07/11/2024
Original Painting by Alice Evans - Sometimes I feel quite different (Kafka)
An adder swam, its head up, wriggling its body. A dangerous zigzag, circling around a point.
It hissed. It was small. Did that give a more dangerous bite? Her hands were still, a moth's
wing prayer, not quite sure what to feel. Still, flat water. Cold, a breath removal. The snake
passed. Lowering light spat through the backs of the ferns. Only far away could traffic or
even a plane be heard. This, a kingdom of one, this afternoon, this day of all days. Years
since it had happened. Trying the truth in her mind, the fear, and the scare, haunting her. Lost
among reed beds, lost among the edge of waters. She remembered all, still cared. She dived.
A distant engine backfired. Deer startled. Branches touched water at the sides. Dark sky
glowered down, night fell in, heavy with rain. Thunder started. The surface of the pool was
broken. The stillness gone. She called out to scream, let out all that had happened, in this
place, where she could, where no one was listening. All she could do nothing about, all that
she carried and all that had stopped her. Filling her life with moments in cold water. She had
been a trained child. Behave and be brave. The fir trees. Pine knits across a path. A burnt
ochre tablecloth on the ground.