Tense Shootout

The next (last) time she got scared was when he saw her seeing him. (He arrived home to find her not wearing the blindfold.)

Their eyes met.  There was no more room for any denials.  It was her boss, The Suit.  The tireless, insecure manager who had worked hard to drive her from her job.  He was finally in a situation where he felt complete control and and screwed it up again.

She had never seen anger in his eyes, never like this. Never seen a man go from a human to a furious animal.   She had been keeping a plan in the back of her mind,  some casual thing she would say to him.  Look him in the eye and offer a kiss.  Maybe it was his fury which reacted before her plan could click into action.  Maybe it was her primitive instinct of fear, of being a child caught at a game for grownups.   Maybe it was inevitable.

He lunged at her in a way that she only could remember later as defying gravity.  There was the big butcherblock table on wheels between them which should have protected her, but she had no memory of his going around it or pushing it out of the way.  She recalled this fact, even later, even in her darkness because she recalled thinking it was a silly last thought to have right before you are going to die.

“His fingers are on your windpipe, he’s pinning you down and holding you with the rest of his limbs and so somehow you are completely trapped and there is no use fighting because you can’t move anything.  And the butcherblock counter’s casters have not moved an inch.  How did you get in this position, unless he flew over the counter?”

Somehow, there was a struggle and one of you wiggled enough to drop the other to the floor.  Suddenly, you were wrestling, almost as you had wrestled before.  The strange beast with two backs, but now a different kind of beast.


Everything suddenly seemed real to you, nothing more real than the caster wheel right in front of your eye. And the dustbunny on the floor. He did have magic in him. A certain inhuman strength that you were never sure about. Your nose might be broken, the pain is real. It's your nose and your pain. As much as you wish it on someone else, it is YOU pinned to the floor.

The tile rushes to hit your head and you feel the cold, unforgiving whiteness of it. Your blood is slippery on it and you consider it a kindness done by the universe everytime it does not align with the pain between your eyes. There's a hand in your hair, repeatedly causing the pain against the tiles. The tiles are innocent, but the hand still causes all kinds of hurt; as it pulls away, some hairs pull with it. He gets up and off of you.

Mercifully, the woman wrapped in the sheet on the kitchen floor closes her eyes. And she does not see the blood pooling around her head on the white tiles.

==

Earlier that day, things had been quiet.  Except for the light on the side of the shed exploding. She hadn’t even known that he had a gun until hours after she heard it.  

She drank the coffee he had made for her, adding an extra spoon of sugar. The bit he always forgot.  Or if he remembered, it was never enough.  The view was the same as it had been for however many days she had been there.  The rain coated the leaves on the lilac bushes to render them shiny, like a new species she couldn’t quite place.  

 Both hands on her coffee, she could have been any woman looking out on the morning rain dripping into the green of the lush backyard. She had spent last night peeking out from behind her blinds, trying to see into the forest without the benefit of moonlight. Some nights, she had been able to make out an electronic light in the distance, maybe a streetlight? And last night, the rain had been forceful and then misty by turns, more lovely to contemplate than a movie.  

The most exciting event last night was The Deer.  Wind blowing the branches would activate the motion sensor periodically, a reverse act of lightning.  One second of blackness in ratio to 2 minutes of floodlight.  She noticed that the light was mounted on a tiny shed.  The very light which had given her a surprise nighttime view of an even more surprised deer.  Some kind of motion sensor, and the deer had walked into the path. She wondered absent-mindedly, if he had many problems with deer eating his wildflowers.

Somehow there was a pop and suddenly, the light exploded. It set a bunch of sparks into the air, something unnatural and slightly fascinating to watch. A form ran into the bushes.  Maybe it was a deer, like yesterday morning, or was that the day before?  Everything seemed to blend together.  But when she heard his car drive off, she noticed she hadn’t been paying attention this morning.  She had come downstairs BEFORE he had left, clumsy and out of habit, not careful, and could have run into him.  She kept an eye on the disturbed branches, still waving, maybe from the deer, maybe from the rain. The form she had seen had been all black, definately NOT the color of a deer. It might have been a two legged creature.

She froze in place, coffee mug to her lips, knuckles turning white as she began scaring herself. There was no movement in the forest. HIs car was gone. She had another 8 hours of quiet time in the house, all to herself. (SCENE: go online and hunt him down? figure out who he was? Go through the boxes in basement, figure out who he was? Get his old laptop working??)

