The Phoenix Compound
December 12
This is what he sees when he comes for me--
Puddles of dirty light in the corners of the room, thick orange like stale vomit: one light bulb, just enough to reveal the darkness without challenging it.
A man in a torn shirt that used to be white but now is not: dead, unconscious, asleep, is there a difference? The red crystal over his eyes matches the wetness on his skin and face. He smells of broken bones-- a thin sharp burn, like gunpowder, or hot metal shavings.
A girl crouched in front of the man's body, her hands spread out before her: two loaded guns, no, an entire arsenal of naked palms and wrists and fingers. A last line of defense. The hands are shaking but this is partly a deception; she has been taught it is best to kill while trembling-- no one sees it coming until it's done.
This is what he hears--
Fragmented words, smashed, broken, too rushed to constitute a proper threat. A growl, low and dark like the rumble of ice about to crack or a bridge about to break, either way a warning of impending destruction. It is not her sound; it was given her through someone else's instincts. His, he would like to think, but there could have been others he doesn't know about yet. Only she can't carry the sound right. There is a vulnerability, a desperation: she speaks this way because she won't scream even though he smells the urge on her. Or has he confused that with her blood? In the confusion it's hard to tell.
"You try to hurt him again, I'll kill you."
"Marie."
"Oh, God, they got you too?"
"No, baby. I'm here to take you home."
"Where's that?"
"Somewhere that ain't here."
"How will we know when we find it?"
"Easy. It'll be any place we're together."
"I didn't believe them."
"About what?"
"When they said you told them to do those things to us. I didn't listen."
"Shh, baby, I know. I know. Just hold onto my hand and let's get out of this place."
This is the final scene-- >
My body pulled to my feet despite my concern that I am frozen to the floor and will break if moved. This is not meant to be inconsiderate; there is simply no time to wait for a proper thaw. Scott thrown over his shoulder: a dull heavy thump like a sack of wet flour or old potatoes. My hand (bare) in his hand (gloved) as we walk out of the room.
Now we fade into the darkness, now we exit stage right to prepare for the interlude or is it really the finale? I can never be sure, the script has not come in yet and we are working impromptu. It's the best way, really. This way, when he says he loves me, that he'll take me home, I'll believe it.
It is the sheer impossibility of such things that make them true.
Fifty miles later or two hundred fifty miles later, one hour or three hours or possibly even days, one of us remembers the English language and makes a request. Jean, naturally. After Scott, she's the one who best remembers things like talking and voices. If it were left to Logan and me, the silence could last indefinitely; we don't use words as much as they do, we never acquired their comfort with it. Why bother, when hands or eyes are so much more simple, so direct?
She chooses words, however, although her hand might have followed, resting on Logan's shoulder. A command, although she's being careful to hide it.
"We need to stop. If they were going to follow us, they'd have done it by now, and I need a few minutes to examine Scott. If there are serious injuries, we could be making it worse..."
Logan nods, but I bite my lip to hold back the shudder. Examine. No thank you, I want to tell her, I've had quite enough for one day, but of course she wasn't talking to me, or even about me. Paranoia makes you self-centered that way, although you can say it's unintentional. It's instinct, like pulling your hand away after it has been burned. For days after you will be on the look out for fires, even if there aren't any in the near vicinity.
Ten minutes later the engine dies; strangled quickly by Logan before it can draw any unwanted attention. This is an unlikely danger, however. The gas station itself looks to be unwanted: some rusted skeleton of metal and dirty glass left to die quietly by the side of a desert road. We're prepared anyway. In the event of curiosity there is money, and if that fails, there is a gun. I can't say which I'd rather use. I never had a taste for killing but tonight there is a desire for hot metal in my hands, for the smell of bullets, the reaffirmation that I am not helpless; that they did not break me on the examination table or in the dark hallway outside the cell. I need to feel capable of resistance, or at the very least of a good scream.
This is not allowed; I just realized there is a baby in my lap and they are not made for loud noises or gunshots. I must have held him the whole time, only I can't remember Jean ever giving him to me, or even putting my gloves on again, for that matter. I would say I am in danger of losing my mind, but I'm not. On the contrary, I am too much aware of it for my own good. The memories are too real, too vibrant, pressing too hard against the back of my eyes to let me see anything else.
