“Lovers” © Ira Joel Haber

 

Strange Facts About The Human Body You Know About
(after Tales for Men Who are Lost at Sea)

1) Humans are the only species known to blush.

    When he walked up to you at the cash register and ordered a Dagwood Bumstead, then five minutes later admitted that he had no idea what was in one, he just wanted to talk to you, then, you blushed. He was slightly older than you. He was cute and you blushed the entire time you told him the sandwich was named after a character in the Blondie comic strip.

    “It’s made with lots of meat, cheese, condiments, and vegetables.”

    When your face returned to it’s a normal state, there was a pause, so you broke the silence, “Lots of meat,” you said, failing in your attempt to not blush again.

 

2) Your mouth produces about one litre of saliva each day!

    But you, you experience dry mouth any time you’re nervous. Plus, the anti-depressants also do that. Those two together now make you feel your mouth is void of saliva, so that when he returns to the counter to ask you out you have trouble speaking. He, has asked you out, with you wearing counter gear: black t-shirt, stretch pants, with thank-god-no-hairnet. Pete, in the back was forced by The Board of Health to wear one on his beard. That was the deal breaker with Pete and you. Your now silence must have come off as a rejection, so when your customer turns away you grab his arm and nod your head, “Yes.”

 

3) Your brain is sometimes more active when you’re asleep than when
    you’re awake.

    That night you dreamt about him. You couldn’t remember his name, but he’s texted you already, and it didn’t come up on your phone. The dream placed you and him on a tiny boat, lying on your backs and looking up at the stars. Chuck Sagan once said the sun was an ordinary, if not, mediocre star.

    He pointed up to the sky and said he wanted to name a star after you, but there was one already up there named Blondie, and noted that you do not have blonde hair. Then he rolled on his knees, pulled up a fishing net, and Pete was flopping around in it.

    When you wake you realize that his actual name is the same as Sagan’s. You will call him Chuck, because that other name was already used, but then, you text him back. “Good morning, Dags.”

 

4) The human heart beats more than three billion times in an average
    lifespan.

    After he took you to dinner, he said his heart must have beaten a billion times between the walk to the car and the first, out of breath, goodnight kiss. Then there was a second kiss, and a much longer kiss, and then you stopped.

    “I don’t want to have make-out face,” you told him.

    He looked at you, and smiled but you can tell he didn’t understand. It looked like he was in a bit of discomfort, his heart beating so fast.

“My face could get stuck like that,” you said.

 

5) Bodies give off a tiny amount of light that’s too weak for the eye to
    see.

    You’d heard about this during science class in high school. You hated your body then, and wished that the light coming off it was visible. The fact is, you prayed it was blinding. You swore you could see a faint glow around his after the first time you made out. It’s scary, you thought, but you tell yourself that you’re just nodding off in his arms, and are only imagining the whole thing. It reminded you of Sam in Ghost, bathed in light when all you wished, at that time, was the movie having better special effects. “He’s okay,” you say, realizing that you are dumb and stupid and suddenly in love.

 

6) The word “muscle” comes from Latin term meaning “little mouse“,
    which is what Ancient Romans thought flexed bicep muscles
    resembled.

    He loved Dr. Who. You and him watch it at his house for months. You only pretended to like it until you love it too. In Episode 190, The Fires of Pompei, the Doctor and his companion Donna Noble traveled to Ancient Rome right before the volcano destroyed the city. Donna wanted Dr. Who to save all the people she had met there but that’s not what he does.

    “I’d save them all,” Dags tells you, but you really aren’t paying attention to the show, as your hands never stopped touching his left forearm, stopping to curl around his biceps.

    “Look, it’s the future Dr. and Amy Pond,” he yelled when Peter Capaldi and Karen Gillan show up in different roles than they would play in the future.

    “That’s nice honey,” you said, almost asleep on his radiating left shoulder.

 

7) You can have a silent heart attack and not know it

    One in five heart attacks are of the silent type. They are more likely for those over 75 and diabetic. Dags was not there yet, but his was silent, or one of symptoms ignored, or either, or both. Now the house was silent, but you know it won’t be for long. You are pregnant. You never had the chance to tell Dags. At the wake you say it over his dead body. You say it again, and you say it louder, until you scream it. Chuck’s parents take you by the elbow and lead you out of Gibson and Sons Funeral Home, after all, they only were Chuck’s parents. They never were the parents of Dags. Dags was all yours.

 

8) The average person has 67 different species of bacteria in their belly
    button.

    As your uterus pushes up and out to accommodate your growing daughter, your belly button appears stretched and flattened. With even more pressure on your abdomen your belly button becomes pushed out completely. You’re a freak, you tell yourself, but don’t care about anything these days or that your disgust had been released into the universe. You didn’t care when there was redness, swelling, or pain there, but when there was discharge, and a foul odor you get an ointment for it.

    “Why did you wait so long,” the ER doctor asked.

    “I was probably grieving,” you said.

    The next person in the room was a social worker. “Do you want this baby?” she asked you. You know what Dags would say, but your mouth is so dry all you can do is furiously blink at her as if you were Barbara Eden in I Dream of Jeannie granting all possible wishes.

 

9) The body has 2.5 million sweat pores.

    Chuck’s parents were in the delivery room with you, until you told them to get the fuck out. You wanted them there, but then you didn’t. They were only there because of Chuck anyway, as most people over 80 do not wish to be present during a delivery. Even your step-sister was way too old to want to be there. They are from the generation that sits in the waiting room with boxes of cigars.

    You are soaked. Every pore was like a full eye-dropper and during each contraction, the bulb squeezed and the sweat shot out. Deliveries were not like they are seen on television where the process usually happens in less than five minutes. Sure, it’s a torturous five-minutes, but it’s nothing like the hours you went through.

    You don’t care that they were in the waiting room. All you cared about was your daughter, Blondie. “I hope she has blonde hair,” you thought, as you pushed, wondered how you were even breathing when they were telling you to. It was the first thing you asked after she was delivered, before you could even answer if you wanted to cut the cord, “Is she blonde?” you yell.

 

10) Babies don’t shed tears until they’re at least one month old.

    But you shed enough for the both of you. Then, she cried more and you less, when it’s just the two of you watching Dr. Who in silence, the baby’s short blonde hair, softly touching your flushed cheek.

 

Timothy Gager is the author of 20 books of fiction and poetry, which includes his fourth novel, Shadows of the Seen, and his most recent collection of poetry, Almost Bluing for X-Tra Whiteness.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had nine one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 300 online and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Creative Artists Public Service Grant (CAPS) two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. in 2017 & 2018 he received the Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA artist-in-residence grant.