Speaker 1: My wife always asked me if I would love her
if she was a worm, or an animal, or even
a bug. I'd never given that question much thought. I
used to laugh when she said it, thinking it was
one of those harmless, hypothetical things that people in love
say when they're trying to be cute. I always told her, yes,
of course I would. She tilted her head, squint at
me for a second, then nod satisfied, and move on
to something else. I loved her, not the kind of loud,
fiery love that burns itself out or tries to prove
something to everyone else. I loved her in the way
you love your own breath, something you don't even think
about most of the time, but couldn't survive without. She
made the world feel less sharp and hostile. She had
this way of looking at everything that made it seem
more alive, even when she was dead quiet. Just sitting
at the kitchen table with her tea and the crossword,
the room felt full. Her presence stretched into everything. She
had quirks, dozens of them. She refused to kill bugs
in the house, no matter how many legs they had.
She always had to sleep on the left side of
the bed, even in hotels. She whispered small apologies that
every tree we passed when we went hiking, even the
ones already dead. And she believed in things odd things,
not in a delusional way, but quietly personally, things she'd
never forced on anyone. She believed certain birds carried messages.
She believed in the number thirteen, not as unlucky but
sa And she believed in the protective power of a rosary.
She kept that rosary with her every single day. Not
once did I see her leave the house without it.
Sometimes she wore it tucked under a shirt. Sometimes she
looped it around a waist, but it was always there.
She never talked about why, at least not in detail.
I only knew that something had happened when she was young.
Her entire family died in a car accident when she
was fourteen. She was the only one who walked away
from the wreckage. After that, she changed, started being the
cautious woman I know today. Over time, I came to
accept that the rosary wasn't about faith. It was armor,
a thread she held on to so she wouldn't unravel.
I never questioned it. I didn't need to understand it
to respect it. She had been the one to suggest
the retreat. We talked about taking time off for months,
letting the world blur behind us for a little while,
But it never went beyond the idea. Something always came up, work, errands,
people needing things. That autumn she brought it up again,
only this time with dates already circled on the calendar.
She said she'd found a place, a cabin deep in
the woods, just the kind of esthetic she liked. She
told me she wanted to feel air that hadn't passed
through events. She wanted the stillness of pine branches above her,
the smell of wood smoke in her hair, the strange
quiet that came from being far from any one else.
I said yes, without even asking to see the place.
When she showed me the photos later, it looked like
the place would be cold, no matter how hard you
try to warm it up. The walls were narrow, the
windows small. There was a tiny dock jotting out over
a dark little lake behind the trees. She clapped when
I told her it was perfect. Before we left, she
made me promise i'd do the hiking trail with her.
I asked how long it was, and she waved the
question away, saying it didn't matter, that we'd figure it out.
Then she said something I'd think about every day after.
She said, once we get there, I won't want to
come back. We both laughed. She meant it as a joke,
obviously I laughed too, kissed her, and we packed our things.
The drive out took most of the day. As the
road narrowed and the trees grew thicker on either side
of the windshield, she grew quieter. She let her hand
dangle out of the window, her hair lifted in the wind.
The sun was soft through the glass. By the time
we pulled up the gravel road and saw the cabin
appear behind the trees, dusk had already settled. The porch
creaked under our feet, and the door stuck a little
before it opened, and there was the scent of old
dust and pine sap clinging to the walls. But the
place was warm, proving my assumption about it wrong. She
walked through it, slowly, brushing her hand along the furniture,
looking out each window like she was memorizing every view.
Then she kicked off her shoes, dropped into the old couch,
and sighed. That night, we lit a fire and sat
together on the floor in front of it. She fell
asleep first. Her breathing slowed until it matched the rhythm
of the wind brushing the roof, and I didn't sleep
for a long time. I stayed there beside her, watching
her face move through dreams. I watched the chest rise
and fall. Her hand was still holding mine. There was
a peace in that silence that I couldn't explain, and
I loved her more in that moment than I ever
had before. She looked weightless, as if the world outside
the trees had never existed at all. The next morning,
we started early, while the air still held a bite
from the night before. She wore her boots lace tight
and carried a canvas bag with water, a journal, and
a snack. She insisted we'd probably forget about the trailheads
sat behind the cabin, half covered in ferns, with no
marker beyond a splintered wooden post buried in the underbrush.