Now that we have stopped, night descends. It is dust in my teeth, sweat between the creases of my knees and the vinyl upholstery even though it is cold enough to make fingers sore. It is sandpaper wrapped around my throat, from the wind in my face. It is the unwrapping of a dull ache, one layer at a time, the revelation of bruises and cuts and joints that are stiff from being crammed into a space between boxes too long. It is also a smell: decay, rotten fish; if I were to lift my shirt there would be fresh blood.
Logan smells it too; this is why he watches me out of the corner of his eye. He can't decide if he should wait for me to say it hurts or if he should pick me up, no questions asked, and hold me until he's found every mark. But let's be honest, what good would it do? Satisfaction of curiosity, perhaps, nothing more. What evidence would it provide? Proof of a failure, whether it is his or mine or both of ours. He can't blame himself for what he doesn't know. Or rather, he can, but it will be harder because he won't have the specifics and he has trouble imagining these things.
To the left, a neon green bug light hums like a giant beetle. Beneath, a door with a faded stencil of a woman in a skirt spray-painted on the wood. There is also a word: OMEN. I assume it was originally WOMEN but sand and wind have erased the first letter. The door is cracked open-- an invitation? Inside there will be a mirror (damage assessment), soap (damage control), and most importantly water. Filthy water, maybe, but it will be wet and it will get their stench off me.
A glance in the rearview mirror: white hands are moving across three small lumps in a man's side; Jean's hands and whatever's left of Scott's ribs underneath the bruises. The reflections of her eyes meet the reflections of mine.
/What did they do to my husband?/
/It's hard to say, really,/ I want to tell her. /I was strapped to an examination table at the time, a different sort of pain but not so different. All in all, I'd prefer the cracked ribs. Those will heal in a week or two weeks but I will wake up cold for a month. However, this is not the point. To answer your question, I do not know. They took me outside when it happened./
But I don't say that.
"Take it."
Half-shove the baby into Logan's lap, fumble with the seatbelt I don't remember fastening. Don't look at him or Jean and whatever else don't look at Scott.
"Where are you--"
"Bathroom."
I slam the door, half-wincing at the sound of my own violence.
"I've been holding it since forever."
"Marie--"
"I'll be back."
My first thought panics: there isn't a lock. Then: who would I be locking out? I don't know; it's just the principle of the thing.
I flip the switch, and tube lighting sparks to life with a faint crackle of electricity. Something scaly and unidentifiable crawls into the shadows underneath the sink, which is layered in beige tile, most of it broken or covered in graffiti. The human equivalent of dog pee, a territorial marking. Jonni wuz here.
In the spotted glass above the sink, a girl's face flickers in the sputtering light. She's nothing the mirror hasn't seen before-- a little bit of blood, a few bruises, lots of pale skin and big, dark eyes. She is not me. She is not me. I close my eyes and press my fingers against the glass to scrape away the imposter, but my aim is off. My hands hit the metal frame of the mirror instead. Then it all roars at me in a flash, a bloom of color and light.
/Lensherr would have a field day with the cabinets and the table and the buckles on the restraints. Although it is not all metal. There is latex, for the gloves, and white cotton, for the spotless scrubs and the sheet they drape over your body. Your clothes, for the most part, have disappeared; this is not so much a punishment as it is practical thinking. Supposedly you are not as great a threat in your underwear. Stench of antiseptic, of utter sterility. Oh, yes, and of frayed leather, around the wrists and ankles. For your own protection, of course. They are protecting you from breaking their fingers, which is what happened the first time one of them tried to lift you onto the table./
My hands fumble with the knobs of the sink until I feel cold water across my fingers. By now my eyes are open, but it does no good; it's too late, it's all beginning to sink in. I've learned the importance of holding onto all pieces of yourself as long as possible, in times like these, because if you allow even one shard to slip away, the entire structure caves in. That's when the breakdown comes, when you actually stop to think about what has been done to you. If you keep yourself at a distance, the sheer weight of shock carries you through. You live in the blur.
Water covers my face: voluntary drowning for a space of seconds. I relish the lack of air, the coldness in the lungs, before reaching for a paper towel.