A muffled pop in the distance, something she wouldn’t have noticed in Cambridge.  Central Square was full of noises and people, crazies and traffic.  Harvard Square was a series of surprises waiting for you around all the curved corners, a ghost or your history professor.  A shock in this sleepy sanctuary either way.  How quickly she found herself getting used to this life, after being fired.

But the explosion, and the pop she heard-was it a moment before-why wasn’t it at the same time?  No, the pop happened right before, like watching a movie with the soundtrack slightly out of sync.

His sportscar was not the type to backfire like a truck.

Why did the light explode?  Like it was hit by something.  Or maybe it was a random short circuit.  Maybe the “Electric Fence” he had warned her about finally electrocuted itself.  But what was that screech of tires. He seemed to speed off this time.  For work? A squeal of tires, was he just jumpy and jittery too?  Never trust a scared dog; you don’t know what they will do.

And then she heard the back door open.
==

Before she knew what she was doing, she was racing up the stairs.  In a flurry of white sheet and blindfold, she was in her Prisoner costume, working hard to control her heavy breathing.  Praying he hadn’t heard her thundering up the stairs.  Or if he had, he would be gentleman enough NOT to bring it up.  He was gentle with The Game, she was certain there had been a thousand sins she had been forgiven for.  

But maybe this was the moment he was going to give up The Game.

She heard him climbing up the stairs, slowly this time.  Maybe he had been testing out a gun on a deer.  He had missed, had hit the streetlight, had driven off, knowing her habit.  Knew that she took off the night mask, the blindfold. He was planning to catch her off guard.  The one Rule of The Game she couldn't laugh away. She couldn't SEE his face. Like Cupid & Psyche, like any other characters out of mythology. Vision equal to knowledge. Eating the fruit and seeing yourself for who you really are.

Seeing his face meant identifying him 100%. Not her brother.

He was almost at the top of the stairs, she could hear him.  He sounded stronger, bigger, heavier, angrier.  She imagined him with a gun.  Something small?  No, a rifle, something that might scrape against the wall.  Her heart was pounding.  She shifted her hands in the loose knot she had tied, wiping the sweat off her palms in the extra material of the sheet behind her.

He opened a door, something close to the top of the stairs. And then closed it.  What was he doing?  Was he getting another gun? Was he looking for her?  Mistrusting her, knowing that every morning she got off her chair.  Expecting her to hide in another room.  What a fool.  She should have hidden in a closet.  Or tried harder to escape. He tried the third door.  The other bedroom, the closet, the bathroom.  She heard him walk over to her room.

Even with the new pile on the carpet, she could hear the wooden floorboards groan slightly as he stood in the doorway.  He didn’t even turn on the light.

She tried hard to smile, making up for the weakness in her voice with extra cheerfulness.

“You came back!”  she heard herself squeak.  “I’m so glad!  My ankles are SO itchy.  Worse than yesterday, even.  Would you do me a favor and spread more of that cortisone cream on them?  Like you did last night?  I forgot to ask before you left today.  I’m SO glad you came back!”

She hoped that an onslaught of words would make him say something, preferably in his deep funny voice.  She longed to hear his laugh, that genuine sound that she had coaxed out of him.  Maybe just a day or two ago.  Even last night, there was certainly a chuckle.  She wondered why he had hesitated last night. If he had been planning to kill her, he at least had the decency not to rape her.  Even though he had plenty of chances.  And she certainly would have done anything to seduce him out of his violent tendencies.  Moments when she actually wanted to stroke him, love him, offer him whatever attention that he had been craving for so long.

Maybe now.  Why wasn’t he turning on the light?  Did he want to shoot her in the dark? Did he think it would be easier if he wasn’t looking at her?

“Please, if you just turn on the light, I’ll bet you left it on the nightstand or something. Come here, please, I’m so awfully itchy.  And you were so sweet when you brought me the cream.  I forgive you, I do.  You didn’t know there was poison ivy by the pond.  How could you know?”

He didn’t move.  It took far too long for him to decide.  And then, after she was holding her breath until it was painful, he moved.  And she exhaled.  She heard his hand moving along the wall, groping, sweeping for the light switch. It flicked on; she saw it through the sleeping mask.  

At least he was honest enough to shoot her with the lights on.

