An Excerpt From An Exercise

Hands are kept in pockets. You can get the plague from those handrails, she read that somewhere. She moves with the train, swaying gently. She gazes passively out of the window, moving through bands of light and darkness, her pupils expand and contract. She glances around the carriage, carefully, trying not to make eye contact. She turns back to the window, lost in thought. The atmosphere inside the carriage is dense, muffling, conductive, as though it is filled with water, a fish tank.

Two teenagers sit down opposite her and initiate an exchange of complete and utter shit in theatrical, affected voices. They glow, fluorescing in her peripheral vision, so fluid and exuberant, everything in black and white and now. Children in the bodies of adults; they fade so quickly; cooling, setting, into comfortable jobs and comfortable relationships. They will look back on these teenaged selves and laugh. They will smile wryly, and shake their heads in disbelief. They will take down their posters and pry the assorted rings and bars from their flesh; they won’t be naive any more, won’t obsess, won’t make scenes. They won’t be young. She turns away from the window. Inane train thoughts, inane, train, in vain, insane.

Almost home. She waits at the intersection, the lights take a long time to change. She stands perfectly still, centered, excruciatingly conscious of herself, her fingertips and toes, her nose; her separateness. It weighs heavily on her. She crosses the road. She slows and rummages around in her bag, finding her keys as she comes to the gate. She runs her hand over the base of the mailbox, gingerly, wary of finding some invertebrate unpleasantness with her fingertips. No mail. She frowns, the little disappointment sinks and settles: an icy stone in the pit of her stomach.

She brushes satin dust from her fingertips as she climbs the stairs. Her apartment is blurry, dim and close. She lists around the cold, grey little space, flicking switches, turning dials, filling the air with light and sound, crowding out the shadows and silence, that heavy calm that saps her energy and makes her feel as though she is wading, drowning in syrup. Blood.

She sighs. Her little blue bird is staring at her, his cold reptilian pupils expanding and contracting, He oozes into focus, cocks his head, curious, critical. He shrieks indignantly. She coos and fusses, sings to him. He raises his crest and puffs out his chest, enraged, caged. He fascinates her; a hollow, paper fragile little being animated by rage, need and want, want, want.

She had known he was hers as soon as she saw him. The man in the pet shop had trimmed his wings before she could stop him. The cut feathers, mute and dull, fell as heavily as stones. He was placed inside a small, glossy white box. She had placed the box, carefully, on the passenger seat of her car and driven home, slowly. She had spoken to him, softly, and listened to his quiet footfalls and questioning murmurs with satisfaction. He was hers.

They stare at one another, expectantly. She is the first to look away.