Saturday, August 27, 2011

I. Fever

Pastel streaks bristle thick and harsh on the other side of eyelid veils, behind which everything is red and spangled, kinetic static. It is drawing shapes and they revolve. The heat is unbearable but also pleasing. It would be more pleasing if she could find a position to endure it in. Prone is not low enough. She needs to sink into the cushions but the spangles are too hot. She moves. Her body is a long lump of clay. Melting it sticks into the couch. It is coarse and scratches where her skin is exposed. The red black is soft but sharp. She turns. Her eyes are bristly. Behind her her head is molten and thick.

They open. Her vision is liquid but cooling. The ceiling has shapes in it but fading. Sweat coats her burning skin and then the blankets.

Later she stands up and all her weight has transferred to her head. In the bathroom the cold faucet gives like a spring and the walls are caving in. She falls back onto the bristly couch.

Ben is asleep in the other room. He is blue and under a sheet. Above him the square digits say 4:44.

When he comes home from work the next evening she has eaten soup but is unconscious, the title screen of a DVD looping in the corner.

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