Standing beside the car with her school satchel looped across one hand,
her body continues to prop open the door uncomfortably on past that time of its
expected closing, speaking down across the recently vacated seat to the vehicle’s
driver and counting off those minutes remaining before the appointment
scheduled her.
ache1 before she became ache1 (speaking as if
only to justify the still unclosed door, too perhaps as if in giving them voice
she might fix some memories from the pages of those diaries burnt in
preparation of exactly this): One time when, we went on holiday to Scotland,
my, my ahm my dad’s from Scotland and we went there when I was... pretty young,
and we stayed over with
swallowing, coughing a little, she sets her bag down on the road
between her feet and taps herself on the chest as if to dislodge something, her
every movement agitating a nimbus of the smell of smoke from out her school
clothes, so potent as to be almost visible,
ache1 before she became ache1: We stayed over
with frie- it wasn’t relatives, it was some friends of my dad and they lived in
this apartment next to an old church which ah, the church was ah, it was long
ah ah, derelict. And my sister and I had to sleep in their daughter’s room, she
was, she wasn’t there, but it joined, the wall joined ahm the church wall
patting palm to fist in illustration. From what she can determine of
the dashboard’s digital readout she understands she is right this minute now
missing History.
ache1 before she became ache1: and we could hear
this noise.
She continues to speak as, bending against the resistance in her
uniform skirt, she works to retrieve the subway token back from the
impossibility of her bag, with eventual success.
ache1 before she became ache1: The the, the guy
had told us that sometimes animals or, or birds would somehow get into the
space between the two buildings, and they’d, they wouldn’t be able to get out
again. They’d try, either they were,
they were injured or, or they would get
injured in getting in, or they were just exhausted or something, starving probably, eventually, and they
would,
squeezing at the tiny silver coin until it comes a bright disc of heat
vibrating inside her fist.
ache1 before she became ache1: they would make
that effort all the way until they couldn’t.
Having had to lean across to see her face, and with the accumulant
pressure of his full weight borne upon that one hip, deleted name winces as she
continues to speak, then momentarily rights himself, looking impatiently up and
back along the adjacent pavement.
Her voice descends upon him in its waves, and he tilts himself again
into its hearing.
ache1 before she became ache1: And my sister and
I lay there listening to this noi-, we had no idea what it was, it didn’t sound like a bird because you would, you
know, you would expect there to be a flapping sound, unless I suppose its wings
were so badly damaged, and we would hear these noises, occasionally absolutely
frantic, and then dying down, and then maybe a little less... And we lay there
listening to this thing as it basically... well, died, I guess.
Sensing her having finished, deleted name again straightens up, the
more evenly to re-distribute his weight. It is not possible to determine
whether these words he speaks are for her, though even with the door still open
they are perhaps more likely for himself.
deleted name: Dying,
sighs
deleted name: and I’m, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already
know here I’m plenty more than sure,
but dying can, and sometimes maybe even ought
to be, an act of will. But not dying?
That... is an altogether different matter.
She steps aside, the smell of smoke her moving shadow, as he leans
across again, this time reaching to close the car door.
deleted name: “Be good."
the sound of its closing to rob him of her parting words, and these the
last she will ever say in in his actual presence,
ache1 before she became ache1: “Said Elvis.”