/A woman's face visible through the wire mess glass window. Eyes of a Medusa, she'd turn them all to stone if she could. It's Jean. You can hear her through the door, begging and demanding to be let in on every medical credential she has. More a show of support than an actual hope. They won't let her in, but she'll want it to go on record that she tried. Before she leaves she gives you something even better than a hand to hold. She sends you the message that he is alive, that she will wake him up and send him for you. She tucks it in the back of your mind, along with the images of the things he will do to them. It is her parting gift. You replay the pictures in slow motion, again and again and again and you feel no shame for enjoying every second./
When I look back in the mirror there are two faces. I expected as much.
"If you're looking for the men's room, it's next door."
He picks up a paper towel and folds it in half.
"Turn around. Let me see your face."
"What, can't get a good enough view from the mirror?"
"Let me see your face, Marie."
His hand slides along my jawbone, around the swelling on the cheekbone, down the bridge of my nose. I let him turn me around. His other hand follows with the paper towel, mopping up leftover drops of water or blood or both.
"Is Scott going to be all right?"
"Should be. Ribs are the worst of it, though there might be head damage. Jeannie doesn't know any other reason he'd be out so long."
"I do."
His hand pauses mid-stroke.
"How?"
I stare down at the floor-- mustard yellow tiles-- and wish I Could follow my little scaly friend into the shadows.
"I touched him."
"Why?"
He doesn't sound surprised, or even angry. Merely curious.
"They kept on....they wouldn't leave him alone. I couldn't take it anymore after they broke his ribs. He was shaking...you had to see him, Logan. I had to do something."
My fingers capture the remains of a paper towel and begin to systematically tear it into pieces.
"I would have tried to share the healing but by then there wasn't any left. So I...touched him. Not long at all. Just a few seconds, like an anesthetic. I figured they'd leave him alone if he was out of it."
"Did they?"
"Yes."
"Did they leave you alone too?"
"...Yes."
"I've smelled blood on you for three hours, baby. Look me in the face and tell me the truth."
I bring my eyes level with his. He is dark, stormy, I can almost feel the lightning gather at the ends of his knuckles. Have to find words, or at the very least motion, and I do try. It'd be selfish if I didn't. My teeth sink into my lips, pain instead of tears; at length I am able to shake my head.
"No. They didn't."
He moves, without sound. A hand on my shoulder, another on the top of my head. Tentative: afraid to leave a mark or remembering what it felt like to be sucked dry, left for dead? I do us both the favor of flinching away, but of course it is interpreted as something else-- fear, maybe, or shock. He could be right in his translation. I have lost touch with the language of my face while he still speaks it fluently.
"I'm going to ask you something and I need you to promise honesty."
He drops his eyes into mine; they sink like stones.
"I promise."
"Are you still afraid of me?"
I try to smile but it almost turns into a sob before I can control it. Better to reveal nothing than everything. "No. Not you."
"Then sit down and let me see what they did."
I shake my head, pulling my cloak tighter to me.
"Not necessary. It's nothing bad...just some bruises, a few shallow cuts...I'll take care of them myself."
The new marks are irrelevant; it's the old scars that tell stories neither of us want to hear.
"You trust me, baby?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then sit down and let me help you. Ain't no way you can reach everything back there on your own."
"How do you know it's my back?"
A tight smile. "I pay attention. You haven't leaned all the way into the seat but twice, and each time you winced." >
He counted? A surprise: I am unaccustomed to being the focus of that kind of attention. Scott watched my back, sure, but he had a wife and a newborn son to protect. I had forgotten that Logan doesn't have anyone else. And neither do I, really.
"One condition." I sit down on the loose toilet lid, wobbling a little as it slides under me. "Don't try to pull any hero stunts and heal me. We need...I...need to have you conscious. Just in case."
"Fair enough."
He drops to his knees behind me, peels off my cloak. I don't move, face turned into the wall. Much the same view as the sink: dirty tile, orange graffiti. (Eva luvs Bobby 4 evr.) A faded blue poster for a crisis pregnancy hotline-- it offers a free test. I shudder.
"Relax, darlin'." His whisper, behind my ear. "It's just me. No one else here, no one else gonna get in here."
Unless you count the dozen or so ghosts in my mind...
But I nod. Consider it a gesture of faith.
He starts to unbutton the back of the dress. Clumsy on the buttons: he's used to snaps and zippers and things that pull off easily and now he's afraid he'll break something. I'm shaking, just a little, but the room is cold so we'll say that's the only reason. He works his way down until the dress is loose enough to slide down around my shoulders.