==

The Girl was hiding in the bushes, terrified to reveal herself.  No idea where The Brother was, he’d run off completely for all she knew.  The only thing she knew for certain was that the Suit had a gun.  And that he had driven off down the driveway, turned onto the road and then pulled over.   (Maybe when he saw HER car.  That car that he had last seen with the towel on the windshield) He was walking back through the woods, looking for her, looking for them.  Scooby Doo’s “If it weren’t for you Meddling Kids” ran through her mind, mocking her in the voice of a cartoon character.  She was crouched down in a bush, peering out, for once glad for her hand-me-down camouflage jacket.  She knew enough to watch her prey.  And if one has to choose between watching the crazy man you’ve just sprung from the loony bin and the man with the gun, she was always going to choose the guy with the gun.

The only thing she knew about tracking was to make sure that the prey didn’t know you were following them.  She let him get far ahead of her, he was walking back towards the house.  “Never let the fire get between you and the door.”  She saw him advance on the house, the leading edge of danger.  She could get in the car right now.  Or get in his car.  Or drive both cars away so he couldn’t kidnap anyone anywhere else.  Or escape.  They needed some means of escape.  Or she could escape, let the firefight play itself out.   Her Brother had probably gone in the house.  She had told him about the electric fence, right? No, she had mentioned the barrier, but wasn’t specific.  She wasn’t 100% sure herself.  She needed to catch them, to witness.  To hang back, if needed.

He was picking his way through the undergrowth and branches himself, careful not to stay on the trail back to the house.  

==

(And then she heard another shot./

(And then the upstairs light turned on, making the windows glow through the pulled shades like a halloween lantern.

She heard another shot.  Right through the bedroom window, shattering the glass.

==

He crossed the room, coming closer to her, slower than before.  Walking slowly, she shivered with every step.

Something rattled off to her left, and then he got down close to her, crouching or o his knees.  When he touched the back of her calf, her muscles were so tense that she nearly kicked him.  

Shower

She stood in the shower gasping with relief.  The itching had been very bad, but everything released for her the moment the water began hitting the worst spots on her legs.  She stood, taking it all in, allowing the fingers of heat to invade her, to massage her, to crawl beneath and get to those places under the surface of her skin that her own fingers couldn’t reach.

She could feel herself pulling towards the heat, pulling, pulling, almost euphoric and hallucinating from the experience.  It was the closest thing to perfect, or to making love to the water.  The most delicious piece was that there was never a perfect plateau of relief. It was always just almost there, like her grandmother's chicken soup, which always wanted you to put in more lemon-just a little bit more, a little bit more. And then too much. That's what it was like with this heat, a little bit hotter, a little bit hotter, and then it seemed she was being burned.

This was better than making love, the violent kind, when all you want to do is devour the other person, to destroy the boundaries dividing your soul from his.  To pull and taste and nibble, to hold closer, closer, tighter, tighter.  To hold still and bounce off each other frantically.  All the contradictory, animal, reptilian brain instincts which pull you up the mountain towards the release.

She would hold her leg up, to get it closer, no-further, no-up, STAY-move, back and forth.  She couldn’t even direct her own movements.  Her skin was responding for her. She was all instinct, no thought and she happily gave into it.

Standing in the shower, the Poison Ivy at its worst, her future was narrowed.  Instead of the years and months and weeks ahead of her, or any impending doom which might destroy her normal life expectancy, she felt only The Next Thing.  None of which led to complete release.  Go back to the armpit.  The Poison Ivy Rash had spread to other spots on her body.  Maybe it was the sheet she had been wrapped up in. Maybe it had some oils from the leaves still on it.  Betrayal of her one true friend.

Or maybe it was something larger.  Not just a poison ivy issue, maybe it had triggered another type of response in her body.  Maybe she needed a doctor.

She was confident that flirting would continue the game, but was rather unsure if it would end with a trip to the doctor.  Funny how something tiny, like an annoying errand you would do for your child might be the thing that causes a man to dig a grave in his backyard.  She might have reached the tipping point of being too much trouble.  Even if he asked nicely, how could she convince him that she wouldn’t press charges?

Back to the shower, she thought.  Back to the moment to moment relief.  Back to having the physical freedom to shower herself.  As often as she wants.  With or without the blindfold.  She forgot, she still had it on.

Somehow she couldn't understand why she stopped taking it off when she didn't have to wear it.

Poison Ivy

She didn’t get scared until she realized she was in the trunk of his car.   

She had pretended to be more dead than alive when he pulled her out of the water. He threw her over his shoulder after trying to revive her.

