Naked, waiting, lying facedown on the bed with her head turned to one
side and her E.T. doll staring back from the pillow adjacent, the pressure on
her skull compels ache1 to acknowledge the steady internal
palpitation synchronised to her heartbeat, an underwater sound, a muted and
pounding doom doom doom, but which
peristent attention clarifies as a twin rhythm doomdoom doomdoom doomdoom
That this is the very engine of her existence forces her to listen on,
almost as if in expectation of hearing it cease, as if only her very listening
itself wills its continuance, like the petrified flyer who understands their
consciousness alone to sustain the aeroplane aloft in its flight.
doomdoom doomdoom doomdoom
Through this sustained focus she considers that inaudible heartbeat
passenger to her own, the tiny organ beating on beyond her hearing, an
accumulation of cells without actual weight, almost massless.
doomdoom doomdoom doomdoom
Finally she rises and takes herself through to the ensuite bathroom,
her reflection aglow in its fluorescence, the veins’ network visibly risen up
light blue amongst the pale flesh of her breasts.
ache1 (sighing): Jesus God my tits look like a fucking
roadmap.
She ignores the scars dying upon her belly, stares instead into the
reflection of her own eyes as if through them she might access those of
another.
ache1: Your name is deleted name...
suddenly spitting hard and fierce at the glass
ache1: ..and you are not Rumpelstiltksin.
her face dissolving now behind the spatter and slow drip denial of
maternal forfeit.
Telephone.
cog: I found it in her bathroom bin, the
packaging and eh, and the kit itself.
deleted name: And it was positive?
cog: Yes.
deleted name: You’re sure it was
positive?
cog: It was positive.