A profanity: his, accompanied by the sound of metal claws slamming into tile. I turn to find him up to his wrist in wall.
"Logan?"
"Sorry, baby. It's just hard."
"I know it's ugly...I'm...ugly. I'm sorry."
"Not you, Marie. Never you." He pulls his hand out of the wall and retracts the claws. "Hard because I had a chance to kill those freaks and I let 'em live. If I had known this, I would've killed 'em. Every last one, no matter what Jeannie said."
"Does it look that bad?"
"Bruises mostly. Does this hurt?"
He places his hand next to my spine. I suck in my breath. "A little."
Ok, so maybe a lot but I'm trying to maintain objectivity.
"Looks like they bruised the bone there. That'll be the worst of it."
"Am I still bleeding?"
"Yeah, some...hold on a second." Running water and a paper towel; he returns and squeezes the water carefully over the broken skin. "When did they do this?"
"After the examination, in the hall. They kept me outside while they finished up with Scott, and one of them wanted to see if I still healed."
That was the worse part, to be honest. I can take my punches as well as the next girl-- actually, a little better-- but don't use a knife on me. That's how all of it got started, after Logan left me. With a blade. Of course these morons didn't know that. I was just cheap entertainment. It would have made it easier if they'd given me the courtesy of hatred, like they did Scott. It was vengeance when they hit him; for me it was simply boredom.
"How'd you get these?"
He brushes the thin ridges of puckered flesh running parallel across the middle of my back. Three of them, I think, or maybe four. It was a little hard to keep count in between the fading in and out of consciousness.
"Those are...old."
I can practically hear his body freeze. Instant crystallization. "How old?"
I swallow. "From the beginning."
Biting the lip now, hard, a natural defense. If I let myself go I don't know if I could control it this time. That kind of thing happens now; one minute I'm fine, the next I can't stop crying. His fingers run over the dead flesh; it feels like cotton dragged over brushwood. Pieces of me have been cut down, dried out, and wait impatiently for the rest of me to follow suit.
"Can I touch them? Without gloves?"
Low voice, I'd have reason to pretend I didn't hear him if I wanted it to go down that way. But I don't.
"Dead skin doesn't absorb but everything around it does."
"I'll be careful."
Yes, but he will also be reckless, in his own way. He's made up his mind; he's already pulling off the gloves.
"Okay."
Touch is the last thing we remember and the first thing we forget.
It is insubstantial; it leaves no trace. It is a wind: you feel it when it passes over your face or your hand but it leaves no proof of existence unless it breaks something. Sometimes you don't even feel it at all, or you feel it too much and it becomes as nothing. That is how his hands feel against my skin: an overwhelming rush of numbness. Scars add to that, as do calluses. They can't pick up on the subtle differences between forefinger and thumb, the individual smoothness and roughness in each of his fingertips. This is another factor against memory.
Two fingers trace the jagged white lines from top to bottom, bottom to top. I am touched the way a blind man touches a statue: the details are sought out, memorized, established in the mind as pictures. Does he have his eyes closed? Probably, the skin of a blind man remembers so much more than skin that comes with eyes. Touch me again, Logan. I am blind too, now; I will remember it too.
"Can you feel that, baby?"
His voice a scratch on the wall; soft and hoarse.
I shake my head, no, I can't feel it. There is water behind my eyes; if I cracked the lids it would be called tears. I can't feel him, I feel him too much, either way it equals deafness. How can his hands speak when I can't hear the words? Then his fingers are gone. Wait, I want to say, I will listen harder. Don't leave me to the silence. It's not my fault....
My shoulders hitch in the middle of the breath; that happens when you're crying without sound. You spasm, you short-circuit, eventually. You self-destruct, only the chain reaction doesn't make it this far again. It is cut off, paralyzed by a touch made without hands. He has not given up; he has merely resorted to another language.
His mouth brushes against the first scar, leaving behind the imprint of a kiss. The phrase is repeated, twice over, three times, until the message has been delivered to each scar, each deadness in the skin.
/For it is in dying that we are born to life eternal./
St. Francis had it right after all.
Then, a more audible question.
"Did you feel that?"
His hands tighten on my shoulders, near imperceptible betrayal of hope. Did you hear, his fingers ask me, did you hear me?
