Spend a long time walking, your steps are you. The sound becomes your heartbeat, and every bit of it you know. If your steps stop, you stop. All of you stops. You lie awake days, wondering what is chunked from you. What cancer steals from you? In the thunder, in the quiet, you wonder why you finally stopped traveling after all these years but just can’t sleep.
Took me a while realize. I didn’t need steps anymore, but I hadn’t known they were gone. Do you follow that? Hadn’t known they were gone, so my mind couldn’t stop looking for them.
A woman drove thread through her spare pants by the edge of the lake. With her back against the edge of the bench seat and her bum planted in the shady sand, she sat half splayed, as if someone had tried to pose her cross-legged but had given up halfway through. Next to the sawbones, a little clown puppet also sat. Its face sported a beetle at the moment.
I suppose I’m saying, you need to know when things go. Minds aren’t smart. People can be, but their heads ain’t. Let something sit untouched, it’ll drive your head to tearing. Sometimes, you do tear.
She worked her reddened fingers through a knot in the thread, chasing it along the loop, picking at it until it was slick. There wasn’t much blood, but the sores did tend to weep when bothered. The last twist loosened enough to allow a lump through, and finally the tangle gave. A straight and unfettered line. Some said it was dangerous out here alone. Some said it was beautiful.
Around her shadows blew in the wind and sun streamed across the surface of the water. The leaves made fingertip tunes, barely audible. The roads said nothing at all.
Her boots were half buried, ready to gain purchase should she have to jump up—she found comfort in some tension. Nothing disturbed, here. The breeze cooled the summer sweat under her clothes as she sewed.
Many injuries long-accepted. Mind this. There’s danger in familiarity. Might be our worst addiction.
Drawing the thread under and over, watching each fingernail of cloth pucker in… the process became her heartbeat. The rip was hers, and she brought it back into order. It was what she knew.
And when she died, a part of her would wait for the separating of skin. A part of her would yearn for the pulling together again.
“However, of the two,” wrote the bled one, “Slink is the definite priority. Do what you can to see that she receives the help she needs. She also has a habit of finding trouble—be aware of this. Specifically her psychosis makes it difficult for her to see the restless dead as a threat.”
The watcher bobbed her head mutely.
Slink? she asked. Tell me about her. Her head was silent for a moment. A female voice, an old old memory, answered.
"...Slink. Retrograde, zipper keeping her cheek together. From Bravo. I... started teaching her a lesson that never got finished and now she's... getting herself into trouble."
She exhaled. Her gaze drifted downward. Her fingers straightened the repaired seam.
Consistent, this one. Smiles, called Frances Heel sometimes, called Frannie Waters once, whipped the stitch tight and bit the needle free. Curious. She’d like to study the Southern risk-taker and her headsick friend.
Or study with her, should she be her own. What did you learn, named one? Do you carry their sickness? Slink. I'll know you.
She leaned back, stretched, closed her eyes, and became aware. Every muscle buzzed with quiet anticipation for the screams which were her calling, but there was no sound. Really, even the buzzing had always been faint.
I suppose I mean, we pull together. We tear apart.
The little clown stared motionless, of course.
Her puppets didn’t move.
Took me a while realize. I didn’t need steps anymore, but I hadn’t known they were gone. Do you follow that? Hadn’t known they were gone, so my mind couldn’t stop looking for them.
A woman drove thread through her spare pants by the edge of the lake. With her back against the edge of the bench seat and her bum planted in the shady sand, she sat half splayed, as if someone had tried to pose her cross-legged but had given up halfway through. Next to the sawbones, a little clown puppet also sat. Its face sported a beetle at the moment.
I suppose I’m saying, you need to know when things go. Minds aren’t smart. People can be, but their heads ain’t. Let something sit untouched, it’ll drive your head to tearing. Sometimes, you do tear.
She worked her reddened fingers through a knot in the thread, chasing it along the loop, picking at it until it was slick. There wasn’t much blood, but the sores did tend to weep when bothered. The last twist loosened enough to allow a lump through, and finally the tangle gave. A straight and unfettered line. Some said it was dangerous out here alone. Some said it was beautiful.
Around her shadows blew in the wind and sun streamed across the surface of the water. The leaves made fingertip tunes, barely audible. The roads said nothing at all.
Her boots were half buried, ready to gain purchase should she have to jump up—she found comfort in some tension. Nothing disturbed, here. The breeze cooled the summer sweat under her clothes as she sewed.
Many injuries long-accepted. Mind this. There’s danger in familiarity. Might be our worst addiction.
Drawing the thread under and over, watching each fingernail of cloth pucker in… the process became her heartbeat. The rip was hers, and she brought it back into order. It was what she knew.
And when she died, a part of her would wait for the separating of skin. A part of her would yearn for the pulling together again.
“However, of the two,” wrote the bled one, “Slink is the definite priority. Do what you can to see that she receives the help she needs. She also has a habit of finding trouble—be aware of this. Specifically her psychosis makes it difficult for her to see the restless dead as a threat.”
The watcher bobbed her head mutely.
Slink? she asked. Tell me about her. Her head was silent for a moment. A female voice, an old old memory, answered.
"...Slink. Retrograde, zipper keeping her cheek together. From Bravo. I... started teaching her a lesson that never got finished and now she's... getting herself into trouble."
She exhaled. Her gaze drifted downward. Her fingers straightened the repaired seam.
Consistent, this one. Smiles, called Frances Heel sometimes, called Frannie Waters once, whipped the stitch tight and bit the needle free. Curious. She’d like to study the Southern risk-taker and her headsick friend.
Or study with her, should she be her own. What did you learn, named one? Do you carry their sickness? Slink. I'll know you.
She leaned back, stretched, closed her eyes, and became aware. Every muscle buzzed with quiet anticipation for the screams which were her calling, but there was no sound. Really, even the buzzing had always been faint.
I suppose I mean, we pull together. We tear apart.
The little clown stared motionless, of course.
Her puppets didn’t move.