WakingWaking It's kind of like the feeling when you wake from a nightmare and aren't sure where you are. You try to sort out what was true when you went to sleep so you can compare it to what you now believe is real. You try to recall where your pants are, as your adult mind tells your inner child that hiding under the blanket doesn't really help. All this before you remember she's gone. - - - P a r a l y s i s I think I can feel my toes. I think I'm wiggling them, but when I look, they remain still. I suppose that means the agonizing itch on the inside of my right foot isn't really there. I tell myself it doesn't itch, but that doesn't make it stop. - - - Saturday, 10 pm She had been dozing in front of the TV. What was that noise outside the window? Probably just the wind, maybe a branch tapped the glass. Maybe a moth heading toward the lights inside. Maybe something else . . . For seven minutes the old woman sits perfectly still, listening to herself breathing, before nodding off again. - - - 12 Minutes One Quarter = 12 minutes of Dry Time. While the red t-shirt tumbles clockwise and disappears into the rest of the clothes, he notices her out of the corner of his eye reading the paper. Tumble, she turns the page, glances at her dryer tumbling. Three minutes left—the red shirt reappears & tumbles & disappears again. She puts her folded newspaper on top of her folded clothes and disappears. She does not reappear. - - - Santa Monica He tries to pretend he's asleep as he wakes to her rustling across the room. A glimpse of her catches his eye—the curve of her back outlined by the early morning sun through the door as she slips quietly across the hall to the bathroom. When she returns, she's dressed and shakes his leg. He pretends to wake up and stumbles that same path to the shower. He couldn't remember why he had agreed to take her to the airport. "Come one, you gotta get me to the church on time," she says from the other room.  |
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