Summer of Survivor
I am fanning myself with a piece of junk mail and sitting with my legs overflowing off the arm of a black leather IKEA chair. It’s May, and my dad is still holding strong not to install the AC units until June 1st. The front door is propped open with the screen acting as a barrier to the outside, we don’t cross that barrier until the lunch meat in our fridge runs out or expires.
To my right, in a chair matching mine, is my mom. Only when promised that my dad and I will watch Survivor with her does she slide out of bed and down our stairs—three steps to the landing, seven down the rest of the flight. My dad sits behind us on the couch, and while we don't always claim the same seats, mom always sits alone.
The three of us spent months listening to host Jeff Probst welcome the castaways into a new challenge. Sometimes they play for immunity. With this, they are safe and can’t be voted off the island. Other times, they play for rewards, like food platters or extra tarp. My dad says that it’s better to win a reward. Him and I take turns making my mom toast with butter and jam. Sometimes she eats yogurt. I watch my dad drape a blanket over my mom’s drooping shoulders. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be without immunity.
On this day, the challenge is for the castaways to brace themselves with their arms between two walls while standing barefoot on two small wooden pegs. I watch their muddy and calloused feet fight to find balance. Some of them fall within minutes, and one by one, it comes down to two contestants who seem intent on staying for as long as it takes. It almost hurts my own feet to watch them struggle, and I find myself clenching my whole body, matching my face to their expressions of pain. I wonder how long it takes to lose feeling in their feet, if they still feel pain after the rest of their bodies go numb.
I look at my mom—she is wearing the same blankness that has been plastered to her face for weeks. I don’t ask her when she started going numb, and she doesn’t tell me. Instead, she tells me that ever since she was little, she’s wanted to be a mother.
I find myself growing bored with watching the same challenges, and I wish that we didn’t have to watch Survivor, but I don’t voice this opinion. Either way, we will be back here, the three of us in our living room, one of us a zombie. I feel my body slowly entering into numbness, or maybe I’m imagining it, I wonder if there is a difference. The May heat summons a drop of sweat to slide from my neck to my waistband, slowly passing over the peach fuzz lining my spine.
After over an hour has passed in the challenge, the two bodies fall, one second before the other.
I set alarms on my mom’s phone, reminders of when to take her medications. In the heat of this May night, I provide her ice-cold water to wash down the multi-colored brain balancers.
Immunity is the most coveted entity in the game of Survivor.