She led the way, moving with steady steps and a
small smile. I kept tugging at the corner of her mouth.
I followed close behind, watching her braid catch against the
shoulder strap of her bag. The trail wasn't easy. Roots
rose up from the soil and waited for ankles. The
incline grew steeper the further we went, winding around slopes
where fallen trees leaned together overhead. A stream accompanied us
after the first mile, thin at first, its surface broken
by pebbles and pale green leaves drifting without urgency. Sunlight
passed through the pine canopy in slow moving ribbons. It
stretched across her arms as she walked, weaving through branches
that dipped and bent under their own weight. Birds stirred occasionally,
but distant, one or two short calls, but nothing that lingered.
Moss gretled the sides of stones in patches that grew
thicker as we climbed. Some of it yellowed in the
way that made me think of old wounds instead of
new growth. We didn't speak much. There wasn't a need.
Her breathing was steady, and mind followed suit. Occasionally she'd
turned around just the check I was still behind her,
and we'd exchange a smile, then keep going. I don't
remember how long we walked. My legs had grown sore,
and the shadows had shifted enough that it was probably
close to midday, the stream had pulled away from the
path again when she stopped suddenly and tilted her head
to the left. Her fingers brushed aside a curtain of leaves,
and I watched her shoulders shift, and she took a
step through them. She didn't call for me, She just
stood there, still, staring into something just beyond the veil
of green. I moved up beside her, and we both
stood in silence. A basin of dark rock had opened
up between a ring of crooked trees. The stream had reappeared,
pulling into a circular spring no wider than a small room.
Shimmered slow and patient, catching light and shifting patterns that
didn't seem to match the movement of the wind above.
The water looked clear from a distance, but there was
something unnatural in the stillness of it. No insects skated
across the surface, no leaves floated. It almost looked held
together by something beneath the surface, some tension that refused
and let it ripple. She stepped forward, first, lowering herself
down the incline toward the edge of the pool. I followed,
careful not to slip on the damp stone. When I
crouched beside her and reached down to touch the water.
I expected a chill. Instead, it felt thick between my fingers,
resisting slightly before letting me in. My skin came away
coated in something I could quite describe. It wasn't oil,
but it clung to me for several seconds before thinning
out in the breeze. The air around the spring was
noticeably warmer. The change was immediate and total. My arms
bare beneath my rolled sleeves felt flushed. The sweat on
my back rose to the surface faster, and I found
myself breathing just a little harder, without realizing why. She
didn't seem to notice. She dipped her hand in and
watched the water turn glassy around her wrist. Her lips
parted slightly, but she said nothing. Her fingers moved toward
the chain and her neck delicately, as though she were
undressing in the presence of something ancient. I watched as
she unfastened the rosary and drew it out from beneath
a shirt. The metal links had dulled over the ears,
and a faint green betina had started to creep along
the curve of the crucifix. She stared at it for
a moment before speaking it old she said, sensitive, I
don't want it to corrode in this stuff. She folded
the rosary into a cloth she pulled out from her pocket,
worn cotton, soft and faded, and pressed it flat against
the rock beside the pool. She smoothed it out with
her palm, anchoring each corner, as if afraid the wind
might try to steal it. I waited until she was done,
then unlaced my boots. The stone on the foot would
slick with moss and cool to the touch, but the
air here remained warm, pressing against my shoulders and cheeks,
as if we had walked into a greenhouse sealed from
the rest of the forest. She stepped in first, her
bare foot, breaking the surface without a sound. The water
accepted her without resistance. She waded forward slowly, arms outstretched
for balance, until she reached the center of the spring.
The surface rose to her hips. Her skin shimmered slightly
when the water touched it, coated in something that caught
the light. Unevenly. I followed, placing one foot then the
other into the water. My breath caught in my chest.
It felt strange, almost gelatinous. It didn't seem to resist
her entrance as much as mine. The surface tension pressed
against my ankles with each step, the water wrapped around me.
When I reached her, she turned toward me, with her
hair pulled back and droplets resting on her collar bone.
