girl: come over me: i can’t, i’m using my sensitive barbels to scour the riverbed for morsels of food girl: i hollowed out a nesting cavity under a flat stone me:
Not the flash-of-lightning-touching-down-in-the-back-yard thunder; there were no gargantuan hands applauding, no single burst of brilliance. The other kind of thunder: the rumbling, gurgling, distant kind. Rocks in a tumble dryer in your neighbor’s apartment. Kettle drums played through a down comforter in the orchestra pit. Her smile was the thunder whose lightning could not be seen, whose squall was not yet ripping roof from frame. It was the first hint that maybe something terrible was coming over the hills that could flood your entire world, or maybe not – it could be heading north or south or east, away from you entirely. And perhaps it was the uncertainty that made it so appealing.
I spent an hour watching the shadows grow on my wall, and I realized that they never really grow. They just get spread thinner and thinner until they are swallowed up completely by the dark. Maybe I’ll try calling you again tomorrow.
