Art, Plugged In .................................................Francesca Postigo ’22

unceremoniously sent off by the daughter he barely recognized in his state of intoxication. Resigned, I retreated to my room, spending hours perfecting the contents of each letter, the monotony of ritual taking my mind off the glass criminals who had stolen my father out from under me.

The night before his surgery songs wafted through the open blinds of my room, prompting me to rouse myself from writing and tentatively peer outside. He danced: drunk, delirious, free, his torso swaying to the drawn out notes. Arms waving about, a liquor bottle in his left hand lazily spritzed liquid across the porch. As he spun about in tempo he caught me peeping, and motioned for me to join him with a droopy smile. The cold concrete stung the soles of my feet as I stepped onto the patio to face him. He said nothing, but gently grabbed my hand and led me in a dance. I closed my eyes, the salt-filled air of the coast gently washing through

Plugged In , Francesca Postigo ’22, digital

my nostrils, clearing my mind and instilling in me a hope I had not felt since the first wishing bottle. Maybe it will all be ok. Eyes flicking open, I pulled him into a hug, the familiar acidity of his gin-splotched shirt wrapping me in peace. He looked at me, the unspoken spoken through his gaze: I love you. The rest of the world went quiet, our ragged breathing and the radio blues the only disturbance to an otherwise stagnant summer night. I finally felt home.

A few minutes later the next song came on, and I felt a subtle shift, a tinge of manic urgency setting in, as if he had only just realized the impermanence of his already limited time on Earth. His movements became more panicked, feet stomping instead of gliding, arms swinging in wild abandon. His left hand loosened its grip, the neck of the bottle sliding back and forth to the rhythm of “Remember Me”. I took a step back, but he gripped my wrist, pulling me back in like a cowboy to his lasso.

“Dad, stop.” “C’mon darlin’. You don’t wanna ruin my last hurrah.” He jerked my arms from side to side, a tinge of violence in his forceful movements.

“I’m serious! Stop!” My voice was shaking.

“What happened, you don’t like dancin’ with your daddy no more?” He laughed, gripping my arm so hard the pinky flesh turned white. “This is your last chance before my brains get all scrambled up!”

He raised the bottle to his lips and downed the rest of its contents, spitting into the air when he had finished. Grabbing me by the waist, he twirled me around at a dizzying speed. I wanted to stay, unravel with him, but I knew I couldn’t. I wrestled out of his grip, trying to escape once and for all, but he yelled and lunged at me viciously, arms swinging down in an attempt to grab hold of my wrists. Time slowed, and I could only watch as the bottle finally broke free from his grasp, colliding in slow motion with my feet on the concrete patio.

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I howled, a guttural tone I had never before produced. Staccato cracks of glass meeting flesh pierced through the eerie placidness of the midnight swell, diamond fragments shimmering in the gauzy lamplight. Streams of my tears were quickly swept up and lost in the thousand bloody rivers flowing from my feet.

He took one last glance at me, our shared gaze like kryptonite, slowly fizzling out with a mutual acceptance of the inevitable outcome. I could tell he had a lifetime of words to say, but only five managed to escape his lips:

“Send a bottle out for me.”

As I watched his figure fade into the night the jolting pain from my wounds swelled. Sharp as pinpricks, each new wave nibbled away at my nerves, recalling the distant memory of baby crabs whose claws had dug into me that fateful autumn day. I had found a striking coldness in their indifference towards my pain, their lack of empathy toward someone so defenseless and fragile. “Everyone who hurts has been hurt before,” a phrase my mother once said.

I wondered who had made the crabs hurt.