I posted this in Lit SYW also. I have mixed feelings on whether I might cut it down or lengthen it. It doesn't feel set at this length. Any thoughts on length? Any other comments also will be entirely welcomed. Thank you.
She was already on the elevator when I returned home from the grocery story. It was Tuesday, almost perfectly mid-afternoon, maybe 2:45, the ideal dead zone for someone wanting to avoid all human contact. Yet there she was. She must have parked on the fourth level and some how I failed to notice her when I drove past up to my parking spot on five. I looked carefully. I always look.
The doctor had restricted me post-surgery to lifting five pounds, a restriction he hasn't yet come close to removing. He also said no driving. But I needed a few groceries and it's a damn inconvenience to wait until Saturday when William or Laura or one of the children can come take me. Plus I had nothing else to do. What would be the harm in picking up some fresh produce and some half and half, maybe a whole chicken for soup?
It felt very nice to be alone at the store. It felt like I'd been unexpectedly freed. It felt like I'd been cured of a medical condition I didn't know I had until after it was gone. As might be expected, I found myself in no hurry to leave. I pushed the cart through the aisles almost merrily, near filling it in the process.
It near exhausted me transporting my groceries from the car trunk to the elevator foyer. When the elevator doors parted, there she was. She stood just inside the door to my left, by the control panel. I needed to pause the elevator to load my groceries but she was in the way. Rather than step into her personal space I asked would she mind pushing the button for me? She smiled the smile one smiles while dropping an envelope into the passed collection basket at church, or when slipping a dollar into a bum's grimy hand. It is fully gracious but heavily detached. It is the poor you, poor poor you, smile, and it sets me off. But I didn't have time to be angry at her. I had my hands too full, literally, needing both to lift each bag and then grunting and groaning from the strain.
"Let me help you with those." No. Please don't help me, can't you see I've got it all under control. "Please?"
She stepped in front of me, grabbed the remaining four bags in one swoop and set them down beside the others. Then she turned and faced me square on, rolled up a sleeve on her blouse to show off a muscle she might've been working on an hour earlier at the gym. She smiled an almost laugh while exaggerating a body builder pose. She posed one way then another while the elevator door closed and the bell chimed. When done posing, she stepped closer towards me, cutting the elevator in half, or maybe a third, like a skilled boxer cuts a ring. She had cornered me, just like that.
She stood inches away, entirely in my space and it was jarring. What I noticed first was the wash of her breath across my neck. Her breathing was full and deep, came in rushes, like a soundless elegant bellow. There's no preparation for this sudden taste of her. Jesus. Her breath pouring across my neck, bending me over, pulling my face towards the source, compelling me to lean closer. When her breath reached my eyes I felt I might weep. But one needs oxygen to weep and it's at this point I realized I hadn't been breathing. I pictured myself as a stickman, a bent stickman with mouth agape.
I did not weep and I did not suffocate. Somehow I got air into my lungs without choking, while appearing, I think, almost normal. But there was nothing normal about this predicament: me, weakened almost to death, barely a cardboard box of a man; her, so spectacular as to defy description with an intelligent exuberance pushing against her person's every seam. It wasn't lost on me that we were like two opposite ends of a spectrum, two distant outliers.
We were two opposing forces confined to tight quarters. The battle had already been lost but I'd been slow to realize it, more focused on the shame of my inferior army. But the force of her insisted and so she pushed into me, all of me, even the dark places I will not visit alone. Like a plumber's snake, winding and winding, no telling what it will find. Her snake found words: blurted shabby words at the first, like how a dope gabs, the first thought into the pea brain gets spat out lest it be forgotten. As her breathing washed over me in encouragement, maybe salve, blurted shabby words fell away, replaced by banter. Words and words and more words fell over each other, like a goddamn race to see who can get the most words out. There came laughter and smiles, her hand warm upon my arm. No shutting us up while the lights on the control panel next to my head blink and blink.
She was already on the elevator when I returned home from the grocery story. It was Tuesday, almost perfectly mid-afternoon, maybe 2:45, the ideal dead zone for someone wanting to avoid all human contact. Yet there she was. She must have parked on the fourth level and some how I failed to notice her when I drove past up to my parking spot on five. I looked carefully. I always look.
The doctor had restricted me post-surgery to lifting five pounds, a restriction he hasn't yet come close to removing. He also said no driving. But I needed a few groceries and it's a damn inconvenience to wait until Saturday when William or Laura or one of the children can come take me. Plus I had nothing else to do. What would be the harm in picking up some fresh produce and some half and half, maybe a whole chicken for soup?
It felt very nice to be alone at the store. It felt like I'd been unexpectedly freed. It felt like I'd been cured of a medical condition I didn't know I had until after it was gone. As might be expected, I found myself in no hurry to leave. I pushed the cart through the aisles almost merrily, near filling it in the process.
It near exhausted me transporting my groceries from the car trunk to the elevator foyer. When the elevator doors parted, there she was. She stood just inside the door to my left, by the control panel. I needed to pause the elevator to load my groceries but she was in the way. Rather than step into her personal space I asked would she mind pushing the button for me? She smiled the smile one smiles while dropping an envelope into the passed collection basket at church, or when slipping a dollar into a bum's grimy hand. It is fully gracious but heavily detached. It is the poor you, poor poor you, smile, and it sets me off. But I didn't have time to be angry at her. I had my hands too full, literally, needing both to lift each bag and then grunting and groaning from the strain.
"Let me help you with those." No. Please don't help me, can't you see I've got it all under control. "Please?"
She stepped in front of me, grabbed the remaining four bags in one swoop and set them down beside the others. Then she turned and faced me square on, rolled up a sleeve on her blouse to show off a muscle she might've been working on an hour earlier at the gym. She smiled an almost laugh while exaggerating a body builder pose. She posed one way then another while the elevator door closed and the bell chimed. When done posing, she stepped closer towards me, cutting the elevator in half, or maybe a third, like a skilled boxer cuts a ring. She had cornered me, just like that.
She stood inches away, entirely in my space and it was jarring. What I noticed first was the wash of her breath across my neck. Her breathing was full and deep, came in rushes, like a soundless elegant bellow. There's no preparation for this sudden taste of her. Jesus. Her breath pouring across my neck, bending me over, pulling my face towards the source, compelling me to lean closer. When her breath reached my eyes I felt I might weep. But one needs oxygen to weep and it's at this point I realized I hadn't been breathing. I pictured myself as a stickman, a bent stickman with mouth agape.
I did not weep and I did not suffocate. Somehow I got air into my lungs without choking, while appearing, I think, almost normal. But there was nothing normal about this predicament: me, weakened almost to death, barely a cardboard box of a man; her, so spectacular as to defy description with an intelligent exuberance pushing against her person's every seam. It wasn't lost on me that we were like two opposite ends of a spectrum, two distant outliers.
We were two opposing forces confined to tight quarters. The battle had already been lost but I'd been slow to realize it, more focused on the shame of my inferior army. But the force of her insisted and so she pushed into me, all of me, even the dark places I will not visit alone. Like a plumber's snake, winding and winding, no telling what it will find. Her snake found words: blurted shabby words at the first, like how a dope gabs, the first thought into the pea brain gets spat out lest it be forgotten. As her breathing washed over me in encouragement, maybe salve, blurted shabby words fell away, replaced by banter. Words and words and more words fell over each other, like a goddamn race to see who can get the most words out. There came laughter and smiles, her hand warm upon my arm. No shutting us up while the lights on the control panel next to my head blink and blink.
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