Her
room is only just emptied of him, his departure recent enough for her to
continue tasting him from out his own absence, and with nothing else to
abstract it from its being heard, his goodbye
Skunk: It’s only a little while until
I’ll be back here with you.
still
vibrates upon the air so intensely as to remain somehow audible.
With
her time so close now, he has moved in to her room at the hotel, returning even
every lunchtime, wanting her subject to as little of this on her own as those
constraints imposed upon him by his employment will allow.
Permitted
only minimal movement in the bed, supported as she is with her various pillows,
she makes every effort to indulge that comfort in which she on infrequent
occasion finds herself.
In
such state of relative relaxation, she can still ascertain that minute nipping
in the skin where she had just yesterday cut herself, removing what she could
of her pubic hair in readiness for what she knows cannot now be so far away.
The
sudden pain when it arrives is excruciating, yet rather than accelerate as might
be expected, she imagines her heartbeat to slow down, as if by so doing it will
itself somehow bring her state to one of reduced panic, her own body providing itself
the logistics that will afford her whatever is required to fulfil it her
obligation.
Between
every heartbeat she comes to understand she has time enough to comprehend each
as an individual entity, discerning the texture, the actual grain of each as a
thing in itself, before the next would occur, and in such announce how it
differed from that previous, and its subsequent.
ache1:
Jesus
wincing,
each word taking too much effort to speak,
ache1:
Jesus. I need you to let go of that boy a moment and listen to me. Jesus listen to me.
Catching
at her breath she is prompted to childhood memories of sea-swimming, each
incoming wave buoying her weightless length in its parabola of cold saltwater, her
tiny self vulnerable to such incessant mass, its rise and fall, rise and fall, and
here again and now each wave intense enough to erase that number of seconds she
might have been able to count off from its previous, each equally defiant in
its occurrence of any attempt at its counting through, and frustrated at her
body thwarting its own ability to double up into itself and thereby lessen the
impact of each renewed assault.
In
the very next respite she forces herself up into a sitting position, bringing
to within her reach the telephone.
ache1
(to receptionist): I think I’m having the fucking baby.
and
again
ache1:
I’m having the fucking baby.
the
ambulance on its way even before she can bear to lie back down, and unaware throughout
she will never again hear his voice, see his face, kiss his mouth goodbye, or
taste again his absence in its echo.
