She leaned forward in the leather chair, her preferred seat, facing the man in 3/4ths profile, as if looking in the distance for something, someone, perhaps just escaping his questioning gaze.
“I don’t know why. It’s just every time I close my eyes, no matter how tired I am, I feel his closeness, smothering…like his presence fouls the air.”
The woman turned to face the man directly, wrenching her hands, then dropping them to her lap. They were soft, delicate, a very light tan, fingers pink ended, now grasping at the hem of her skirt, as if to gauge her worth by its warp.
Sitting in the swivel chair, the man uncrossed his legs to lean towards her, a gesture of concern. He didn’t speak but looked intently at the woman, waiting for her to gather her thoughts. Like a priest behind his screen, sitting in the dark, open to all, accepting of pettiness and depravity, the man seemed capable of weathering time.
“I feel his lips at my throat, then a sharp pain, as if I was getting a needle. I fall into a dream where I’ve become a river, rushing downhill, gorged by winter meltoff, widening my banks, opening myself up. A wolf comes to my side where he may drink and stares at himself in my reflection of him. He drinks of me, then howls, turning his muzzle to the rising moon.”
The woman is flushed, lips and hands shaking and quivering, She beseeches a reply from the man, who remains concerned but impassive.
“Is there more?” he asks, never moving.
“Just the ending. The same as all the others. I wake up in my room to see a shadow leaving through the window. I can hear a dog howling and I feel the puncture wounds in my neck. And the blood on the pillow.
So here I was. Twenty-five, mother of two, newly divorced in a new location, a big city. I had little money, no job, no work clothes, no work experience except as a wife and mother, and a college degree -- almost. My parents said I could move in with them, but I did not think that would work out. I did not want to be dependent and I did not want to be a burden. It was time to start fresh.
technorati tags: downthemspath, disability, multiplesclerosis, disabilitylifestyle
