Origami

Origami

Clanging blinds halt the sun.  
A confetti
of posted notes slats Cherry’s desk. Flowerets of tears bleed the ink of letters: Lawyer, Tomorrow.  

Cherry reads the first page of her diary.  Nothing registers; embers burn in her eyes.  She slams her hand in her face to wipe tears.  She can read now. Oh yes, the day she stammered to Boniface, “My treat at the Dairy Queen?”  A Cheshire cat grin set
among
the whorls in his Afro.

She rips the page then flips open her laptop, 'how to fold a raptor.’  
Crease, fold, crimp, admire.  
She nods.  Cherry shucks the plane on its first flight to the general area of the bookcase.  It sinks not far from her feet.  

She riffles through more pages of her diary.  Elephant footprints define her scribbles, her history. She pauses on the day when Boniface cropped his
afro
in
acknowlegdement
of the Man.
First corporate job, pharmaceutical salesman.
 He was still clean looking even after an impromptu love session on the revival rococo recliner. She rips the page.  

Eight-point star
 

But that needed eight pages, preferably each of a different color.  No problem.
 
A page of mom-asked-me-when-I am-getting-married-again.
Another on piggybacking Boniface to Bolivia only because she really wanted to taste coca leaf tea.
 
The
yuckiness
of yak milk.
 Cherry pauses, feels her fingers on the page like a blind reading braille.   Mother died, whispered about non-existent grandchildren or marriage.  She rips the page.  Boniface refused to move in with her.  Why, why, why? Lisa’s wedding was a magnificent display of snobbery.
Babies, mushrooms of liquid pearls.

Twisting around from her chair, she flings the six-month weighty star. It lands farther than the raptor.  

She exhales, bubbling her lips. Her black braids brush away from her mouth.  The words ‘Sean Mallory’ seep into view on the ochre-paged diary.  He, seated at Boniface's table, looked crisp in his sport jacket.  Box wine, chicken wings, Camembert with
Wonderbread
.  She had appeared uninvited, bearing coq au vin and a Bordeaux wine.  Boniface
loured
till the last drop.

Frog

Black speckled frogs hump the raptor.  She plops her head on the headrest of her chair.  In a picture on the overhead shelf, Boniface is yelling, raising a fresh catch of tuna high above his head. The sound of blinds fighting in the wind finally annoys her.  She darts to the window, ignores the mailman sorting letters and slams the window shut.

I should have known.

She crawls back to her seat.  A bunch of paper cranes later, Boniface proposed. “Finally ready for babies, Cherry,” he said.  His stubble itched her cheek. It was fine; his hand spanned her bum.  Lisa vetoed the bridesmaid designs three times. Cherry’s wedding rained champagne, tears, and jasmine blossoms.   Sean Mallory in a tux congratulated her with tight lips and cold fingers.  “He is a good man, you're a lucky woman,” he said.  

The Japanese make paper butterflies for weddings.  

She folds a butterfly, biting her lips through long stares at the computer screen.  Cursive loads the butterfly wings.  It refuses to fly; it prefers the company of frogs cradling her feet.  

Four miscarriages are the angular arms of a shuriken.  She raises her eyes to the wall clock; its chrome casing seems to slough like melting plastic.  It's stuffy.  She caresses her laptop shut and leaves the room.  

Her feet slide on the hardwood floor.   Like playing blocks, cardboard boxes litter the corridor. She turns into the kitchen and gasps at Boniface’s head buried in the fridge.  The fridge light betrays rice flecks on his moustache.  Cherry smiles.

“I’ll fix you something to eat,” Cherry says, opening a pantry door.  Pasta seems a good choice.

“Thanks but no need, I have dinner plans.”  

Cherry grips the particleboard gates as her gaze blurs on a row of sardines.  It's hot.

“I am sorry,” Boniface says.  His stubby fingers soften her stony hands.  

She leaves the pantry door ajar and scurries back to her room. Cherry kicks away frogs and cranes; she crashes in her seat.  Her diary is still open, and she flips pages of arguments over children.

“We can’t spend so much just for an in-vitro. Our bond is just enough for me,” Boniface had said to Cherry.  Sean came intruding on the spat after a five-year absence. Deep-sea fishing, obtuse jokes, mercury-laden tuna nurtured quiet moments of pining for bundles of joy.

Cubes of arguments, cubes of longing fortify her desk. Her flowing script breaks into blocky rows.  Graceful
f’s
are stunted u’s.  Cherry hugs her stomach; her cheek
smooths
a cold page. She jerks upright, rips the page, crumples it, and stuffs it in her mouth.  Chewing releases a surge of bitterness. She gulps the papery burr.

Sean yawned. “Sorry, Cherry. Boniface is here... we lost track of time.” Boniface took over the phone only to add that he would be home in another hour even though it was 11 pm.    

Pansies: Lisa had a daughter; persimmons: Lisa is divorced; poppies: “All men cheat.  Boniface is a man...” Lisa said in a delightful drone.  Cherry sweeps her lap. Ten years snow onto the floor.

An argument over adopting children, and Boniface stormed out of the house.  Three days passed then Boniface stumbled to the front yard with Sean, their hairy hands in a lover’s bind.

Cherry tears the rest of the pages to make sailboats, leaving behind a serrated stump of a diary. Her eyes glide over her children. Heartache is a sailboat, languor is a crane, despair is a frog, and closure?

She gathers the origami in a box; fifteen years are weightless in her arms.  Closure is her bouquet.  A smile lifts her face as she stacks the bouquet over another moving box marked 'books'.

Thank You for Reading.

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