Young

4.1

Previously, she could be heard humming this little tune:

I'm through with meat
I'll never fall again

before chapter four started she wrote it five different ways:

no scholar honey
except in deceit—in matters of deceit

the only email she reads now
the email she's receiving

in which tone can be seen to fluctuate somewhat in the formality or informality of address, to her full or shortened name. Never the single initial. Not now. When you reach the top there's a slight turn, whether you would say my best friend or best regards.

He's shown up at her house, and not just to slip mail under the door. In the damp heat thrusting itself out each wrist, one fluid sac buried deep in her left side, another on the surface of her right. One lung heaves for news. Coughs up fluid in the shower. Squeezes material from her neck in the new bathroom.

She thinks he's not happening anymore, or it seems that way. The dangers of meat you've eaten in the past, still coiled up inside with all those maraschino cherries. Wearing a Mossimo T-shirt. Only in these and other passive ways does he continue. Except for their hysterics of exchange. The mail drips toward her overladen with its own watery, symbolic weight.

But he was an earth sign. The bottom of the paper bag gives out

damp, she

runs into the image-repertoire at full tilt, grabbing blue glass bottles off the shelves on her way in, well

smash that

I'll gauge you later

n e x t

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