From me there is a sound like a gasp, only wetter. Similar moisture on the face: somewhere the eyelids sprang a leak. Batten down the hatches, girls, there could be a flood. But there isn't. To pour oneself out takes energy, a certain flare that I don't have. I can only trickle. Black water seeping out from under a stone.
"Marie...what's wrong...did I hurt--"
My fingers close around his.
"No, sugar."
I turn around, trying to smile through the blur across my eyes.
"I'm just remembering."
"Remembering?"
"How it feels to be touched by someone who doesn't want to leave a mark."
This is the part when he wraps his arms around me and holds on like I am time, like I am slipping away through his hands even as he's watching. Suffocation but then again who needs to breathe at times like this? Breathing is noisy, cumbersome; it slows you down. Heartbeats too, even more distracting, which is why they've stopped now.
"I can't tell you I understand this because I don't." he says. "I never will be able to know how it felt, how much it hurt. I won't even try. But listen to me..."
He pulls back, holds me at arm's length so I can see the entirety of his face. There is an anomaly-- stray glimmers of wet light at the corners of his eyes. A roughness in the throat, like worn down sandpaper. "Whatever you need to do to let it out, you do it. You need someone to hold on to, you need someone to hit; I'm here. Right here, baby."
This is the part when I reverse the suffocation. I detach from my body and watch the girl in Logan's arms hold on for dear life. She cries aloud, she beats fists against his back, she rages. He rocks her back and forth, saying words that neither of them will remember, but somehow that's not the point. The point is not the future but the moment, this exact spot in time.
This is the part when, between everything else, she-- who is myself-- falls in love with him again. No, wait, that's incorrect. To fall again would indicate that I had climbed out of it, and that's not true. I've always been in it, up to the hips. Up to the neck, the eyes. Total suspension.
We'd just forgotten. But not anymore.
Sleep-Rite Motel
Boulder City, Nevada
December 13
Ozone in the air, or is it cigar smoke?
Not that I can claim an unbiased perspective when the entire room smells of a delicate blend of soured whiskey and stale sweat. Perhaps I could better describe it through the ears-- easy enough; this dump might as well be made of styrofoam. Everything passes through, only slightly muddled, like listening to myself drum my fingers under a desk. The complete sound is there, though smudged, and if I am quiet enough I can even pick up on the subtle colors of tone.
You must know there are two sounds to fury. Rage and calm, machine-guns and razor-wire. Scott is dangerous because he has perfected the latter. No words wasted, no pointless screaming and cheap profanity, merely a cut-glass tone that convinces you he is one step from removing the glasses and razing a city to the ground.
Or in this case, a man.
"You. Had. No. Right."
"No right to what, Summers? Keep them from turning you and Marie into ground beef or keep them from taking your wife down hard after they beat you to death?"
"That's not what would have happened."
"You always did hold your illusions better than you did your whiskey."
"I never acquired your taste for it."
"You never acquired the need."
Logan is frayed, ragged on the edges, too tired or impatient or both to trouble himself with anything beyond frustration. At least not yet.
Jean and I are not participants in this duel, not even bystanders or sideline reporters. She vanished into the bathroom as soon as they stepped into the hall, claiming the baby needed a bath and she needed clean hair.
(Not entirely an excuse; she will want to wash off the last traces of the man who doesn't smell like Scott. Logan told me not to ask how we got the Jeep. Fair enough.)
I am a spy, an ear pressed to the door or to a keyhole, part of the wall or the doorpost or the furniture. Invisible unless they get out of hand, in which case I will play the part of divine intervention or something equally as moral. At least that is the official justification. Morbid curiosity could be an ulterior motive here, given the right amount of thought.
"I knew their system, Logan. Marie and I would have been punished and then all of us would have been left alone. Safe."
"That the story you sell yourself to justify keeping them in that place?"
"As opposed to the story you've bought to justify exposing them to the labs and the death camps?"
"I don't see any police bustin' up the stairs."
"Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will happen. This isn't the same government we dodged in the beginning. They've honed their skills. Perfected."
"So have we."
"Did I mention they're already looking for us? That's another one of the compound's little policies that you failed to ask me about. You leave, they notify the authorities. It's the catch that lets them stay in business."
I shut my eyes and imagine Logan's reaction to this: blank, granite. He'll be leaning against the wall, chewing on the butt end of a cigarette. Real dark circles under his eyes, smudged like black paint. Forty-eight hours ago he was dead.
