Thu, 19 May 2005

i want to do the thing i should not do
I could smell her before I saw her, a sour sick that bloomed every time she began to sweat. When she smiled she pulled her cracked lips tight enough that I saw the intimate pink of her gums. The neighbor kids who threw stones at her door and called her a witch now stood outside, trying to guess at shadows behind the curtains. I scared them off when I pulled up, but they could tell I wasn’t an adult and ran back as soon as I stepped into the house. She watched the screen and tried to explain the plot to me and I pretended to understand. She shook with each word. I am here to tell the others, later, that I was there for the last days, that I was able to do what they could not, so that they will remember me as close to her, a secret friend made public in wake conversations and hushed gossip. I am placing myself at a strategic moment so that I might be able to pretend I meant more to her, anything to her. All I have to do is keep showing up, I thought to myself while she ran the list of characters and their sins. I just need to put in a little more time.
(12:24.05.19.2005) [/scrytch] #