by Kiana Govoni

 

To grow my father a new leg I shall call on the dead masters. I am not psychic, but my voice can try travel. If men can conquer galaxies and become Martian, then I know it. One malfunctioning human leg, Bradbury. You can fix it. Own that. And if men can turn gods and make god androids, then I sure know it. Reform his leg back to the original, Asimov. Just don’t make it sentient.

The first time I help change my father I think of the children I do not have. Rinse away urine, spirit away fecal matter, lather the skin with the coolest lotion, newborn, scentless. Don’t let that skin sap. Then dress him, then smile with the voice between my upturned lips, the composure of my syllables under my mastery. But the clanking of my heart, the crackling of my skin—this ritual of caretaking. Will I feel this with my children too?

Old men do not listen. Bradbury and Asimov ignore me. My favorite man of the nineteenth century—Wells, I evoke the name of you! Come to me and deliver the healing remedy. Kill the deadening of my father’s numb leg, the ooze of those black, broiled wounds. Bless him back to flourishing, please. He will thank you forever. I will repay you somehow.

Yet Wells too… He does not reply. I anger at dead men severely, my father at those of the living. In protest he hoards the life of his words and rejects the world of the fiction he once revered. He’s been robbed again.

Rehab days and healthcare coverage stolen. Legs will not always heal on a schedule. Not ready to come home, but now home again. Unable to walk, but why? The doctors don’t know those why’s or give enough appointment time that matters.

They don’t understand old or black bodies. My father is not black. I am. I fully understand his frustrations.

My white blood cell count is abnormally low. Supposedly. Primary care and hematologist say I’m in danger. Do not travel. I might catch the death. Urologist and dermatologist, both people of color, say I’m normal for a black woman. New primary care agrees, says the bone marrow biopsy the old doctors made me endure was unnecessary. Then she tests my blood and reverses. We might want to keep an eye on this.

I don’t share sorrows with my father during his enduring battle. I tell him memories he now believes are bedtime stories, how just months ago he could walk into the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee. How not long ago he could stand before the mega tree in our front yard and let himself wonder. He was there at the planting of that tree. He can step into those footprints again.

Revival is not myth. I bandage and exercise dead weight and dying wounds just how the traveling nurse teaches me once her time with us is up and gone. Purify it. Manipulate it. Try to teach it movement for a new first time. I do it all. My father cries, my leg, my leg, and I suddenly remember something during these torments.

He is no longer a science fiction carnivore, as he’s found a home in the mystery sector. My father’s held hostage by choice by those writers. Or he had been before his decline. Maybe those writers could expose the culprit of this attack of disease, decode the mystery. Christie? Doyle? Anything? But no, they can’t go fixing human bodies like that, not when they start to die.

Again I travel through sound and space. Other dead masters, can you hear me? Matheson? Poe? Hello! Shelley, do your thing! Frankenstein my father except for his heart and his brain. Tolkien, you too can have a crack at him. Put him on the quest. You can stunt his height but let him keep his legs.

Echoes, finally I hear echoes. Listen! There’s a fault in the— and to fix—his leg must—

But no, I can’t catch the particulars! All the dead masters, all of you, I evoke you! You can fix this! Borrow my father then return him as new. Make him legend, make him wonder. You can even make him a lovely tree—a cyborg tree if you must. Just don’t keep him stuck at the root.

Daytime, the echoes, and at night, just outside of touch.

 

Kiana Govoni is a black writer who holds an MFA in fiction. She is a two-time Best of the Net nominee, and her work has been featured in Witness, Harpur Palate, The Good Life Review, Tahoma Literary Review, JMWW, and elsewhere.