She smiled, then, wide and bright. I cupped some of
the water in my hands and let it run through
my fingers. It left a residue behind, faint but unmistakable,
something thicker than expected. I didn't say anything. She wouldn't
have wanted me to ruin the moment with concern, I
kept smiling. We stood there for a while, surrounded by
trees that never moved, in water that never rippled, as
if time had paused just for us. Her shoulders relaxed,
her breath steadied. She dipped under for a second, and
when she rose again, her laughter broke across the surface
like something sacred. Later, back at the cabin, I would
need to scrub my skin harder than usual to feel clean,
But in that moment, standing beside her in the spring,
all I could see was the woman I loved, glowing
and a filtered sunlight. We eventually got out of the
water and started making our way back. She grew quiet
on the walk. At first I thought it was the
fatigue from the hike catching up to her. The trail
had been long, and the heat near the spring had
left us both flushed and thirsty. Her steps became shorter, slower.
I offered her water, and she took it without speaking,
holding the bottle against the forehead before drinking. Her hand
trembled slightly when she handed it back. By the time
we reached the cab, the light was falling behind the trees.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and
rubbed the temples with the heels of her hands. When
I asked if she was all right, she nodded once,
but her lips stayed pressed together. A few minutes passed
before she spoke. I don't feel great, she said, softly.
My head's pounding, my stomach's off. I just need to
sleep for a bit. I helped her out of her
shoes and pulled the blanket over her. She called, and
a side knees pulled in, breathing slow and shallow. I
sat beside her until her eyes closed, brushing strands of
hair from her face. Her forehead was damp. The fire
pit behind the cabin sat unused, the logs untouched. I
didn't bother lighting anything inside. Stretch of daylight filtered through
the curtains in dull stripes across the walls. I found
myself standing at the window, watching for nothing in particular,
only listening to the sounds of the house breathing around me.
Later that night, once she'd fallen into a deeper sleep,
I stepped outside for air. The trees rustled gently, wind
moving just enough to stir the ferns. On my way
back in, I remembered the rosary. We had left it
beside the spring, carefully folded in that cloth resting on
the flat rock. I wondered if she had maybe forgotten it.
I moved through the cabin and checked the counter where
she'd set her bag earlier. I opened the pouch she
kept smaller things, in no sign of it. Eventually I
found the cloth folded neatly on the night stand beside
the side of her bed, the same fabric she had
used to protect it. It had been smoothed out, edges
are lined, but the rosary was no longer inside. I
picked it up, turned it over in my hands, then
opened the drawer beneath it. Just in case she had
moved it empty. She stirred behind me, but didn't wake.
In the morning, I made a tea and sat at
the foot of the bed while she drank it slowly.
Her face was pale, her eyes heavy. When I asked
her about the rosary, she took another sip before answering,
I'll just get another one, she said, voice thin, but calm,
it's just the thing. I can't think about it right now.
I didn't say anything, I think I just blinked at
her for a moment, waiting for the rest of the sentence,
the reason, the part where she'd laugh and call herself forgetful.
But it didn't come. She had never treated it as
just the thing. For as long as I'd known her,
that rosary had been something sacred. She slept with it,
traveled with it. Once she turned the car round half
way to her friend's wedding because she realized she had
left it on the kitchen counter, and now it was gone,
and she didn't seem to care. I stared at her
longer than I should have, trying to decide if I
was supposed to let it go. Her eyes remained in
the mark in her hands, and her mouth didn't move again.
Something in the room felt thinner than it had the
night before, as if something had been peeled away. I
woke up to cold sheet the next night. Her side
of the bed had been stretched out, untouched since I'd
fallen asleep. The blanket lay flat, Her pillow held no shape,
no weight. The small lamp on the dresser still glowed faintly,
casting dull color against the wall. I sat up, blinking
through the quiet, listening for footsteps, her creak, a sigh,
anything that might tell me where she had gone. The
cabin didn't answer. I called her name once, then again, louder.
Nothing came back. My feet hid the floor. Before I
had fully registered what I was doing, the air felt
sharp against my skin, the chill already collecting in my chest.
I pulled open and the bathroom door empty, checked, the
kitchen empty. Even the front porch was still. By the
time I realized she wasn't anywhere inside, I had already
stepped out, barefoot, onto the damp boards. The trees loomed
in black silence ahead of me, every shape sharpened by moonlight.
I ran toward the trail, the ground bitter, my souls,
twigs snapping, under each step, mud slick beneath the fallen leaves.
My voice cracked as I shouted her name again, the
sound tearing itself away from my throat. I bounced off
the tree, trunks fractured and hollow. I kept running farther
than I thought she could have gone, breathing in short gasps,
chest burning. My hands shook. Then I saw her. She
stepped up from the trees without urgency, strands of hair
lit faintly by moonlight, her arms hanging loose by her sides.
