By: M.E. Gamlem

Issue 01/August 2025

Using garden clippers, Alejandro cut off his fingers. One every day for eight days. He contemplated taking the thumbs, but decided against it. Since he was not an artist, he figured these would be a sufficient offering to leave her. The first few were easy to take. But the last few he had to squeeze the shears between his elbow and ribs, struggling to hold them steady as he pressed the handles together.

After wrapping the wounds and howling while drowning them in rubbing alcohol, he placed a severed phalange on top of a small bed of thin cotton swabs nestled inside a pearlescent jewelry box. Using his teeth and the thumbs he had left, he tied eight ribbons––each a different color––around the eight small white boxes.

Betty had been retired for many years now. She hardly remembered what she used to do. She was happy to not have anything demanding to dedicate herself to anymore. It wasn’t that she disliked working, she just couldn’t stand having to be in the same place every day. There was no spontaneity in work, no fun. What was the point of being an adult if you didn’t get to have fun? So, when she woke up on the morning that Alejandro left her his first gift, she beamed with joy.

“Now this, this does not happen every day,” she said. 

She grinned as she replaced the ribbon around the cardboard container. Betty carried the first box into her room, laying it on top of her bureau next to the other found gifts she received throughout her life. This one was special. No one had ever sacrificed for her so namelessly.

For the seven days that followed, Betty found the boxes containing Alejandro’s tributes. Each day, she unwrapped them and bellowed with joy. She noticed that each new one seemed to carry more struggle––a truer sign of an offering, a truer sign of love.

On the ninth day, she awoke and went to the door. At the foot of her porch stood Alejandro. He was young and beautiful, dressed in a powder blue tuxedo. In his mangled hands, he pressed together a bundle of flowers. His face was sweaty and wore an unsure smile.

Betty began to cry tears of joy and Alejandro carefully took the steps up towards her. He offered Betty the flowers. She reached out to her beautiful suitor. He took her palm, the white gauze softly scratching her delicate skin. She led Alejandro inside her home and made love to him. Alejandro held Betty, the effort it took to do so only endearing her to him even more.

As their days passed, Alejandro and Betty lived a life of contentment. Every year on their anniversary he would offer her another small sacrifice from his body, place it in a jewelry box, and wrap it with a ribbon for her to find. The time they spent together was slow and calm. 

The injuries forced Alejandro to move at Betty’s speed. His motions were more delicate, more measured, to make up for what had been removed. Still, there was not a moment he felt hindered, finding a rhythm of dance to take them through their days and nights together.

For eight years Betty and Alejandro lived in communion while the world outside their bond enveloped without meaning. His own sacrifices of flesh––an ear, part of his nose, a chunk from his thigh–spirited their connection, but they could not hold back the inevitable death  coming for Betty. He tended to her as best he could, but this was not enough to keep her from aging. Her own body was shrinking, a natural reduction forced by time and too great to be satisfied by the libations of another.  

On her last day, Betty asked to sit on the porch with him. Alejandro carried her out and placed her weakened body to rest on the swing. He made lemonade and helped her drink it. They spent the day sitting next to each other, Betty resting her head on his shoulder. She rubbed his hands, the hands that reminded her of Alejandro’s devotion. Her fingers passed over the brutal scars and stumps that remained. She smiled at this. As the sun set, Betty became weaker. Alejandro sensed this and grew very sad. His breathing increased with fury as hers dissipated with resolve. She closed her eyes for a moment, her face settled and at peace. Alejandro began to cry.

“My love, I would give you anything––everything of mine––for even just one more day,” he sobbed, his tears wetting her cheek. 

“I wish you could too,” she said. 

They looked at each other for a moment, the last moment that Alejandro would spend in her service. Betty pushed out the final exhale from her lungs. Her eyes remained open and frozen, fixated on Alejandro. He did not disturb her body, matching her stillness for many hours as her head lay propped on his shoulder. No one who passed by and saw them could even tell she was dead.

m.e. gamlem is a non-binary queer anarchist and writer from New Mexico. They are a MFA Fiction candidate in the Low Residency MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. Their work most recently appears at Hello America Stereo Cassette, new words {press}, and is forthcoming in the Potomac Review.