The Aftermath of a Sightseeing Boat Tour when the Engine Blows Up and Many People Die and You End Up on a Lifeboat with a Man you Cannot See and Feel Seasick with a Sunburn

Tenzin’s face was so hot. He could feel the heat radiating off his own flesh when he ran his hand over the surface. He inclined his head in the direction of his hand before him. In his fingers twirled a curled furl of waxy peeled skin. He had been plucking itchy flakes of it from his arm all day.

            “Would you stop doing that?!” Asked a man’s voice from about two and a half feet away. He kept shifting in his seat, and Tenzin’s stomach rolled a little bit every time the man’s movements rocked the boat. Tenzin had always had problems on boats; it was impossible to point spot if you could not see. Scratching at his left shoulder blade with his right hand, Tenzin scraped off another loose shard of dry skin where the sun and emberous deck had curdled it. He heard the man gag.

            “Stop, I said. You’re making me feel sick. Sick and Itchy.”

            The boat swayed again in the sticky quiet of the lake grotto. Tenzin felt something putrid and acid burp into his mouth, but he swallowed the flavor with a burp. A sticky sweet and sour and bitter residue claimed the back of his tongue.

            “If you’re sick, don’t look. And if you are itchy, just scratch. I’m not looking.” Tenzin smiled at his own joke, and directed his broken eyes to where he believed the man to be across from him. He refused to blink. This made him smile broader, with pearly white teeth clenched.  “Just scratch,” Tenzin said. “Just stop moving this damn little skiff.”

            “I can’t”

            “What do you mean, ‘I can’t’?”

            “I mean that I’m itchy on my right forearm. I ain’t got a right forearm. You’re giving me phantom itch, you asshole.”

            “Yeah, well,” said Tenzin, trying to steady himself by reaching over the side of the boat. He dipped a hand into the water, swirling the current in wet ripples. He felt something rubbery, like a dead fish or perhaps a waterlogged human hand bump against his flesh and withdrew his arm like a whip. “You’re making me nauseous.”

            Tenzin bent his head over  his knees, listening the water from his arm drip into the pooling water in the bottom of the boat. He twisted the disembodied skin between his fingers once more, distracted. The only sound apart from the dripping hand was the water lapping and the irritated sighs of the one armed man sitting on the opposing bench. Neither helped.

           

            Finally, more irritated by the phantom itch than he could possibly muster, the one armed man dove towards Tenzin’s side of the boat, rocking it in a jumble; he gripped Tenzin’s yellowing right arm tight and twisted it around, knocking Tenzin forward. He twisted the arm and wrapped it around his own body to where his shoulder ended in a contorted cicatrix-lined nub. His coarse uneven fingernails scratched away at the small Vietnamese man’s wrist, and he ejaculated words like “Oh yeah,” “Right there baby” and grunting low, rhythmic patterns like a virgin about to come.

            Tenzin could not see the man’s movement or the swirling whirlpool of waves whipping through the still sound. Nor could he feel the pleasure of the man’s insistent scratching, only the baby claws of a kitten at its first scratching post. His world spun and his balance flipped his brain. His senses tumbled from the rocking, bouncing, churning little boat.

            The one armed man shouted oh god oh god oh god just as Tenzin’s breakfast splattered into the water slowly filling the bottom of the boat.

©2014 Lex Vex