Her expression was calm, A soft smile tugged at her lips,
Quiet and unfazed. I just wanted to visit the springs again.
She said, they were so warm. Didn't you think they
were warm? She took a few steps forward and reached
for my hand. I didn't move, My body refused to answer.
Something in me hesitated an instinct, too quiet to speak aloud,
but loud enough to freeze my breath in my throat.
I nodded. I didn't know what else to do. She
turned back toward the cabin and began walking. I followed.
Over the next few days, the fever vanished, She moved easier,
her appetite returned. She no longer clutched the stomach in
the mornings or winced at the light near the windows.
On the surface, she appeared healed. But the woman I
loved did not come back from the forest. She laughed
at the wrong moments. She answered questions without context, skipping
the parts in between. When I teased her about something
we used the joke about, she stared at me for
several seconds before forcing a smile. Her reactions came too
slow or too fast, never where they should have landed.
She flinched when a bird hit the glass outside. She
jumped when I dropped a spoon. She walked quieter now,
steps placed too evil, only on the floorboards, as if
she didn't want the house to know she was there.
Touch felt different. Her hand, once warm in mine, held
no heat. Her fingertips rested too still against my skin,
more like something mimicking comfort than offering it. She didn't
lean into my chest when I pulled her clothes. She
didn't breathe against my shoulder while she slept. But she
was here, and she was getting stronger. That mattered. That
was something, and so I decided to make her a gift.
I gathered twined from the drawer and pieces of driftwood
from near the edge of the trail. I cut them
into small segments, sinding them against stone under The edges
were round enough to sit comfortably against my skin. I
looped them together in the shape of the rosary she
had always carried, threading each piece carefully, whispering a name
under my breath each time I added a bead. I
tied that not last, tight and clean, and held the
makeshift chain in my palm. It wasn't beautiful, but it
had weight. That evening, I offered it to her. She
looked at it for a long time before taking it.
Her fingers ran across the wood, her mouth folded at
the corners, not into a smile. I don't need things
like that, she said, voice low. She set it on
the table and walked past me, leaving the gift behind
without another word. I stood there for several minutes, staring
down at the loop of twine and wood. The knot
I tied held firm. I told myself it was fine.
Maybe she didn't feel like herself, Maybe she needed time.
I brushed it off. I had to. That night, while
we sat on the couch with a blanket over our legs.
She turned her head toward a dark window and said
we should go to morrow. I looked at her, expecting
a smile. There wasn't one. Her eyes stayed on the glass,
unreadable in the dim light. I want to go home,
she said. I reminded her that she begged for this trip,
that she had joked about never wanting to leave. She
didn't answer. She just repeated the words again, slower this time,
as if thing meant something I couldn't hear properly. That night,
in bed, I reached for her hand under the covers.
Her fingers rested in mind without pressure. Her skin felt cool,
even beneath the warmth of the quilt. She didn't close
her eyes when the lights went out. I know because
I opened mine hours later and saw her still awake,
staring straight ahead. In the morning, I watched her brush
her hair in the mirror. The light through the bathroom
window caught her face, but her eyes didn't shine. They
took the light in and gave nothing back, no reflection,
no shimmer, just that still surface I had first seen
in the spring. The banging started just after three. I'd
been lying awake, staring at the ceiling while her breath
moved slow and even beside me. I and touched her.
I couldn't bring myself to something about the stillness in
her body didn't invite warmth. It only reminded me how
long it had been since I'd felt it. The first
sound shook the front door on its hinges, a low,
wet slam, followed by silence, then another louder, as if
something with weight and mass had thrown itself forward, not
with rage but intent. The third knock rattled the windows,
sharp enough that one of the panes groaned against this frame.
She didn't stir. I slid out of bed, feet, hitting
the wood with a dull thud. The hallway stretched out
in front of me, dim with shadows that shifted with
each movement I made. My hand trembled in the doorknob.
The cabin hadn't felt safe in days, but this was different.
The fourth knock came just as I pulled the door open,
and then I saw it. The creature stood beneath the
porch light, too tall for the frame of the door
to contain in a single glance. Its body glistened, coated
in a layer of translucent fluid that moved over its
own skin in slow crawling waves. Each inch of its
surface shimmered with a film that caught the light and
bent it into colors that didn't belong in this world.
