Counting down.
When she knew beyond doubt, when there was no
question whatsoever that what was happening to her was really happening, ache1
before she became ache1 found herself sitting on her bed head in
hands, feeling the outline of skull within the clutch of fingers surveying that
geography of bone beneath her short hair.
One possible solution as occurs is to with both
hands wrench her head forcibly from off its neck and, if still retaining
consciousness so to do, throw the grisly marble hard as she might at the
bedroom wall, actively forfeiting what remained of sentience before it was
otherwise lost.
Her E.T. doll, at whose squashy flat feet she is
still allocating blame and whose head on inspection proves to be nothing more
than three panels stitched together and stuffed, might prove that much more
practical a victim, the seam encircling his neck the most obvious point of
severance.
Her fingers mash on at her scalp, as if in so doing
they might stimulate her brain to some successful outcome, that or dig through
to destroy the source of thought itself, the while over and again asking
herself just how this could have happened and the while too, absent actual
memories, acknowledging just exactly how.
And her family, her friends, school, and whatever
he’d said his name was, if indeed he even had.
ache1 before she became ache1:
Just this once, and fucking pregnant. Fucking pregnant?
The only thing she can think of now is her diaries,
offering as sacrifice this accumulant past to bargain for her life as is, or
will be, against, regardless of outcome, her body’s one inevitable, and inescapable
prospect.
