Whatever
novelty there was to this new life had, at least within the hotel itself,
quickly waned. Still, an unaccountable desire to remain inconspicuous had
exceeded her curiosity, and awaiting that something as would precipitate
her life beyond these grounds she had created her own distractions to punctuate
the mundanity of her penned existence.
Until
this morning’s post had brought beneath her door a crisp airmail envelope and
its single folded foolscap content written with “Absolute liberty is to be endured.” and nothing more.
In
her comprehension of this unshackling the exerted gravity of the local streets
and their shops, museums, cafes and galleries has increased to the point of
making her feel dense and heavy and oddly compact as she sits, semi-naked, on
the edge of her bed.
The
brightness braying full in the open window renders near-white the room’s pale
cobalt wallpaper, and causes the torn into quarters postcard home to float upon
its own shadows. The hours after lunch she has already begun to fill with her
imagination.
For
now she is content in her anticipation, and in the welcome absence of exigent
money and the ceaseless chattering cogs who, having already turned down her
room are far along the corridor and barely audible.
She
tips her head the better to enable her ears their scan of the quarantine airmap
constructed around her body.
Eyes
closed, she tries to focus in on this zone of exclusion but finds her thoughts
continually returning to the postcard written yesterday and the coincident letter’s
arrival this morning.
A
high mosquito whine up front right, a tiny ignorant crescendo flying on into
trespass, a drop in pitch for change of vector, its co-ordinates confirmed, its
life she suddenly claps absolutely out of being.
It
is only in her crossing to the sink to wash the smut from her palms that the
single scratch across her abdomen again makes manifest its tender presence. The
waking up to blood beneath her nails and the arrival of the envelope.
She
returns to the bed and shuts her eyes tight to resume her audio-surveillance
for what she reckons will be the fourth time this morning.
ache1
(counting off against her fingers): Fly. Mosquito. Gnat. Gnat.
Fifth