It's tough to know what to do with a wet, naked and nearly drowned woman.

The blood rushing to her head and the fake/real hyperventilating might have added to her grogginess. She lost the coin toss during that crucial moment when he was trying to decide between the back seat and the trunk.

The trunk is for corpses, she thought, nearly ready to pass out again.

That thought kept her lucid until he parked. And then she heard him slam his car door. He walked away. Every second he didn't return made her wonder about the finite supply of oxygen molecules at her disposal. When he did return and opened the trunk, she nearly cried tears of joy. No matter what he did to her from that moment forward, he didn't eave her for dead in his trunk.

That was the moment she decided to accept anything and everything he did to her. If she needed to be his sacrifice, she'd accept the martyrdom. Hopefully, it wouldn't involve too much pain. She'd even go back to her dating strategy: When things get dull or awkward: FORCE A SMILE. Make him think he's fun and fascinating. And that you are his favorite movie ever. All the Love she had been holding for him all these years should be able to overcome his meanest moods, she heard herself thinking optimistically.

She covered her eyes at the sudden brightness of the day.

"Here," he said, "Put this on, keep your eyes covered," he tried not to touch her as he gently tied some kind of cloth around her head. Later, when she took it off, she'd see it was a standard red handkerchief, straight out of Central Casting.

"Don't ever take it off," he said in a voice that was artificially low.

"I won't. I promise," she said, trying to curl into a modest pose, at least as demure as one could be when positioned naked in someone's trunk.

"Here, put this on," again, his words were redundant as he covered her in what felt like a sheet. It was much too much fabric and nearly made her trip as she got out of the car. In any other situation, she would have gladly made a joke, asking him to close his eyes, or would have just climbed out naked. Especially since he had just seen her, but this seemed to be his choice in the matter.

He walked her into a house and then up a series of carpeted stairs and then led her into a room. She was worried he'd put her on a bed and beat/rape/murder her then and there. With the blindfold, she had no sense of a warning shadow of him raising a hand to her to knock her out. She trusted him, but was terrified. Or rather, she trusted him on the computer. But this man next to her was a stranger. Someone she hadn't seen for 20 years.

He kept talking in that low voice, encouraging her up the stairs. It was like something you'd out on when reading a bedtime story. When reading the part of the evil villain. But he was being sweet to her, guiding her gently by the elbow, even catching her as she started to trip on the sheet and one of the stairs. She fell into him, partly on purpose, to see what he felt like. He felt tall and strong, the way she remembered him.

"I remember hugging you when we were kids, " she blurted out. "Hugging you was like hugging a building," Whenever she had told him that as teenagers, he'd laugh. It was a secret code for them.

He didn't respond. Except to say, "I'm glad you remember hugging me. That was a long time ago,"

She decided not to push.

When he led her finally to a chair, it was a deep and comfy Lazy Boy recliner. He carefully arranged the sheets, making sure she was sitting on some and that there was enough to cross her on either side to tie a knot together. To keep her in a cocoon, tied to the chair.

"Comfy?" he asked. "Let me get you some soup,"

She heard his footsteps go down the hall, the muffled sound of human on deep carpeting. It smelled new. The house must be new. He was being so sweet to her.

Well, she had waited 20 years for this moment. She could wait until the soup was ready.


==

A few minutes later, however, she began to realize that she was in the worst jam of her life.

Her feet were beginning to itch. They weren't bound, and it took her several minutes of calming down from the overall panic to realize that her feet had been alternating in the scratching dance. Her toenails were not long enough to do any good. Maybe it was bugbites.

He was downstairs, it seemed; she could hear him talking on the phone.  His ringer had the same sound as her Blackberry, she flinched instinctively the first time she heard it.  Somehow, she was slightly relieved to think that she had left it in her car.  Bad: she couldn’t call.  Good: she had a really great excuse for not delivering that set of recommendations on that project.  That branch was quickly sinking anyway, it could easily self-implode without the band-aids she was being paid to offer.

Band aids.  Cream.  Good god, what if it is Poison Ivy. What was that stuff called?  Iva-Rest?  She could picture it.  A white bottle in the back of her bathroom mirror cabinet.  What did he have? Would he let her raid his medicine chest? When could she ask? Stop thinking about it. Stop scratching!!

The blindfold didn’t bother her too much.  She wasn’t gagged, and was very happy about that.  Her list of Positives and Negatives was growing.

