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Authors: Stephanie Johnson
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way to indifference. It could become more of a torture to keep one’s enemy alive.
It’s quiet where you are. Have you gone? Perhaps to buy coffee, perhaps to escape me. I can never predict what you will do next.
I open the door quickly and you turn from the window, my carryall in your hand.
‘I was looking for cigarettes.’
She hands them to me from her pocket.
‘I have given you some money,’ I tell her. ‘Enough to get out, enough to get home at the other end.’
She is staring at me, tapping her hairbrush against her thigh. She wants to ask me where I got it from.
‘It’s here.’ I touch the side pocket of the bag.
She turns away from me, picking up pins and combs from the table and twisting her hair in the English-lady way she has. There are too many ironies about her for me to take her seriously.
‘I’m hungry.’ She looks up at me from under those white eyelids.
‘They will feed you on the plane.’
‘I’m hungry now.’
‘Too bad.’ Now she’ll cry.
But I won’t. I will just pick up my bag and go through the door ahead of you. I won’t even look back to see of you are following me. Just this once I will trust you to be there.
The cab stinks. Someone has vomited here in the early hours of the morning. Someone drunk and despairing. The driver notices her quell a retch, and smirks.
I didn’t mean to give you more life than you already have. Sometimes among all the changes, running from city to city, I have almost felt sorry for you.
This is the last time we will ride together. You and I have done rather well. But you would thank me afterwards, if you could, for this solitary flight. For the release, the ticket to a quiet place.
People will look up between the buildings and see a knife flash in the sky, a red slash in the belly of God. That will be you.
Later on dusty streets I will think of you and wonder if it is you between my toes.
My brain is clogged with hormones that make me bovine. I can’t think clearly. Your face has a strange sheen to it, lilac through the brown, like the dark face of a stained-glass saint with the sun behind you.
Your neck has the feel of steamed fish, a delicate meat. I would like to bite it, but we are surrounded by sweating bodies in cars. If we were alone I would do it, and you would scream. Women like you like pain, each spin of the clock to be a rimless wheel.
I lift the coins from my pocket and pay the driver. They fall into his palm, disappear. I carry your bags, your glittering death.
I am strapped in, numbed from the long wait. I ask a hostess for water. There is dust in my mouth.
I will go home and stand in the rain, be polished by the tears of God. When the sun comes out I’ll watch the limpid hills, and wait for the fiery blast, the simoon.
You will never come.
You would not survive in my country with its mad, old war, and I would never survive in yours.
Red Button
My first client this morning arrives early, which irritates me. She’s already in the waiting room when I come in, which makes me hurry through the correspondence that usually occupies me for the first half hour or so. When finally I send through to reception for her, I feel as harassed as she seems to be, hurrying in on her sensible shoes, her navy skirt flapping around her thick calves.
‘I’ve never been to see anyone like you in my life,’ is her opening statement, before I even open my mouth. ‘I hope this will be entirely confidential.’
‘Of course,’ I assure her. ‘You don’t even have to use your real name.’
She nods her short-haired grey head.
‘But I should perhaps tell you that I do recognise you — your face is familiar.’ I have to think for a moment. ‘I’ve seenyour picture in the business section of the newspaper. And on television.’
‘Coral Bailey,’ she supplies. ‘I’m the CEO of Millennium Energy.’
‘Of course you are.’
She’d used her own name to book her appointment, but I hadn’t
It’s quiet where you are. Have you gone? Perhaps to buy coffee, perhaps to escape me. I can never predict what you will do next.
I open the door quickly and you turn from the window, my carryall in your hand.
‘I was looking for cigarettes.’
She hands them to me from her pocket.
‘I have given you some money,’ I tell her. ‘Enough to get out, enough to get home at the other end.’
She is staring at me, tapping her hairbrush against her thigh. She wants to ask me where I got it from.
‘It’s here.’ I touch the side pocket of the bag.
She turns away from me, picking up pins and combs from the table and twisting her hair in the English-lady way she has. There are too many ironies about her for me to take her seriously.
‘I’m hungry.’ She looks up at me from under those white eyelids.
‘They will feed you on the plane.’
‘I’m hungry now.’
‘Too bad.’ Now she’ll cry.
But I won’t. I will just pick up my bag and go through the door ahead of you. I won’t even look back to see of you are following me. Just this once I will trust you to be there.
The cab stinks. Someone has vomited here in the early hours of the morning. Someone drunk and despairing. The driver notices her quell a retch, and smirks.
I didn’t mean to give you more life than you already have. Sometimes among all the changes, running from city to city, I have almost felt sorry for you.
This is the last time we will ride together. You and I have done rather well. But you would thank me afterwards, if you could, for this solitary flight. For the release, the ticket to a quiet place.
People will look up between the buildings and see a knife flash in the sky, a red slash in the belly of God. That will be you.
Later on dusty streets I will think of you and wonder if it is you between my toes.
My brain is clogged with hormones that make me bovine. I can’t think clearly. Your face has a strange sheen to it, lilac through the brown, like the dark face of a stained-glass saint with the sun behind you.
Your neck has the feel of steamed fish, a delicate meat. I would like to bite it, but we are surrounded by sweating bodies in cars. If we were alone I would do it, and you would scream. Women like you like pain, each spin of the clock to be a rimless wheel.
I lift the coins from my pocket and pay the driver. They fall into his palm, disappear. I carry your bags, your glittering death.
I am strapped in, numbed from the long wait. I ask a hostess for water. There is dust in my mouth.
I will go home and stand in the rain, be polished by the tears of God. When the sun comes out I’ll watch the limpid hills, and wait for the fiery blast, the simoon.
You will never come.
You would not survive in my country with its mad, old war, and I would never survive in yours.
Red Button
My first client this morning arrives early, which irritates me. She’s already in the waiting room when I come in, which makes me hurry through the correspondence that usually occupies me for the first half hour or so. When finally I send through to reception for her, I feel as harassed as she seems to be, hurrying in on her sensible shoes, her navy skirt flapping around her thick calves.
‘I’ve never been to see anyone like you in my life,’ is her opening statement, before I even open my mouth. ‘I hope this will be entirely confidential.’
‘Of course,’ I assure her. ‘You don’t even have to use your real name.’
She nods her short-haired grey head.
‘But I should perhaps tell you that I do recognise you — your face is familiar.’ I have to think for a moment. ‘I’ve seenyour picture in the business section of the newspaper. And on television.’
‘Coral Bailey,’ she supplies. ‘I’m the CEO of Millennium Energy.’
‘Of course you are.’
She’d used her own name to book her appointment, but I hadn’t
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