Breath

She wanted her husband to shut his mouth. Not because he talked too much, in fact, he talked too little, like when she called his name and he did not respond so she waited in fat silence wondering if it was possible that he could not have heard her, even though she was right there, in the same room with him. But no, in this instance, she wanted her husband to shut his mouth because his head was about four inches from hers and the sound emanating from his oral cavity was somehow a combination of gnashes, smacks, and the occasional non-rhythmic mooing. This happened often, but on this particular Thursday evening, she had just finished reading the book, Breath, like everyone else in the world, and she was now in complete understanding of the downfalls of, what was aptly called, mouth breathing. Before bed, she had suggested her husband tape his mouth closed as recommended in the book. Yes, she imagined that there might be husbands out there that did this sort of thing. But after this suggestion, her husband had replied, Wouldn’t you like that? So, this was what she was thinking the night when she wished for something that would never happen.

The next morning, she did her daily calisthenics. As she scampered around the room, she noticed her mouth was agape. Horrified, she quickly snapped it shut, but it hung open again moments later. It became a sad game as she continued to clamp her mouth closed and then feel it sag open over and over again. Strangely, this led her to remember her mother near the end of her life saying, All those years going to the YMCA every day to fling those stupid weights around, and now look at me, dying. Her mother had been sunken into the living room couch, looking just like her friend’s son when he was first born, a tiny featherless chicken, so scrawny, as if you could just snap his little wing from his thigh. And her friend had cried about his delicate chicken legs and said, You see, I’ve already failed him as a mother! She had cooed to her friend, No, Honey, No.

She had been reading a lot of women writers lately and she was alternately wistful and envious of their words, so tight, like little gems on the page. She had been thinking about writing something. But who was she, she wondered, to try to write a gem? She was just a middle-aged woman with vaginal dryness. Well no, she did not have vaginal dryness, but she was a sucker, and willing to sell her soul for a few potential gems. In fact, she had the opposite of vaginal dryness, she peed in her pants. One of her friends had gotten her toe zapped for a pee-in-the-pants cure. They sent electromagnetic currents into her toe, which kept her from having to pee every 30 minutes. But the cure was only temporary, and she had to go back to get re-zapped every now and again. This was modern medicine for middle aged women: regularly scheduled toe zapping. No, she was just a nobody with her jaw hanging open, a damn mouth breather, a bottom feeder, using the detritus of her life to, what? Write? She thought maybe she should tape her own mouth shut. Supposedly, according to the book, it helped you live longer.