We just stared at each other for a long moment.
Its head had been split into three long plates, peeled
apart from the crown, angled outward and trembling gently. The
plates curved with jagged seams, their inner edges wet and raw,
revealing an absence where a skull should have held shape.
The face, if it had one, offered no center, no symmetry,
just those three plates, shuddering open around nothing. The mouth
moved separately, for thick slabs of flesh curled outward in
uneven petals, retracting and revealing the tongue within, black swollen,
ridged with grooves, coated in a sheen that reflected every
flicker of motion. The tongue didn't rest, It pulsed against
the open air. Tentacles hung low from its chest. They
weren't limp or drifting. They twitched in small, deliberate motions,
flexing inward and outward, testing the space between them and
the cabin's threshold. Their ends were pointed too narrow for bone,
to be inside them, and they reached for the air
as if it held answers. Its muscle tissue was bare.
In some places, the skin torn away or never formed
at all. The exposed fiber flakes with each small movement,
veins thick and dark, running in webs over the surface.
They pulsed under the skin, but the rhythm was irregular,
off in a way that made my stomach twist. From
several torn pockets of flesh. Yellow puss bubbled and slid downward,
slow and heavy, pulling around the base of its legs.
The liquid hissed where it met the porch, but no
smoke rose. No smell followed, only the sound of dripping.
But it was the eyes that made my breath catch.
They were set too far apart from each of them.
A viscous substance wept in long, steady strands. The tears
were thick, glassy, but not water. They glowed faintly, trailing
down the creature's face in slow, unbroken lines. It looked
like it was crying. The creature leaned forward. It tried
to speak, a gurgling breath pushed out, rough and slurred,
its voice broken by moisture and too many folds of
ruined flesh. Wait, please, the sound of rot forming speech,
wet valves spilling through something that had never been meant
to talk. I didn't understand what it said at the time.
My legs had already started to move. I turned and ran.
I didn't look back. The door swung wide behind me,
banging against the wall, hardenough to splinter. My feet pounded
the floor boards, slick with cold sweat, each step loud
enough to wake the dead. My chest felt caved in,
lungs crushed on the panic. I shouted a name as
I moved, hoarse and broken, the sound, cracking at the edges.
I threw the bedroom door open so hard and nearly
tore off the hinge, lying flat beneath the covers, arms
folded neatly above the blanket, her eyes open, fixed on
the ceiling, she didn't flinch. The pupils were large, wide
enough to swallow the color in her irises, and the
whites had taken on a faint yellow tint that hadn't
been there the night before. I rushed her aside, dropped
to my knees, grabbed her arm, shook her gently, then harder.
We have to go now, her head turned slightly with
a movement, but a gaze never shifted. Her mouth stayed closed,
her chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm.
The sound of wood breaking echoed through the hallway behind me.
The creature was inside now, Its weight bent the house
around it. I stood, grabbed the door and slammed it shut.
The lock clicked into place beneath my hand, but I
knew it wouldn't matter. My heart hammered so hard I
could hear it in my ears. My skin burned, drenched
in sweat. I pressed my back against the door, staring
at her, whispering a name between sobs that had no shape.
She didn't answer or move. We couldn't leave. There was
nowhere to go. Whatever I had let in it had
already made its way through to us. The creature reached
the door and broke through it with one swing. Wood
splintered in every direction. The hinges ripped off its frame.
It stepped inside, its form, bending as it moved beneath
the narrow ceiling. The floor sagged under its weight. Its
eyes wept in steady streams, the thick fluid falling soundlessly
to the ground. My hand reached blindly toward the table
by the bed. My fingers closed around the makeshift rosary
I built for her, a twine, the pieces of driftwood
I had cut with my own knife shaped for her hands.
I turned and hurled it toward the creature with all
the strength I had left. I was desperate. It struck
its chest and bounced to the floor. The creature stood unchanged,
its head, tilted, its plates trembling slightly. Then it turned,
not toward me. It charged across the room toward the bed.
My wife, lying there didn't react until its weight was
upon her. It pinned her down, massive limbs, pressing into
the mattress. Her mouth opened in a slow, delayed gasp.
Her arms flailed once, then stopped. I lunged, throwing myself
at the creature's side, my fists pounding against the muscle
near its ribs, and sank in swallowed by soft, shifting tissue.