The sheet kept her warm.  But what she really craved was a bath.  Preferably in oatmeal water.  Anything to stop this itch.

Both feet were free, and she’d use one to scratch the other and then switch, even when she was trying not to. Not what she should do, not what a Good Girl would do, but then, he’d know her limits.  He’d know that when she said “Banana”, that she wanted a Time Out.  Maybe she could worm one hand out from under the sheet.  Of course he loved her, the sheet was tied in a squareknot and she had plenty of room to wiggle herself free.  She just had to be careful and not let him know, not just yet anyways.

He seemed nervous. When he came up the stairs, she could hear the spoon rattling on the plate.  This was not something he had planned for.  He had never been any good at planning.  Organizing, she would always have to help him out.  As long as she played along, used Stockholm Syndrome psychiatry on him, he’d be sweet and gentle with her.

“Hi."

“Hi."  She smiled. His letter. He's quoting his letter. It's the only word that comes out easily for him.

"That soup smells really good. Is it Tomato?"
"You guessed it. Straight from the can to the microwave,"
"The way all the best cooks do it,"
"Here, can I help you . . ."

He fed her, silently. Tenderly. She complimented him some more, tried to make some small talk, but he went quiet on her again.

Finally, he said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m a little uncomfortable, but it’s not AWFUL”

“Good.  I’m glad to hear that.  I, um… I have to leave for a couple hours.  When I come back, you better be exactly the way I left you, you hear?”

“Certainly.  I’ll be good.  I promise!”  She said in what she hoped was her sexiest little kid voice.

He took the dish and the smell of the soup away. Closed the door behind him.

And then another one, further off, closed, taking all the air out of the house in a single breath.  Maybe that was the front door.  She waited a few more minutes, itching, first with both feet, then with one of her hands.  Then, she heard a car start up and drive off.  Not sure if it was his, she slipped both hands out of the tie in back and began digging into the skin at her ankles with both hands, cursing the fact that her fingernails weren’t longer.  She only took off the blindfold to take a look at the damage to her skin.

Her eyes quickly got used to the darkness of the room, which had edges of light at the windows and under the door.  She was careful to leave the blindfold right on the seat and the sheet hung over one side of the chair, in case she needed to slip everything on quickly.

She tried the door very slowly and to her surprise, the doorknob turned.  It wasn’t even the type of door that had a lock.  Imagine that!  How careless of him!  Either that, or he was just a rotten kidnapper.  A noise came from downstairs and she instinctively slunk back into the shadows.  Realizing it was closer to a house-settling sound than a henchman’s rifle, she walked into the hallway.

She was on the second floor.  The house was permeated with that New Carpet smell and she was pretty certain that her barefeet were the first to grace his new blonde wall to walls.  For a moment, she had an instinct to wash her feet, still sandy from the water. But being naked, and practically kidnapped, she decided to let it slide.

 Peering out the windows, she didn’t see another house, only trees. At least this meant that another house couldn’t see her.

Her voice called out but nothing came back to her except dead air.  

It couldn’t be this simple.

Looking around, she noticed a strange thing. There wasn’t any furniture.  The balcony she was standing on looked out over a Living Room Area.   A few skylights added to the illusion of space and gave the room much more light.  She opened a few doors and found one room with a bed in it, the covers unmade and disheveled, like a stubborn teenager had slept there.  In the attached bathroom, she found a shaving kit, toothbrush and toothpaste, but not much else.  One bar of soap.  The unremarkable bathroom opened onto another surprise, a generously sized bathtub with built-in jets.  Like the one their parents had had when they were kids; a poor man’s hot tub.

Before she even began thinking about her plan, she flipped the hot water on.  She ran it over her ankles and let the force of the faucet relieve her skin.  For a minute or two, it was absolute heaven. Something about the heat activated the nerve endings in her skin.  She sat on the edge of the tub, lost in this thought.  Allowing the sheer pleasure of an itch, properly scratched, to come through her body.  But somehow the water wasn’t enough.  Couldn’t go deep enough.  She was hoping for that release, just beyond this sensation, like an orgasm that is just out of your reach.  The itch and the relief from it ebbed away and she opened her eyes again.  

There was only a hand towel, dirty with streaks of mud (she hoped) on the floor.  Nothing else to dry off on.  The plug to the drain was secured with the same type of chain that they used at the bank to keep pens from being stolen; she unwound it from the faucet and let the water keep running so she could have a proper bath.

