Jane-Rebecca Cannarella

Strange Illness

We shared the earbuds, heads tilted into one another; a two-headed monster the triangle shape of a heart. Cords connected, swishing channels of blood in the seashell of our ears hummed heartbeats into one another through the shared vein of the headphones. The evening cooled the flat roof that overlooked the Wawa. We sat in the breeze and the air dried the sweat from the late August day. The cream of hair on your neck was damp and you rested your head on my shoulder; I wasn't even bothered by the water splotch on my yellow shirt. The glow of red from Wawa reflected in the gloss of your eyes as we listened to a song I now don't remember. We should nest on the roof like pigeons you said. Hushed 22-year-old romances, tucked under eaves removed from rent we could barely afford; I rested my head against yours.

***

Beautiful and false like vanilla extract; time was slower then, and six months echoed like six years. Rejection and anger hollowed my body; my sister once told me anger is more empowering than sorrow. Grief was too embarrassing for a half year; I flirted with numbness before pulling apart the wings of anger. On a February evening, alone on the flat roof, the red from Wawa was an aggrieved flame. Bundled in an oversized pink coat found discarded on 46th street, my hands sweat as I dialed the number from a classified ad in the back of the Metro in my grey brick of a cellphone. A black and white pixelated advert for a spellcaster with long wild hair, she knew no bounds and would solve even the most desperate situations. The odds of reunification were not in my favor, and outrage can make even the most rational person resort to witchcraft. 

 Mellona answered with a syrup voice and promised lasting solutions to worldly problems and that she would redress the negative effects of a heavy heart.

You are plagued with a strange illness, she said in her thick rich voice, but assured me that she was skilled in all occult matters. For 200 dollars she would cast a powerful spell that would cure me; an additional 75 would guarantee my ex longing for me back.

 I read the numbers to the Mastercard to her. The payment did not go through. I repeated the number, along with a silent prayer to overdraft gods to allow the transaction. Payment declined. Do you have a different card? I did not. Please try again when you have the available funds.

The bleat of the dial tone: lyrics to a song about solitude.

I perched on the flat roof of the apartment building that I couldn't afford to live in alone, the meat of my body sweating in the discarded coat. February wind blew my hair and stuck it on my temples.

The weight of a heart is 7 pounds and 15 ounces, but I couldn't be sure how much it weighed while heavy. Unutterably chilled, I placed the headphones in the conch of my ears and tried to listen to the thrum of solo heartbeats.

Down on earth, people entered and exited Wawa. Hands gripped coats and scarves to protect against the bluster. Some were together and others alone. The odds stacked against the numbers; and maybe some of them were also afflicted by the same strange illness. 

Jane-Rebecca Cannarella (she/her) is a writer, editor, and salt enthusiast living in Philadelphia. She is the editor of HOOT Review and Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit and a former genre editor at Lunch Ticket. Jane-Rebecca is the author of Better Bones, published by Thirty West Publishing House; Thirst and Frost by Vegetarian Alcoholic Press; and others.