Dust Motes
Dust Motes
Upon the bed, she drifts. Cotton sheets swim under and over, threading across limbs and flesh, subtle restraints to a willing captive. Failing to escape into a deeper sleep, she skimmed across shallow dreams, whilst ripples of wakefulness ebb and flow to the t.v. whining it’s a call to prayer. She recovers the remote from beneath her pillow and tries to find a channel to watch; anything that won’t make her want to gouge out her eyes. Skipping past whoring, obtuse celebrities on one channel, and onto real crime documentaries littering many more, to cooking shows, she lands on a religion—a cartoon skit of Tom and Jerry from yesteryear—that she can be faithful to. From the bedside fridge, she takes a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra, and forgoing the spoon—which is just out of reach—she delves in, knuckles deep. Ice cream and cartoons fix everything she’d read somewhere, some time ago, but after many attempts, she knew it wasn’t true. She’d mused about this and other fallacies too many times, even when too many
times isn’t, and never will be enough. Panaceas of all types and tastes she’d sampled, though they rendered the same result: booze—the cheap and the expensive; cigarettes—the legal and not variety; sex—mainstream and obscure; everything was but a plaster which never stuck, a painkiller which never killed the ache, only numbing it for a time.
Spring beamed through the gap in the curtains, bringing with it a barely-there breeze. Ice cream, sticky fingers reverently touch the tattoo on her shoulder, like the name in ink is religious scripture, before plumping her pillows and leaning back into them, pressing against the headboard. Her shuffle rousing dust motes, carrying them into the shaft of light, dancing up, up, to here and there, maybe to heaven? Until recently, she believed these motes were angels. Until recently, she believed in me.
Upon her dressing table, propped against the eau de parfum,(my favorite), and the Lladro figurine, a letter containing my confession remains to be read...