Yipiyuk, and whispered it onto the night breeze.
I shivered. Living as someone whom others saw through their eyes instead of the person I knew myself to be had conjured a Yipiyuk on my back. It dug its talons into my flesh, and I tried my best to cut it loose. I kept the Yipiyuk to myself. My family needed me to be Supermom. Charles and Sally had tried their best to make me smile with a ‘Hug ‘o War,’ but those silly things no longer worked. I had searched for myself but found nothing.
My foot slipped on the ledge, and I hesitated to grab the rail. I had waited long enough that my body had taken to the air. If I was Supermom, I could fly. If I wasn’t, I could stop playing the part. I smiled as a gust of wind blew. When I meet my kids again, I could tell them that for one moment, I had fallen up.
3
Annabelle couldn’t sleep. Her mommy had told her to keep the shade of her bedroom window open but the streetlamp across the road painted her room too bright.
She sat up in bed. Her feet dangled over the side of her mattress, but they couldn’t reach the carpet. She wasn’t so sure about a big girl bed. New room, new bed, how could she possibly get to sleep? So, she hopped down, making sure her sleeping mommy couldn’t hear her by putting on her Batgirl slippers and shuffled to the window. Her Batties sparked each step.
Her eyes cleared the sill, but her mouth didn’t. She breathed in dust and cold metal as she stared beyond the light. Above the streetlamp was a lady dressed like a superhero. She stood tall and proud. The super lady was about to fly.
The city needed her, and she obeyed its call. The super lady took a step into the night, smiled, and fell. She’ll wait until the last moment before zooming upward, but Annabelle missed it. A row of bushes and a mountain of cars blocked her view. Her eyes darted across the skyline, trying to locate the super lady, and right as she was losing hope of ever finding her, Annabelle heard someone scream for help.
Annabelle grinned. The super lady would swoop in and save the day.
“I've submitted ‘Chartreuse’ several times. It's the one work that's been rejected the most, but it's also the first triplet I finished. Triplets (I named them after musical triplets) are a fiction form where a story is told from three different perspectives or ways. So, they could also be considered literary triptychs.”
Kyle Kyra (They/Them) does their best to write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They live in a sleepy Nebraska town. Corn outside their backdoor. They contribute to a video game review site, The Pixels, and their literary work has appeared in several journals and anthologies. Twitter @KyraKyleWrites