Flash Fiction Fridays, August 2024
Phantom Limb - Inspired by the art of Carol Rama
Back when Shock Totem magazine was in regular circulation, they ran a weekly contest on their forums where you had one hour to write a 1,000 word story based on a visual prompt. The winner earned the respect of their peers, and the right to post next week’s prompt for a new batch of contestants. It was a cool tradition, and a good way to work your writing muscles every week.
On the first Friday of every month, I’ll try to post a flash fiction story sometime before the end of the day. This month’s story is based on the painting I due pini by Italian painter Carol Rama. It’s called Phantom Limb, and I hope you like it.
Phantom Limb
When Carrie turned sixteen, her left arm went numb and never recovered.
She played midfield on the girls' lacrosse team at the time, and made it to the state quarterfinals, where they lost 3-1. She still took notes with her left hand, and finished high school with an above-average GPA and a below-average SAT score. She passed her driver's test on the first try.
Her arm worked fine.
It did whatever she asked it to.
She just couldn’t feel it.
After two years of tests, scans, evaluations, and referrals, she and the medical industry lost patience with one another, and she walked away with a prescription for anti-depressants, which she never took. On the way home from the clinic, the feeling went out of both her legs, as if someone had uncapped a drain at the bottom of her feet and let them spill out onto the sidewalk.
She stopped. Braced herself for feelings of panic, anger, loss. Realized that she didn’t even feel surprised. She’d known that it would happen again - had been waiting for it to happen again.
***
As a present to herself for finishing undergrad (Biology, with a minor in Chemistry), Carrie bought herself a guitar. She practiced for forty hours a week, and rewarded herself with a black coffee at the ten hour marks. Her numb hand struggled with the same chords everyone else struggled with (who needs an E Major 7 anyway?) but she had a good ear and an even better sense of time.
Once a month, she played cover songs for open mic night at a bar four blocks from her apartment. She was nervous about singing in front of so many people, but quickly got over it. She learned that if she wore jeans and a sweatshirt, people judged her based on merit. They winced when she sang off key and clapped politely as she left the stage. When she wore a skirt, people stared at her legs, which she honestly preferred. It was like singing from behind a curtain, hidden from view by something that didn’t even belong to her.
By the end of her second semester, her right arm had gone numb below the elbow. She was 22 years old, and had no feeling in two-thirds of her body.
***
After postgrad, Carrie got a job at a research hospital, where she focused on the psychiatric aspects of neurological disorders. Around this time, she developed a recurring nightmare, which her research told her was pretty normal, actually.
In the nightmare, she lay naked on a hospital bed. Her arms and legs had been amputated; the straps that would have held her down hung empty from the bed frame. Her head lolled from side to side, with her tongue stuck out as far as it would go. She felt happy in the dream, almost delirious with warm, disembodied pleasure, but she always woke with a feeling of incredible shame.
She hated the eager sensuality of it, the way her own subconscious reduced her to tits and a crotch and a desperate, open mouth. Clinically, she knew it spoke to an unvoiced fear. On her good days, she had a mind and a voice and guts and a heart, and who needed anything else? On her bad days, she was a pretty face and a womb, custom built for sex and motherhood - which she wanted, sure, but not if it was her only option.
Every morning, good or bad, she stood in front of her bathroom mirror and watched someone else’s hand drag the brush through her hair. Watched a stranger carry the toothpaste into her mouth and run it across her teeth.
***
“Feel that?”
“Nope.”
This was a favorite game of his: looking for the line between the skin that belonged to her and the skin that didn’t.
His lips moved to her shoulder. “How about this?”
“A little.”
They’d been together for three years, and she loved him so much that she sometimes caught herself rehearsing lines for their painful, inevitable breakup. He knew how to make her laugh. Knew when she was tough enough to take a joke, and when she wasn’t. Hugged her when she needed it, and never once pitied her.
“How about this?”
He set the jewelry box on her chest: the little black velvet one from the commercials. She picked it up.
Opened it.
And felt the dizzy, enveloping vertigo that happens when you realize you’re someone else’s favorite person.
Not because he’d asked her the question, but because he knew she didn’t wear rings, knew better than to decorate a stranger’s hand. She lifted the diamond necklace out of the box, could already feel the weight of it against her chest.
“Yeah,” she said, suddenly breathless. “I feel that.”
***
By the end of her life, Carrie lost feeling in both arms up to the shoulder, and both legs up to the middle of her thigh. She also visited seventeen countries, swam 120 miles of the Hudson River, and lost three of someone else’s toes to frostbite. Loved her job, even when she hated it. Loved her family, even when she hated them.
Felt grief, joy, sadness, hope, anger, despair, contentment.
Grew old.
***
The scene, now, is of Carrie lying on her deathbed. The sheets are a gentle shade of green. The pillow is soft against her neck. There’s cancer wrapped around her pancreas. Her arthritis wastes its effort on joints she can’t even feel.
One afternoon, between visits, Carrie wakes to find herself alone in the room. There are voices in the hallway outside. A bar of light falls through the window and lands on her lap. She has the sudden urge to touch it, now, while no one is looking.
Not with her hand, though. That would be a waste.
She considers her options. Thinks about how ridiculous she’s about to look, and laughs.
Then she opens her mouth. Cranes her neck upward for one last taste of sunlight.
To learn more about Carol Rama and her work, check out this article.
To see more artwork and thoughtful essays on female artists (including the one that inspired this story), check out LOST ART.
No comments! What a shame.
This was a very engaging read. Easy to get through, and I wanted to get through it. Honestly, I'd like to read a longer version. I wondered if something supernatural were coming.
Some really powerful turns of phrases. I love the line about uncapping a drain. I think the image went on just a bit too long - few too many words in that simile, but the artistic skill was clear there. Good work.
There's a pretty hard pivot where things turn to sex and sexuality. I confess I didn't see that coming, and I didn't quite get it, either. But it was just a brief hiccup. Strong finish.
My sister-in-law is a quad amputee who's also a PhD and Biologist. She struggles with phantom limb pain, so this was pretty close to home for me.