Inner Truth
“She: A Confusion of Pronouns”
Inner Truth Central Sincerity
“She told her that she had to stay in the room.”
A Kokanee anchors the corner of the Spokesman Review spread out on the kitchen table, folded sections waiting perusal.
Through a cabin picture window she can be seen, dock chaired, face into southwest sun, a nano-glint from the wineglass next to a stack of magazines.
Atop the refrigerator a radio narrates a poli-drama talk show starring incredulity in mixed anger.
Nanna, tinkering in food prep undisturbed by intermittent background thumping above the radio, above the kitchen, is reduced to an “oh that?” moment.
Suddenly the confusion of pronouns makes sense, a sad mental click.
Bappa sits stubborn quietly, sipping, turning the paper page and then replacing the beer glass on the corner.
Her cry joins the dull drumming.
A familiar “Zero Rez” sponsored promo fades in ascension of the stairs towards the epicenter of distraught energy.
She is laying kicking at the closed door, a wail waving between sharp inhalations.
A sudden breathed pause when the door opens then, eyes meeting, she is up and clinging, wound in short, staggering staccato of airgulps and stifling sobs.
Was the pause a microcosm of disappointment, the begging anticipation that she would open the door?
Flushed, she = heated conduit and now, laying on a twin below the slatted pine ceiling, the tears mix with beads then path centimetric rivulets. Above the coniferous knot eyes are witness. “Eyes,…look at all the eyes!” “Over here, that looks like a frog! Did you see it wink at you?”
Magically, a sob gets mixed and the terrible tide is turned into an ebb of hiccups. Suddenly simple and passing, towards gone. She begins to point at the eyes, then, slowly a little resurgence. “I want to go home.” in a swell of tears.
Assured, She is carried along descending into the pregame Mariners radio along to a pause in passing.
“She wants to go home”.
She appears briefly in the cabin window as the view transitions past the table, past the kitchen. The nano-glints off sunglasses, are unmoved. She appears to be sleeping.
Secured in the car seat to home, She drifts in amnesic sleep.
