/yesod

Tag: the dark girl

  • passing by

    upstairs bathroom - the last houseIn the upstairs bathroom, I stand and wait for my youngest daughter to finish.

    My back is to the door. Given my history, that’s uncommon.

    As I help her down off the toilet, I catch a glimpse of someone passing behind me — walking through the hallway just beyond the door. I assume it’s my teenage daughter coming out of her room to head downstairs.

    But the hair was too dark, too long. And she did not stop to say goodnight to her sister.

    And there was something cold in her manner.

    While my wife puts our toddler to bed, I go downstairs. My middle daughter is there on the couch.

    “Have you been down here this whole time?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

    “Yeah, why?”

    I shrug. “Just wondering” I reply . . . though I am not really wondering.

  • a sad girl

    …lying in bed this morning, I woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening.

    I hear my wife slowly close the door behind her. I hear her footsteps on the floorboards, approaching my side of the bed.

    I cannot move, cannot open my eyes.

    I feel a fingertip on my arm, just inside the hinge of my elbow.

    The footsteps move away. I struggle to rise, to grasp the her arm but my hand feels strange, tingling in the air where I reach for her, a moment’s resistance . . . then the woman pulls away and walks into a little alcove on the other side of the room.

    The woman is gone. It was not my wife. It was someone else, someone younger — her hair was longer, darker — and she had long scratches or cuts down her arms. And she was sad.

    I cannot confidently say whether or not this was a dream.