I am standing in the street, somewhere between fury and civility, and a squat middle aged man is sneering out from his balcony and calling me a mad woman. The man in front of me, who rammed into the back of my car half an hour earlier, is smiling in triumph. I am searching for something to make sense of this malice. I can't. And as I ask once more to be heard, my fingertips and toes and the ridges of my ears turn suddenly cold.
*
Fields are passing to my left, and though it is dark, I know they are bright green and ripe with rain. Some image of a sickle slices through the brief calm, and I feel it hook into my pelvis. I am dragged into the field, I don't know where my limbs are, mud in my hair, one foot bare, a grip pinching the skin of my wrist, breath, screams, slaps, footsteps. The chaos is sensory, my horror is absolutely physical. I blink in the car. I grit my teeth, enraged by my fear. Would I feel this way in another country?
*
He approaches with his towels, as usual. It is hot and I am aware my hair is fluttering. The sharp clack of his ring on the window, his tight frown and intense stare. Once, he broke into a smile as I was refusing him, which flattened me. But today his aggression seems heightened. It is hot and I am sure the window is cool. He knocks again and I shake my head again and for a brief moment I will him to punch through the window and grab my throat.
*
I have had more pleasant a time than I really deserve. I have become so brittle and unpleasant that the mere idea of enjoying a slow evening in someone's company feels distant and uneasy. Ease, comfort, laughter, wonder, long absent visitors, their company has saturated me and I feel heavy with them as we come to a halt. You reach into the back seat and hand me something and once I thank you there is an open moment when I am terrified you will lean toward me and I am afraid you won't.
*
I shouldn't have drunk that last whiskey, but something in the way my life is composed is making me reckless. And that courtyard makes me look at my whole life together and fills me with impulses. One hand hanging out of the window, ring gleaming in the rearview, bass drumming in the car doors, pedal pressed all the way down, head back against the rest, face smug with youth and stupidity, ears full of the rush of road and the slick of wet tyres, I am racing. One of these days, I may not make it home. My body already knows what it will feel like as the bonnet folds obediently like an accordion against the back of a truck and my bones crumple into my flesh.
*
Fields are passing to my left, and though it is dark, I know they are bright green and ripe with rain. Some image of a sickle slices through the brief calm, and I feel it hook into my pelvis. I am dragged into the field, I don't know where my limbs are, mud in my hair, one foot bare, a grip pinching the skin of my wrist, breath, screams, slaps, footsteps. The chaos is sensory, my horror is absolutely physical. I blink in the car. I grit my teeth, enraged by my fear. Would I feel this way in another country?
*
He approaches with his towels, as usual. It is hot and I am aware my hair is fluttering. The sharp clack of his ring on the window, his tight frown and intense stare. Once, he broke into a smile as I was refusing him, which flattened me. But today his aggression seems heightened. It is hot and I am sure the window is cool. He knocks again and I shake my head again and for a brief moment I will him to punch through the window and grab my throat.
*
I have had more pleasant a time than I really deserve. I have become so brittle and unpleasant that the mere idea of enjoying a slow evening in someone's company feels distant and uneasy. Ease, comfort, laughter, wonder, long absent visitors, their company has saturated me and I feel heavy with them as we come to a halt. You reach into the back seat and hand me something and once I thank you there is an open moment when I am terrified you will lean toward me and I am afraid you won't.
*
I shouldn't have drunk that last whiskey, but something in the way my life is composed is making me reckless. And that courtyard makes me look at my whole life together and fills me with impulses. One hand hanging out of the window, ring gleaming in the rearview, bass drumming in the car doors, pedal pressed all the way down, head back against the rest, face smug with youth and stupidity, ears full of the rush of road and the slick of wet tyres, I am racing. One of these days, I may not make it home. My body already knows what it will feel like as the bonnet folds obediently like an accordion against the back of a truck and my bones crumple into my flesh.
Fucking brilliant.
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