Noreen cuts the onions into small pieces, dribbles some Cretan Prince oil into the pan and sautés the hell out of them, the fumes blasting like fallen angels in the kitchen. “What are you doing?” he asks, his shoulders touching both panels of the door. Her smile is just a tightening of the flesh across her face, drenched in tears. “I’m cooking. For you.”
************************************
On the evening, when the sky goes stone and droops exhausted, barely distinguishable from the pavements, and the trees shiver, their veiny leaves like hands about to hit, she’s laying the table, fingers trembling, making sure all forks, knives and spoons are in the right order. The lack of salt was a mistake. So was the palm on her left cheek.
************************************
Globes of blueberry hiding in whipped cream crawl down her throat, forcing its muscles to snarl into bright, fierce knots, while the bone sockets of her eyes, the roots of her back teeth, the cavities of her nose, shoot pain in high-pitched spasms, holding her mouth prisoner. The cashmere sweater crackles under her fingers, whispering:” Why her?”
************************************
The fist strikes Noreen, in the head or in the chest; and, in a moment, wholly, filling her with an anguish that she could never in her life have imagined, that she surely could not endure, that even now she could not believe, has opened her up; has cracked her wide, as a brittle vase shatters beneath the sledgehammer, as bricks break up; has ripped her and felled her, so that she has not felt the wound, but only the agony, has not felt the fall, but only the shame; and lays there, helpless, screaming, at the very bottom of darkness.
************************************
Her eyes struggle to open and slowly the furniture rearranges itself in the living room, returning to the old design. Sofa to the left, two chairs at the table near the window, books and knickknacks back on the shelves. She has learned that fear makes its home in the guts. It moves in, shifts stuff around and empties a space for itself, echoing the wingbeats of breath. There’s nowhere to go, yet she stands up and runs.
************************************
Each drop of rain crashes into her body, as if eager to wipe out the reds and blues and yellows, memories carving jagged canyons in the landscape of her brain. She has been standing here, wet and burning, debating whether she wants to know. What will happen if she does? Will anything change? The thought that twists like a kite’s tail, curling itself in her mind is: please. Let it not be like this. Let it not have been now. Let him have died of an aneurysm, stroke, struck by lightening. Let him have contracted some rare, incurable disease. Just let it not have been in a muddy yard, with a bullet in his heart, in the velvet gray of dawn. Please.
************************************
On the evening, when the sky goes stone and droops exhausted, barely distinguishable from the pavements, and the trees shiver, their veiny leaves like hands about to hit, she’s laying the table, fingers trembling, making sure all forks, knives and spoons are in the right order. The lack of salt was a mistake. So was the palm on her left cheek.
************************************
Globes of blueberry hiding in whipped cream crawl down her throat, forcing its muscles to snarl into bright, fierce knots, while the bone sockets of her eyes, the roots of her back teeth, the cavities of her nose, shoot pain in high-pitched spasms, holding her mouth prisoner. The cashmere sweater crackles under her fingers, whispering:” Why her?”
************************************
The fist strikes Noreen, in the head or in the chest; and, in a moment, wholly, filling her with an anguish that she could never in her life have imagined, that she surely could not endure, that even now she could not believe, has opened her up; has cracked her wide, as a brittle vase shatters beneath the sledgehammer, as bricks break up; has ripped her and felled her, so that she has not felt the wound, but only the agony, has not felt the fall, but only the shame; and lays there, helpless, screaming, at the very bottom of darkness.
************************************
Her eyes struggle to open and slowly the furniture rearranges itself in the living room, returning to the old design. Sofa to the left, two chairs at the table near the window, books and knickknacks back on the shelves. She has learned that fear makes its home in the guts. It moves in, shifts stuff around and empties a space for itself, echoing the wingbeats of breath. There’s nowhere to go, yet she stands up and runs.
************************************
Each drop of rain crashes into her body, as if eager to wipe out the reds and blues and yellows, memories carving jagged canyons in the landscape of her brain. She has been standing here, wet and burning, debating whether she wants to know. What will happen if she does? Will anything change? The thought that twists like a kite’s tail, curling itself in her mind is: please. Let it not be like this. Let it not have been now. Let him have died of an aneurysm, stroke, struck by lightening. Let him have contracted some rare, incurable disease. Just let it not have been in a muddy yard, with a bullet in his heart, in the velvet gray of dawn. Please.
