Over Everything

by Leigh Hopkins

She rolls over, summery skin soft and dark against the curved line of shirt sliding beneath sheets. Before morning pulls me under lushdelicious, I push my mouth against her shoulder, wrap an arm and drape a leg.

“Morning,” she mumbles. Her skin shimmers warm in the morning light.

“You glow,” I sigh, and go under.

When I open my eyes who knows how long later, the dog has weaseled his way onto the bed, curled between us. At the rumble of thunder, he quivers and tucks his nose under his back leg. I scratch his ears and he untucks and gives me a grateful look. Before he tucks back in, I notice a bright smudge glowing on the bridge of his nose. I rub my eyes and lean forward, spreading the thin fur on his snout with my fingers, like I’m looking for ticks. Where the fur separates, the glow follows.

I lie back on the pillow and notice a flicker of light on her shoulder. Very lightly, I trace my fingers along her side and discover a glowing splotch at her waist, and there, another on her thigh, on the soft place that rested beneath mine. Three luminescent ovals among fabric and skin.

“You’re glowing,” I say, and sit up. “So’s he.”

She lifts her head from the pillow, squints, and drops it. “Honey, go back to sleep.” Above her head, two small marks glow in bright relief against the headboard.

I throw back the blanket. In the impression where my body was, a constellation of anemones ripple across the sheets. I lean over and brush roughly at the cotton, pressing my hands flat against the bottom sheet. Whorling, iridescent labyrinths wind inside each small oval. “This is so weird.”

“Sh-hhhh,” she whispers. “Sleep.”

Kabob pushes his nose deeper and lets out a heaving, doggy sigh.

I sit on the edge of the bed. I’ve seen weirder. Weirder by a lot. Whatever this is, it will be better with coffee.

I pad from the room in boxer shorts and Kabob flings himself off the end of the bed and follows. The kitchen looks like six, maybe six thirty, so I put on the kettle and pour the dog a bowl of dry food. When I reach for the jar of coffee on the shelf, I see two oval-shaped orbs lined up on one side of my wrist.

I yelp like I’ve been stung. Shake my hand, hard. Fold my fingers and clench my eyes shut, willing the spots gone.

Open.

If anything, they’re brighter.

“Jess!” I call. “Come look at this!” I push at my skin, testing it. The bright stains move like they’re a part of me, matching my texture. “This is freaky,” I tell Kabob, and he wags, wanting to be let out. I expect to see more spots on his leash, but it’s hanging on the hook, unmarred. I pull the raincoat on and tie the sash tight, around my waist, just because it’s clean.

The morning is so full of summer I could kiss it, but then I notice the neighbor’s car from halfway down the block. A splatter of glowprints radiate from the door handle, another smattering spread across the car’s roof. I shade my eyes in the grey-green light against the rumbling storm. High up, on the second floor of a neighbor’s apartment, an irregular smear glows at the window like someone’s been trying to get in. I glance down, half expecting Kabob to whizz florescent, but he just squats like a girl and looks warily at the sky.

Jess is brushing her teeth in the kitchen, leaning against the sink in a tank top and underwear like nothing has happened, like the coffee on the shelf behind her isn’t glowing like a halo around her gorgeous head.

I march into the kitchen, hang up the dog’s leash and point. “Glowing.”

“Huh?” she shrugs, and looks around.

“The coffee,” I point. “It’s glowing.”

She picks up the jar. “But it’s organic,” she says, like that means something.

I point to my wrist. “Me too. And Kabob.”

Her mouth turns down, toothbrush hanging out one side. “Honey, are you OK?”

“Did you spill something?” I press, trying not to sound paranoid. “Were you using some new chemicals, or something?”

She furrows her eyebrows. Holds up one finger, hang on, and reaches for a cup. Rinses and spits, rinses again, then carefully sponges off the edge of the cup and places it in the rack. “OK, try again.” Her smile is patient.

I stretch out my wrist to show her, and there are three new prints lined up next to the first two and another on my inner wrist, opposite the other four. Five in all. “This is crazy,” I whisper. “Do you see this?”

In 2010, Leigh Hopkins left a 20-year career in public education reform to move to Brazil, where she founded Viva Institute by rigging a satellite dish to a boulder in a banana field. Today, she is a writing instructor at Corporeal Writing and a columnist at The Rumpus. Her essays have been published in Longreads, McSweeney’s, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and ENTROPY, among others. Her Rumpus essay “Blood Feast” was nominated for The Best American Essays 2020. Twitter: LeighHereNow