She had no idea how long he’d be gone and wanted to spend her time in the house usefully.  

Going down the stairs, she tried to call out a few more times, but there was no answer.  Now she noticed a few cardboard boxes, one that said “Office” in black permanent letters, on its side in the front hallway.  There was a laptop plug with one end resting on the box and the other still plugged into the wall, but no laptop.  He’d probably taken it with him.

The driveway was visible from the glass frame around the front door and a few of the side windows as well.  Trees set the house off from the road, which she could not see.  Nobody around to hear you scream, she thought.  Trapped in a bad horror movie, she thought.

Walking into the kitchen she did find a few things to eat, just now realizing that she was still hungry. Fear was always a great appetite stimulant and now she realized she might have to hoard some food as well.  A loaf of store brand bread (which she stole two slices from, careful to tie the red wire twistie back just as it had been).  A large jar of peanut butter in the refrigerator was waiting for her.  She took it out and began to attack it with a large spoon.  Not liking her peanut butter cold and solidified, she opened a cupboard and hid it in there.  Maybe she’d take it up to her room with her.  If she was going to play the part of a hostage, she’d better be careful to manage her stock better.  She took it out and left it on the counter, where she’d remember it.  Squirrels would be proud of her, she thought.The kitchen had few supplies, but she found what she needed.  Several packets of instant oatmeal, apple and cinnamon flavored.  Now I’m just in a surreal comedy.  He’ll come back to discover I’ve drowned myself in oatmeal.  Or turned myself into a giant vat of oatmeal.  Maybe the movie of my life will be porn, nothing but a naked woman and a tub of watery oatmeal .

She headed upstairs to drown her sorrows in peanut butter and watery oatmeal until she could think of something better.

The only thing she knew was that he wanted her to escape.

And that she didn’t want to.

1407 words

Figure Running By the Side of the Road

She saw herself in the third person  There's a being called Me, there's one called You (who ever's watching) and then there is that Woman Who Is Being Watched, she thought.  The one whose eye is twitching from too much caffeine this morning. I wonder if anyone else notices?

She saw herself in a film.  A new type of digital commercial.  The same person, the same pose, superimposed on lots of different backgrounds.  She maintains eye contact with the camera as the scene changes behind her.  Mountains.  Work.  Bedroom. Crowd of commuters.  Water.  Only her clothes change.

She introduced herself as "Brooke".  She liked the sound of it, liked the idea of rumbling along with a current.  It bore little relationship to her real name.  The people at work knew it, of course, but she kept introducing herself as someone with a different name.  Even her business cards had her nickname.  She liked that.

Her landlord was a nice woman, invited her in for a glass of wine.  A teacher at the nearby college, Biology.  She seemed accomplished, and maybe a tad lonely-or at least the kind who was open to becoming friends.  But after having lived in the detached garage across the yard, the loneliness was just a mask for the idea of vulnerability.  A fishing lure for someone just ilke her.  Come in, I need a friend.  But then it quickly flipped to, come in, I need someone to monologue in front of.  I need an audience.

For the most part, it was fine.  The home lectures were fun and educational.  It was when all the attention was clearly focused one way that she knew there was a problem.  She tried offering her own perspective or experiences, but if her comments lasted longer than 2 sentences, there was a clear and audible shift.  Suddenly the bright professor became bored, looked away, moved position in her chair.  She'd begin to clear up some mess, "I'm listening, really".  The bonding moments came farther and fewer between.  Pretty soon, she heard herself getting smaller and smaller, until she was just as quiet a the little girl sitting across from her at the dinner table.  The woman's daughter.  She doesn't come into the story until much later, because she is so seldom seen.  But the girl has an excellent eye for detail which will come in handy much later on.

They would make faces across the dinner table.  When Dona accompanies her own conversation into the kitchen, the two were left alone.

"How old are you?"

"15.  How old are you?"

"38. Do you have a boyfriend? Do you like school? Do you like Botany?"

"I like going into the woods with my mother.  I especially like going without her."  

"Do you know the paths around here?  Could you teach me?"

"Sure!  I even know how to get to Walden, but there's a road or two you have to cross."

She had been afraid to go into woods by herself (without her brother). She was aware of all the terrible things which happened in forests.  On the news, images of Depression era hitmen, mafia or gangsters, taking their begging victims out to be shot.  Imagined the bears and deer and wolves all hunted and haunted; their ghosts all around her.  Nature hunting itself, death, decay, pain all around.

