Monday, July 6, 2009

flashback

The man leaves his girlfriend for a moment and walks down the aisle to a crouched figure. He says something inaudible under the rumble of the bus. He grins, a bit uneasily, clutching his cup in one hand, then shrugs a bit and moves back to his seat. Everyone is stealing a glance at this figure, this woman whose head is bowed low, she may not be able to stand up straight and she almost fools us, until we reach Lowry Avenue and slowly, slowly, she raises her head, and it is bits of shock, one right after the other--the red streak down her forehead past her eyes--the splatter on her shirt--the crusted trembling lips--the gash, a gash, the back of her head, bleeding, and pooling, and staring right at me that gash--and as the bus slows to a stop she makes for the back door, she's weaving, she's halting, and there's a cry goes up, Hey, HEY, HEY--and we rush to stop her, but she's already fallen, and in a moment I am beside her, and I'm forgetting everything I learned at the clinic, and the driver is yelling and someone is laughing "She drunk!" and she is not even there, and I am not even there, I am somewhere else, the bus roars off and I am sitting next to her, and she is not here and I am not here I am somewhere else, this terror, this terror I know like I know my lungs, like my clenched fist, like the blood I smell in the air.

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