This could be really, really good some day:
The movement of her hand was delayed by the needles in every inch. She wanted to feel those needles, let the prick of each drive deeper into her flesh, but with every move, they pulled out just one centimeter more. She cleared the glasses from the table and brought them to the sink. She looked out her kitchen window and saw nothing, or rather, saw only darkness. The water in the sink had been sitting for the duration of dinner, and was once hot. She left her hands on the glasses while she immersed them. Her hands in the water prickled.
He was watching her move the glasses off the table and wondered why she was moving so slowly. It was easy for him to be confused, and the smallest things set his brain into knots. Why did she decide to move so slowly? Even in the quietest of afternoons, he did things with purpose and with decisiveness. How could anyone decide to move slowly? Decisions should include forward thinking and transactions, not meditative, lethargic pauses. He longed to yank her hands from that lukewarm water, just to jolt her out of whatever coma she was in. What are you looking at, Heather? What is outside? I know you don’t see anything out there. I know it’s only darkness. Why do you insist on staring into darkness? It has to be that she has finished with him.
Her hands ran haphazardly across a steak knife in the water. Her eyes reached a lazy angle and stayed there. She could see a gradient in the darkness and let herself rest inside of it. Dark grey and light black. There really is so much out there, she decided. She pictured her garden, terra cotta pots of thin white flowers. Cobblestones. Rolling, uneven grass going into a valley of dark smog, smudging, coloring the sky. Her chair. This chair? The one beside the fence? No, the other chair. The wooden one. She could see the garden so easily in her relaxed eyes. She wondered what caused the gradient in front of her. It was probably the pillowcase hanging from the line, she declared to herself.
What is she looking at? What is it? I should say something, Harold declared. What are you looking at, Heather Marie? What is it? Tell me now, or I am going to rip your hands out of that water and make you tell me. His lips seemed paralyzed. Easy, so easy, she stands there. My rice is hard and nutty, and I do not want it in front of me, Heather. She’s ignoring me. She knows how much I want her to say something and she’s doing it to drive me insane.
“Harold, will you bring me your plate? I think I’ll wash them by hand.”
“Of course, dear.” He brought her his plate and lovingly pushed her hair from her shoulders, kissed her neck. She’s ignoring me, I know it.
Tomorrow, I’ll clean up that back grassy area. I’ll clean it up and make it look nice. Maybe Harold could put up that old hammock.
Heather, for the love of god, put that knife down. Come here to me, tell me what you’re thinking about. Please.
