Does Anything Matter?

I watch as the clock on my cell phone turns from 10:59 to 11 pm.  This recurrence signals my journey to sleep.  Again.  I turn off the TV.  I don’t like listening to the political debates anyways.  No matter who wins the title of American nobility, I will still suffer.  I sigh.  I plod down the pea soup green hallway full of smiling faces.  I walk into the bathroom and place myself in front of the cream-and-coffee-colored sink.  I look in my reflection.  I take my white pearl necklace and earrings off and lay them on the counter.  I’ll put them in my jewelry box later.  My best friend always says that classy ladies wear pearls. When I see pearls, I think of my abuelita in Puerto Rico.  She wore pearls to my abuelo’s funeral.  She didn’t have waterproof mascara.  Black streaks made tributaries down her face.  She harshly swiped at her tears while the robotic man in a suit talked about my abuelo’s past and future residence, as if we couldn’t see him lying there like a paste outline of a human.  Her hand flew to her choking chest when his eternal bed plopped into the opaque bosom of the earth.  When she removed her hand, a dark speck remained on her otherwise pure white necklace.

            I reach for my comb.  Then I remember that I cut all my hair off a week ago.  Before, my long, black, shiny hair reached the middle of my back, perfectly centered.  I look at my black comb.  Several gaps exist where teeth broke battling the knots in my hair.  So broken.  So useless.  I have always used combs, though, never brushes.  When my hair grew long enough to tangle, Papi sat behind me with the comb he used for his own oily and sleeked back hair.  Many knots had nested in my hair by that day.  Papi yanked at the knots with his comb.  “Hijita, you have a head of weeds and thistles.”  Then I heard the first tooth pop.  It alighted on the top of the island of hair forming at Papi’s feet.  I take all my combs out of the sink drawer and toss them into the already over-full trashcan.  I don’t need combs anymore.  So broken.  So useless.

            I turn on the water in the shower.  I take off my skinny jeans and my black work-shirt.  I look at all the pink and blue icing stains on the dog bakery t-shirt that says “Join us for our Yappy Hour!”  I then take off my red lace bra and my thong.  I leave my clothes piled in a heap in a shadowy corner that hides behind the open bathroom door.  I step in the shower and tense as the hot water penetrates the skin on the left side of my chest.  I quickly turn the knob with the gothic C until my muscles relax.  Tepid, lukewarm water.  I wash away the impurities of the day.  I imagine the events of today drooping off my skin and slithering through the polka-dot drain.  But, unfortunately, the memories will live in me forever, simply waiting for my synapses to be wound enough times until the hatch opens and the jack-in-the-box of my life springs up from obscurity, haunting me with his wide eyes that cause my soul to fear.  His condescending smile communicates to me that he knows. 

            I turn off the water.  I grab the red towel hanging on the hook to the left and quickly dry off.  I step into our bedroom adjoining the bathroom.  I drop my towel and put on fresh underwear and A Day to Remember t-shirt while my boyfriend lazily watches from our bed.  Half-asleep, he smirks.  He loves me.  I think.  I clamber up next to him like I did last night and rest my head in the same nook by his bare, dark shoulder.  He kisses the crown of my head.  He exclaims, “Tomorrow is Friday.  Let’s go on a date.  We’ll go somewhere fun.  Somewhere different.”

            I dryly smile.  “That sounds nice, babe.”  I don’t believe him, though.  I drift off to sleep thinking about what I will do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.  My counting sheep: all fluffy, white, dumb, and boring.

            I wake up the next morning, rummage through my dresser for fresh jeans and a clean shirt, and brush my teeth.  I find my set of pearls.  I adorn myself with the strand of tiny, empty eggs as I stand in front of the cream-and-coffee-colored sink.  As I put the left earring in, I think to myself, “I don’t believe in God anymore.”