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What is Lost and What is Found |
The glass rolled slowly from the grasp of her fingers, a grasp long since rendered meaningless as any power her hand could muster drained itself as quickly as she drained the whiskey. Once liberated, the glass tumbled end over end, releasing its contents in a star burst of sweet honey liquid across the floor. A fan blade splattered a blast of it back into her face, a rude contrast with the cool air it produced on this hottest of nights. Very nearly passed out she was, until this; then the room that swirled uncontrollably around her suddenly peeled away as she became transfixed at the alcohol scattered violently but that now rested gently, at her feet. It spread in every which direction, a metaphor for a mind she'd long since given up trying to wrest, each extended point of the splash standing in for a hope or a dream, a desire or a wish, a man or a woman, running out in all directions from her, irretrievably so. This aftermath of lost whiskey awaited a response from her, its stillness and randomly distributed beauty now representing the pain it causes rather than that which it numbs. It demanded recognition, attention, addressing, for it was no longer contained for consumption upon demand, but had abruptly set itself free. She slowly eased out of her chair and crawled onto the floor and overlooked the spill. Her face, gazing upon this undesired lake of spontaneity like a drip painting rendered in fermented grain mash, reflected back upon her, and in an instant stripped bare everything she feared as she fixed upon the eyes in its depths that looked back into her own. She must wipe this lost whiskey away and soon, but her own reflection seized her as if by hands closed tightly around her neck. Clarity struck her, a moment when she knew the force of self-recognition that what once rested in the glass and was only under the illusion of her control was suddenly now too powerful outside of it to bear. She slowly closed her eyes, and retreated back into the grasp of cold leather, laying her head against the cool surface for some brief relief. Under shut eyes she sought to hide what in her own reflected visage had become unhidden. Eyes still closed, she stretched her foot out and she spread her toes, feeling the cool air from the fan move gently between them. She slowly lowered her foot unwittingly into the whiskey pool, and moved it back and forth, then in circles, letting the texture of the fluid saturate her sole. Again she raised it into the air, then back down once more. Before this accident would be all be wiped away, before she’d let it further pry open all wounds her reflection had revealed, this drink in which her foot now bathed would soothe her first in this small and unexpected way, before the room would move again and all the thoughts within her too.
copyright 2014
Jeffrey
Bryant |
