Ekphrastic 8

P: Why are you here?

[He blinks at me with the obsidian bubbles flanking his fleshy, flaccid proboscis.]

P: Are you here to heal her?

[His fingers tighten around each other.]

P: What kind of animal are you, anyway? An elephant? A seal? An elephant seal? Half-elephant seal and half-larvae?

[His trunk twitches.]

P: If you're a larva, that's a good sign. It represents rebirth, right? She's confined to the chrysalis of her cot for now, but she'll claw her way out. I know she will. She always does. She had to raise four daughters by herself. One of them is my mother, you know, so I literally wouldn't be here if it weren't for her.

[He shifts in his seat.]

P: I'll believe you're a larva.

[I try to not to liken this blubbery blob to the tumor in her lung.]

P: I'll believe, I'll believe I don't ask Him for too much, that if I ask Him to heal her, He is faithful to do so. That if I ask him to let her live long enough for me to cross the ocean and tell her how much I look up to her, He is faithful. I told Him, "If not for me, heal her for my mother. She shouldn't have to be a parent and an orphan."

[He looks down and the rolls on his stocky neck swell a little.]

P: You aren't here to heal her, are you?

[His big belly inflates. Deflates. Inflates. Deflates. In tandem with the neon line on the screen that tracks her heart rate.]

P: Don't you dare just sit there.

[He sniffles, the obsidian shimmers, and it untangles the anger from my ligaments like a vacuum leeches lint from a carpet.]

P: Why aren't you here if you aren't here to heal her?

[He sets an ashen hand over mine, and I know he's here for me.]