She awoke feeling woozy and blamed it on the scary nightmare. She often had nightmares, everywhere she lived, and she had lived most everywhere. People called her impulsive. She thought of herself as a wanderer.
She sat up and shook out her long hair. She wrapped her body in an orange sarong and brewed coffee. Suddenly she couldn’t remember anything. Where was she, she wondered? She hoped it was somewhere exotic.
Unseen he watched her. He’d been waiting for her.
Hers was a life of impetuous traveling which meant relentless packing and unpacking. How many times had she done this she couldn’t even count.
Coffee mug in one hand, box cutter in the other she sliced straight lines down the binding tape. Debussy filled the background.
He was a patient man, if he was a man at all.
She didn’t feel it when she cut herself, but she saw the smudges on the cardboard; ochre orange fingerprints, ‘Pretty!’ she thought, and then she noticed the scrawled address on the side of the box. Jaipur. It wasn’t a dream, she almost laughed out loud from relief.
All day she retrieved belongings, slipping clothing onto hangers and into closets. Closets that smelled of disuse. Her fingertips hurt from the many tiny cuts.
All the while he kept as quiet as the fluttering wings of a moth.
At last she tossed the box cutter aside. She stripped and entered the shower. Later, in her nightdress she sank onto the bed. She switched on her laptop and found her favorite crime show, ‘Fang’.
Inevitably she drifted off to sleep. That’s when he oozed from the shade. From his waistband he pulled free a long stemmed white rose, and placed it beside her sleeping face, “Welcome home,” he murmured, and he evaporated.
Image by supersonic talent
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