Central Park Arrhythmia (Short Story‪)‬

Darla's husband would die of heart disease. She closed her eyes and settled into a pocket of October grass in Central Park. They lived in Queens, but Darla rode the F train every day. The cool breeze oscillated over her face. She worked at a software firm managing people half her age. Her husband taught music at P.S. 67. Eyes still closed, she slipped her headphones into her ears: Jeff Buckley, who had drowned in the Mississippi River at night. The music entered her thoughts like alcohol dripping into her blood. The lyrics intoxicated her and loosened the structure of grammar in her mind: Heard there was a secret chord. She pinched her nose, smoothed out the lines of skin in her forehead. The term angina pectoris came from the Greek ankhon for "strangling" and the Latin pectus for "chest." Darla inhaled the ripe smell of the dying leaves. The metal joints and bones of the city ground and screamed in the distance, taxis honking, doormen whistling, but the wind kept whispering through the heart of the park. Beneath her back, the earth felt old and dry. A few leaves fell onto her face, and she blew them off with the fourth, the fifth, the minor lift. Their daughter, Annie, had given Darla a red iPod for her fiftieth birthday loaded with a few albums her daughter had given her. Most of it was arcane and pretentious. One of the bands was called Radiohead. Darla liked Rickie Lee Jones, Paul Simon, the Mamas and the Papas. Annie wanted her to listen to newer music, but things had been so much happier once. Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew him. The news of her husband's heart disease had hit them suddenly. He still looked healthy, but his arteries had rotted from the insides out, hollowed like branches of an ancient oak, healthy bark protecting a core of useless pulp. Lying there in the grass, Darla's conscience pricked her mind; she had cooked with Crisco for him more than twice. For years she had fed him gravy and meat. She had given herself to him. She had tied him to a kitchen chair. The news of his illness had shocked her. The exterior of her husband's body showed no signs of slowing. His arms and legs moved like muscular cables, wiry and strong. He made love to her in the shower on Fridays and counted the tiles over her shoulder. His body pressed against her hard and slick. She broke his throne she cut his hair. At the dinner table, her husband sat erect as though his vertebrae were fused with steel. But even steel had melted once or twice.