Scott's standing away from the wall; it's his intention to stand straight, to present himself face to face but there will be a flaw. One arm cradles the cloth sling wrapped around the broken ribs; breathing is labored, pulling the shoulders down in a slight hunch.
There is only a slight danger that Logan will sense me; he is Distracted by his cigar, by Scott, by the thirty plus hours of not closing his eyes. Still, I will take precautions; he has the uncanny knack for picking up on my presence through minor barriers such as walls and doors. In the old days it was paranoia but now it is memory.
"I can get us identities," he says. "Fake papers."
"Time is not exactly a luxury we have."
"I can get them tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest."
"Legal identification might get us out of town but not past the border scans. Ever stop to think how you're gonna get Marie past the screening? She doesn't exactly blend in with the crowd."
"Last time I checked, neither did you, One-Eye."
Whoa, that was almost a growl. Maybe he's decided to expand the energy for anger after all.
"My point exactly. I'm not saying it was easy back there but at least we were protected. Out here, we're vulnerable. My son is vulnerable."
"I told you, I can get safe passage arranged. The guy who got me over the border is a professional. Top of his field."
"Those kind usually stay at the top by playing both sides. I'd imagine we'd bring in enough to give him an early retirement."
"He knows I'll gut him if he tries it."
"Oh, brilliant."
The wire stretched across Scott's voice tightens into a hard thin line. If you could run your fingers across it, you'd bleed.
"You'd dump Marie off again so you can go have your fun, just let them do whatever they want while you're gone, but that's okay. You like her better broken."
"I'm not dumping her anyway, bub." Logan's voice has shifted; he's off the wall, edged most likely into Scott's face. I know this sound on him; he won't even have to pop the claws, you can see the metal gleam in his eyes. "And you're right, I wasn't there to stop it."
They would be inches apart now; close enough to smell the contempt on each other's breath, close enough to whisper because I can barely hear his voice although I know he's making sure Scott gets every word.
"But at least I didn't stand by and watch for a frickin' month while some freak took my wife to bed every night."
Then it all happens at once, as these things often do. The dull thud of a fist against a jaw-- Logan's jaw, Scott's fist, although not his good one from the sound of it-- is followed by another, more substantial crash, this time against the wall. That would be Logan's contribution.
"You wanna do the honor thing," he snarls, "you meet me when you're not crippled."
"Why not now? C'mon, Wolverine, a little unfair advantage never stopped you before..."
It goes no further; I make sure of it.
My hand flies for the knob, jerks the door open hard enough to awaken every single bruise on the left side of my body. I move faster than I used to; I'm in between them before they can blink twice. Red crystal and brown eyes focus on me in tandem, part surprise, part suspicion.
"You two finished pouring salt in wounds?"
No one answers me, not that it was expected. Logan drops his cigar butt to the floor and crushes it into ash; Scott shrugs himself off the wall, jaw tightening when it pulls the ribs. Neither of them look at me. Good, that means they're listening.
"Thought so." I spin on my heels, cross the hall to lean against the doorway, arms folded across my chest. "So why don't we all go back inside and try to come up with actual solutions? Unless you'd rather stay out here and butt heads trying to prove who loves who more."
A handful of silence, or perhaps two, then we are inside where we belong: that is how quickly everything in the past five minutes is relegated to convenient amnesia.
Logan takes first watch at the window, digging a fresh cigar out of his back pocket. Jean comes out of the shower, her hair still dripping down her back, and asks Scott to take his son while she finds the diapers. Scott holds an armful of wet baby, patting him dry with the towel, and looks at every part of the room but Logan's window.
Both know the truth: no words were meant, no punches malicious. This is another of form of their common ritual, which involves poking any and all sore spots because it lets them know they're still alive enough to fight back. I would be more disturbed if they didn't fight, and perhaps it is as disconcerting that they let me dissuade them so easily. It's not hard to see that both of them are scared stiff behind the steel voices and the steel eyes. Insults and blows camouflage; that's their way.
Save it for the enemy, boys, I want to say, there will be plenty of them for it to go around.
Of course we all know that. Maybe that's the real taint of the air: not electric ozone anger or cigar smoke or even the inherent stench of the room but the words we refuse to say. The simple finality yet to be acknowledged.
We. Cannot. Get. Out.
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