Tag: woman

  • 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.

  • in the shower

    …as I’m washing my backside, someone peeks in between a seam in the shower curtain — old and wizened, though I cannot tell whether it is a man or a woman. They roll their eyes up at me, almost comical, and purse their mouth in a silent “Oooo…”

    …and then I wake with a start, my afternoon nap ruined.

  • and she smiles

    …and when I walk through the door, she’s sitting there on the couch, holding a cup of tea to her lips, one leg tucked under her, staring out the window and I stand there, watching her for a moment and she looks up and sees me, and she smiles.

    And I wake up.