One Page #40

The volume wasn’t the problem. It was the gaping hole between her teeth that was the problem. And that I couldn’t shy away from. She smiled and a photograph clicked in my memory and even today, years later, I think about that gap that was the shape of a highway disappearing over the horizon. I think that if I started walking down that road I would never find myself again. Her eyes shone and her cheeks blushed, but it was the gap, almost a ravine falling away into an abyss, which was the sole focus no matter how hard I tried to stray away from it. It was deep and dark in there, and I wondered what kind of ghosts, monsters, gods as captivating as Medusa laid waiting. There was gravel shifting beneath my feet and I thought about grabbing a handful and shoving it into her mouth, breaking her teeth and reforming the gap, widening the highway, and crushing her devilish smile. But I stood motionless. She talked on and I watched, not listened. Her words were nothing more than a whisper in my ears. I found myself leaning closer. She may have noticed because the volume of her voice got louder. She articulated more clearly; looked at me more closely. But I didn’t notice. My eyes were transfixed and it was as if my whole body was shaped just to watch the black hole. I felt it reaching out for me. Its fingers were liquid and enticing. It had me by the neck, and reached for my own partially opened mouth. It crawled beyond my lips and onto my tongue and then slivered down my throat. It had me by a firm hold, but from the inside as if it knew that it could conquer me starting in my inner orifices and working outward toward my skin and my hair and my toenails. I didn’t move. My eyes got wider. She looked at me and looked away, as if embarrassed. I didn’t know why she was embarrassed. She handled me like a puppet, my nerves twitching as if each were attached to a string that she plucked. She paused in her monologue, and closed her mouth. The reaching fingers lets go and disappear back through her closed lips and the strings were snipped and released. I blinked again and looked into her eyes. I noticed that they were a pale blue and reflected my face so cautiously timid. When she raised her eyebrows, it was my turn to be embarrassed. I looked down at the gravel and it blinked in the sun. I shifted my weight and the gravel shifted beneath me and the sound of it crunching startled me. Sound cascaded into my ears as if I hadn’t heard anything in a long time and my ears had forgotten how to listen. When I looked up I saw her walking away. I knew I would never see that highway stretching out before me again. My throat felt empty, lacking, lonely.