Henry is big, hairy and white like a polar bear. Henry, without his
pills, is a polar bear on a melting glacier. Henry has a bed but he
prefers to sleep under his desk. Holly has a husband but prefers to
sleep with another man. Henry is Holly’s husband. Holly says the
desk is Henry’s womb when he’s being a baby. Henry does not
agree. He says it’s his igloo. To Henry’s dismay, Holly is his
sunshine, slowly melting away the patch of ice he lives on.
Henry is hunkered over the sink looking out the window for the
mailman. The mailman is the sweet cool Arctic wind who delivers
two very important things: Henry’s disability check and Henry’s pills
which he gets illegally from the Internet when he runs out early of the
ones the doctor gives him. This provides Henry the very things
needed to secure the conditions to cool his ecosystem down enough
so he doesn’t end up drowning in the ocean. Henry fills up a glass of
water and takes the remaining pills the doctor has given. Little
snowflakes of Xanax and Somas, with a blizzard of Oxycontins.
Henry pauses with the last pill in his hand and thinks to himself
that he had a daughter once, and how things might have been
different. How he and Holly would be different if Haley had survived
the accident. But Henry isn’t a father now, or even a man. Henry is a
polar bear and polar bears do not cry. Henry thinks to himself, Polar
bears hunt on glaciers. Polar bears eat snowflakes. But polar bears
do not cry. So Henry stands by the sink looking out the window,
letting the last pill dissolve on his tongue like a snowflake, waiting for
the mailman to come. Waiting for the Arctic wind to come. Just…
simply…..waiting.
