A Voice of Water - II

In the morning he was gone. His bolo tie was still wrapped around the chair, and his dime bag, half full, was on her dresser.


Sarah sat up in bed and walked to the shower. The tepid water roamed over her body. She scrubbed without thinking. All around her, the yellow light from the tinted bathroom window cast the world into a strange glow, as if a mirror was refracting the image of the sun.

She sat at the kitchen table dripping wet and gazed at some of the books she had long discarded. The script, so familiar, now had the shape and form of an alien tongue, as if some other Sarah Katz had used them and left them here and would never return. The coolness of the water on her skin made her flesh erect. She felt the long, silent pull of that near voice that often called her. The voice wanted to tell her something, wanted her to do something vital. As if the doing of the act was more important than mere words.


So she put on a sweat shirt and pants and walked out the door. The early spring breeze was too cool for just clothes, but she was already out without a coat, and she decided to heed the call as she was.

She walked down to the river.  The sun peered out from beneath a line of silver clouds, and the light dropped with it a hint.  Then she walked up the path.  Joggers and roller bladders swelled around her.  They too formed a hint:  this is the direction.  It is right here.  And when she reached the gazebo where she had the experience before, she had it once again.  She settled into the deep, penetrative sensation where she loved the world and world loved her; where everywhere around her were signs that there was no line between light and dark and male and female and everything else opposed.  And she closed her eyes and there it was: the glimmer of that feeling as strong as fear.