balanced two tubes of spermicide.
I want to understand the meaning she is building out of the detritus of our lives.
She is sitting on the porch again, in the Algonquin chair that I have thought makes her look like an old lady. She does not look old now; in fact, she looks younger today than she has in many years. It is I who am old; she has only grown old beside me, on account of me. But she has abandoned even that now and her eyes are as fresh as a teenager’s.
I would come home late and lie, and act fatigued from work and take a shower; later in bed, I would take you to assuage my guilt, or argue with you to disable my conscience
.
The day is cloudy, the air is close and almost adhesive. There are countless blackflies and mosquitoes, but she doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice. If I stand behind her like this, for long enough, will her silhouette offer up an answer?
“Bugs aren’t too much for you?” I ask, as I sit down in the Algonquin chair next to her. I hate these chairs. Why did we ever think they suited us and should adorn our porch? Why on earth do we have a porch? Why aren’t we on a hot hilltop looking out over a raging sea? How could a porch ever represent the life we are meant to be living?
I swat away a deer fly.
“Mmm?” she asks, looking over at me. She hasn’t heard or perhaps hasn’t understood. It’s not important.
“You’ve been clearing out, I see.”
She nods, and I’m happy I’ve remembered the right way to talk to her.
“Things you don’t need.”
She nods again.
“And things you will.”
Her third nod comes with a smile. We’ve both got the hang of this.
Kingfishers. Birds in the oak trees in front of the house titter and spring from one branch to the next and crows land in the corn field that edges the driveway. The world before us is flapping, gliding, and my head begins to spin.
“In the wintertime,” she says, and the one, two, three of her fingers accompanies the words. She has control of them. She stops and breathes deeply, “the sea is,” then three fingers on her other hand, “not so rocky,” more breathing, one, two, three, “nausea not dizzy,” she says. And something in this convinces me that she has heard my thoughts, knows what is going on inside me. I can never keep up with her.
She releases another deep breath, and with it: “This sea and the Baltic are different. I straddled the Baltic. It was summer. The crests of the waves were so high they knocked me over into the tiptoeing ships across the top like tiny pinafores—”
“Anna! Do you still love me?” I am shocked by myself. She looks over at me for a moment.
“Of course, yes,” she says, sounding puzzled. I see the fingers in her lap fly up in succession. One. Two. Three.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I want to take it back. I want to say instead, “What is love?” I want her to know about the tinny chiming in me that wants her to die, so that I no longer have to feel.
“There were crows out again,” she says, and this is real. True. She places her forefinger over her lips as she getsup from the chair and stands in front of me. She crouches down and is on her knees and reaching for my feet. She grabs my running shoe at the heel and is pulling it off. My right foot is now bare, and she reaches for the other shoe. She takes my left foot in her hand and starts to massage it, beginning at the heel, moving up through the arch and finally to the base of my big toe.
Her name was Christine. An ordinary name, an ordinary woman I saw at least three times a week and melted into like an extraordinary man would
.
As Anna massages my feet, I can see insects land on her neck, her arms. She doesn’t flinch or take her hands away to swat at them. I cannot move to help her, but it could be now, here, that I tell her about the three years that it carried on, that blondeness and that sheer, blunt access to the tiniest parts of myself accessible through my cock. And perhaps it will be this
I want to understand the meaning she is building out of the detritus of our lives.
She is sitting on the porch again, in the Algonquin chair that I have thought makes her look like an old lady. She does not look old now; in fact, she looks younger today than she has in many years. It is I who am old; she has only grown old beside me, on account of me. But she has abandoned even that now and her eyes are as fresh as a teenager’s.
I would come home late and lie, and act fatigued from work and take a shower; later in bed, I would take you to assuage my guilt, or argue with you to disable my conscience
.
The day is cloudy, the air is close and almost adhesive. There are countless blackflies and mosquitoes, but she doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice. If I stand behind her like this, for long enough, will her silhouette offer up an answer?
“Bugs aren’t too much for you?” I ask, as I sit down in the Algonquin chair next to her. I hate these chairs. Why did we ever think they suited us and should adorn our porch? Why on earth do we have a porch? Why aren’t we on a hot hilltop looking out over a raging sea? How could a porch ever represent the life we are meant to be living?
I swat away a deer fly.
“Mmm?” she asks, looking over at me. She hasn’t heard or perhaps hasn’t understood. It’s not important.
“You’ve been clearing out, I see.”
She nods, and I’m happy I’ve remembered the right way to talk to her.
“Things you don’t need.”
She nods again.
“And things you will.”
Her third nod comes with a smile. We’ve both got the hang of this.
Kingfishers. Birds in the oak trees in front of the house titter and spring from one branch to the next and crows land in the corn field that edges the driveway. The world before us is flapping, gliding, and my head begins to spin.
“In the wintertime,” she says, and the one, two, three of her fingers accompanies the words. She has control of them. She stops and breathes deeply, “the sea is,” then three fingers on her other hand, “not so rocky,” more breathing, one, two, three, “nausea not dizzy,” she says. And something in this convinces me that she has heard my thoughts, knows what is going on inside me. I can never keep up with her.
She releases another deep breath, and with it: “This sea and the Baltic are different. I straddled the Baltic. It was summer. The crests of the waves were so high they knocked me over into the tiptoeing ships across the top like tiny pinafores—”
“Anna! Do you still love me?” I am shocked by myself. She looks over at me for a moment.
“Of course, yes,” she says, sounding puzzled. I see the fingers in her lap fly up in succession. One. Two. Three.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I want to take it back. I want to say instead, “What is love?” I want her to know about the tinny chiming in me that wants her to die, so that I no longer have to feel.
“There were crows out again,” she says, and this is real. True. She places her forefinger over her lips as she getsup from the chair and stands in front of me. She crouches down and is on her knees and reaching for my feet. She grabs my running shoe at the heel and is pulling it off. My right foot is now bare, and she reaches for the other shoe. She takes my left foot in her hand and starts to massage it, beginning at the heel, moving up through the arch and finally to the base of my big toe.
Her name was Christine. An ordinary name, an ordinary woman I saw at least three times a week and melted into like an extraordinary man would
.
As Anna massages my feet, I can see insects land on her neck, her arms. She doesn’t flinch or take her hands away to swat at them. I cannot move to help her, but it could be now, here, that I tell her about the three years that it carried on, that blondeness and that sheer, blunt access to the tiniest parts of myself accessible through my cock. And perhaps it will be this
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