6.11 / September 2011

Wave and Particle

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_9/Marshall.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″]

Attending on the pier Vera feels swells coming to the pier coming in comes rolling forwarding moving on the inward motion as they come one then come the next and come and again.  Vera can’t push back the coming tide water coming forward as she waits waiting stays staying.  It just keeps coming inward lapping rotting oak of pier and so and on it comes inward and in it comes as if there is no end to the water to the high tide to the rush to the forward flow coming closer and closer never a point a time a space when it will not come so filling her so full she can’t look anymore can’t breathe anymore can’t watch can’t accept the surge of coming and the laughing sun pushing blue white wet feeling it ever into her ever into her this coming full swell and coming.

Dots.  Deimos at his desk drawing.  Dots.  Line.  End.  Dot line dot.  Intersecting.  Parallel. Curved.  Each to each.  All points connect.  Must connect.  Triangles squares even circles. Point to point.  Next.  Closed.  Next.  Closed.  Nothing ragged.  Nothing loose, raw, open.  Each line meets dot meets line. Past dots dots within dots dangerous dots.  Deimos moves pencil fast beyond, fast beyond move moves moving.  Short.  Long.  Long. Short.  Get beyond the dot. Quick. Beyond the dot.  Swift,  Smart.  Never stay. Too long.  Never rest.  Never rest on.  The dot.  Get beyond the dot.   Don’t stay. Beware. The dot. Move through. The dot.  Move over.  Move fast. Move the line.  Always a line between two points.  Always another

Waiting long enough the sun low laughing on the horizon water lapping lapping lapping its come to her on the pier at her feet and Vera squints knees buckling tired so tired all the water around her swirling water noon to dusk dusk to noon it came and came and she is tired. So tired.  But the sun is leaving moon pulls it back her insides pull with moon the water’s pull pulls Vera out beyond the pier to skim the water’s surface pulling out and in and out more and farther and out in the lasciviously suckng swell moves her out moves her under immersed below the surface between the living deeper pull and pulling deep always continuously moving out and out where echoes of air and sound and feeling void beyond the tides beyond the coming and pulling down beyond the moon beyond the sun

Deimos’s pencil speeds through.  Fast.  Faster.  Fastest.  Dot to dot to do to dot.  Line on line on line.  Skates the surface.  Squares triangles polygons hexagons.  One laid. One on the other.  Another one over that.  None beneath the surface. None risk the lingering dots.  The points.  Magnet-like they suck him  back.  Dot to dot to dot.  Skims the pencil one to the other. Time and again.  Time after time.  Over time under time.  Along and before.  Crossed and met.  Around and through. Angled.  Measured.  Neat.  Every equation large, small. Every trick of  mind. Every calculation.  Shapes.  All made.  Man-made shapes. Over and over. Shapes on shape. Over on

Deimos lifts the pencil.

The paper filled, dark on the desk.

Black-filled, edge to edge.

Points are gone.  White is gone.

No sliver seen.

No ray felt.

No light

between

just one black dot extending beyond the paper’s edges beyond his desk beyond the room beyond the building beyond the trees and out beyond the vast night sky where no moon pulls pulling no sun comes coming no lines between two points just deeper and  deeper space beyond

as Vera ebbs and Deimos spins.


Regina Marshall, a ballet dancer and choreographer by education and profession, worked for companies in Chicago, New York, and the Midwest. For the past twenty five years she has called St. Louis home, where her creative endeavors cross-breed through and among theater, movement, dance, poetry, homeschooling her children and teaching a Great Books course. This summer she’ll attend the Tin House Summer Writers Conference in Portland, but not before buying the next round for her local writers group, now six years running. She’ll raise a glass in appreciation to Pank Magazine, too.
6.11 / September 2011

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