In the infinite lie

The thought of death haunted me all week. Between alcohol and literature, I considered death a possibility. In the morning there was a knock at the door. I hated the neighbor. I remained perplexed by the image of the new Elena. She tried to explain her regrets at the last minute. Nothing. Except explanations.

We sat in the living room. There was a small space. Enhanced by the light, by the silent stillness between us. Then I was able to swallow the smell of nuts. I hid a few gags from the smell. I looked at her neck and her slender hands. Elena was more than that, that silence, an anguish that made her close up like a shell. She was those intelligent eyes. The inspiration to talk to her about freedom, sex, prejudices. She was an intensity and a distance. Above all, it was that devastating silence. A silence that grew by the moment at the edge of the living room.

She took off her slippers. She suggested I kneel a few feet away. I did so without thinking. Then I noticed her red skirt. She undid the snaps on her sweater. I shifted my position. My hands protected the waves of hair, my breasts unprotected, my breasts blossoming in the flickering light of the curtains. Elena in the semidarkness. Her legs up in the living room, open to the space.

I found traces of the night. Between Elena's legs, there are traces of an intense darkness. There is a self-assured woman. Who screams and curses. Who breaks the silence and seeks relief.