But the more she walked around, the more it reminded her of beauty.  When she was young, her and her brother and how they would explore in the woods behind their house.  All the stories he had about all the things he wanted to do.  She saw it all in his eyes.  (Slightly retarded, mentally simple, not repulsive looking or identifiably Down Syndrome)

Eden. And how it felt to be cast out of Eden.  Into a world much more complicated.

How she had held tight to him before he left.  One night.  Swimming.

She went for walks in the woods with the little girl, knowing how funny it would look in this day and age, for an adult to be alone with a kid.  Ripe for abuse, the papers would say.  The child was innocent (as she had been), and she wanted to show her beauty, independent of her mom.  The old ladies would cluck their tongues, a woman leading a girl. It was all innocent, it always was.  But she carried a feeling of dread. If she slipped and broke her ankle, the girl would have to run for help.  But if the girl hurt herself, everyone would assume she was guilty.  

(Logical conclusion same as Suit with sputtering Woman)

If she hit her head, would she have to kill her, like in the movies? What if she was being belligerent, thought they were play fighting, what if she came to consciousness angry at her, frightened or feeling endangered?  

The guilt of society crept up on her and all she wanted to do.  Small town talk.  What if her life could be about breaking boundaries?  What if she could walk in the forest without anxieties? (Following behind her like a doomed bird, a turkey vulture?  Noticeable for its size and the rocking motion as it flies)

The application said: Fill out the past 5 companies or the past ten years, whichever is more appropriate, accurate to the month.  They want me to account for the past ten years, she thought.  I can't even account for yesterday.

Seeking advice.  Intellectually, I know it is a type of Due Dilligance, ask the people around you.  But deeply, I see ANY kind of reliance on another person as a sign of emotional weakness.  I intend not to get married, particlally because so many couples I see RELY on each other for EVERYTHING.  I can't be all things to all people, nor would I expect it of someone.  I hate when people tell me about their day. Anything longer than 10 minutes gets me antsy, longer than 20 minutes and my whole mood is ruined.  I can call people, if I;m in the mood, although I would always rather NOT.  If I sense they are about to call me, I do it to avoid them being in control

She listened as Dona continued her lecture on "How to Live Alone and Like It" or "How to Be a Cold Person", she wasn't sure which lesson they had graduated to. It all sounded like a horrid philosophy..

"Always be the first to say goodbye. On the phone or in person. Leave them wanting more"

==

RUNNING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

There was a vague memory she had, of her Confirmation.  Of being a kid, on the verge of adult rituals, yet another signal from adult society ("You'll soon be one of us"-in the zombie fashion)

Everything being perfectly pristine, cleaning the house for hours, so it will be perfect. Her white dress, like an insight into what she would look like as a bride. So white you didn't want to breathe on it.

And then he did something.  He got upset because someone didn't understand him.  But she did, she always did.  Even when he hurt her, 3 years old, she came in, bleeding but not crying.  

("Everyone got mad at me except my sister")

He didn't mean to do it.

He had gotten angry and then someone yelled at him and he yelled back.

He was told to go to his room.  She had to stay in the Living Room and "entertain her guests".  But she saw the car pull up.  Heard him screaming.  She ran outside, grownup arms pulling at her.  Saw the car go up the drive and turn.  Their house was surrounded by wetlands where they would catch frogs.  She cut through, still seeing the car.  Running through the grey day.  It was very early spring and the trees were all wet black dead logs propped up into the sky.  Last Fall's leaves were reclaimed by the mud and she slipped and fell in them, trying to pick herself up and keep upright in the chase for the car.  She was a child, a dog, an animal, something wild who needed to catch her prey.  She could feel the car's metal under her hands as she ran.  How she would tear it open, break the glass, steal his body from the metal cage of the backseat.  

It wasn't her parents' car, it was the LONG car of the Center. the place that had taken him away before.  

The last time, he had come back, but it took days before he'd even let her in to his room.  And even then, he'd just sit and rock.

So she swam through the underbrush, branches tearing at her clothes, mud ruining her dress. She was crying, but she needed him like she needed air.

She saw his eyes meet hers.  His desperation.  They'd kill him this time for sure.  He had his hands pressed white to the glass.  The car had stopped at a light.  Just as she got to it, the metal flew away from her.

She kept running until they found her.  Bleeding, crying, a hurt animal in the woods.