I hit it again and again, screaming through my teeth,
but it didn't react. My punches had no more effect
than raindrops hitting mud. The creature reached down. It picked
up the rosary, lifted it above her face, then shoved
it between her teeth. She began to scream. It didn't
carry through the air like a human voice. If I braided,
folding in on itself, laid in ways my ears couldn't
make sense of. A rose in volume, collided with itself, reversed,
and built again. It sounded like something tearing through flesh
made of glass, like insects, screaming in patterns that only
made sense to the dead. Her back bent high off
the bed, The rosary pushed further into her mouth, drawn
inward as if consumed. Her skin peeled in long sheets,
starting from her shoulders. The collar ran away, first fading
to gray, then pink, then something closer to translucent meat.
Her bones cracked beneath her chest. One of her legs jerked,
spasming hard, before twisting inward and folding beneath her body.
Her jaw unhinged, her eyes rolled back. She let out
one final sound, one that didn't come from her mouth,
but from the walls, from the air itself, a sound
that made me fall to my knees. Her flesh began
to slide. It poured from the bed, dripping in ropes
across the wood, seeping through the seams in the floorboards.
Her limbs softened, her spine curled in on itself, then
disappeared under the sheets, and then she was gone. Nothing
left but the wet stains spreading across the mattress and
the way to my chest there refused to leave. I
collapsed backward, knees giving out beneath me, my chest pulled inward,
ripped hollow by something worse than pain. I screamed the
names through a throat or already torn ragged, and when
no sound followed, I screamed it again. It was a
sound only grief makes. The creature stood motionless, breathing shallow,
its ribs expanding in uneven intervals. Then slowly it turned
toward me. Its mouth moved before the words reached the air.
The sound, once gurgled and gatule, had softened. The voice
still pushed through layers of wet tissue and bone that
hadn't grown in the right places, But the words now
landed with intention. I'm sorry, it said. I didn't know
how else to show you. She's been inside me since
the water. It she took my body and put me
into it. I shook my head. My hands rose without command,
fingers bent, desperate for something to hold on to. That
wasn't dissolving. No, I muttered, no, no. The creature knelt
joint bending in silent, disjointed movements. His chest expanded. One
of its tentacles reached the water floor and unfolded. A
delicate object pushed its way out from beneath the surface
of its skin. Her rosary, the real one, worn at
the edges. The silver chain dulled, the crucifix still scratched
where she used to fidget with it during long car rides.
It lay down the rosary between us. Ay, it said,
I remember everything. I would never leave this rosary behind.
You know this, but I'm so so scared. Its voice
cracked on the last word. Something in it trembled, not
the body, but the soul buried inside it. And for
the first time, I didn't see a creature. I didn't
see a threat. I saw her, and I stayed. I
scrubbed the floor until the stains faded. I gathered the
bed sheets and took them into the fireplace behind the cabin.
I watched them burn down to threads, felt the heat
by my skin. Waited until the wind carried the last
of the smoke into the trees. She didn't leave, neither
did I. We moved through the house in silence. At first,
she took small steps through the rooms. Her body dragged
wet shadows across the floor. I cooked. She ate when
I offered her food. She didn't use utensils. Her hands
moved differently, joints bending in directions I couldn't name. I
spoke softly to her. When she wept. I held her.
Thick strands from her eyes clung to my skin, but
I didn't pull away. Her tentacles twisted around my wrist,
loose and trembling. Whatever form she wore. Now, whatever thing
she had become, it hadn't stripped her of what she was.
She was still here. I brought her tea every morning,
the same blend she had loved before, brewed longer than
usual to fill the room with a smell. She used
to say reminded her of autumn. She sipped from a ball.
Now her mouth didn't work the way it once had,
but she drank, and when she finished, she held the
empty dish close to her chest, as if the warmth
meant something. We talked a lot. She asked about things
we had done. Her memory was still there, but not fully.
She remembered details I had forgotten her first storm together,
the hotel that smelled of cinnamon, the gas station where
we slowed, danced in the parking lot because her favorite
song came on the radio. She remembered things that had
left an impact on her soul. Some evenings, I sat
across from her and stared for too long. There were
moments I let my mind wonder. I saw her again
as she had been before the spring, her hands brushing
through her hair, her shoulders soft in the firelight, her
feet tugged beneath her on the couch. For a heartbeat,
I let myself believe that I couldn't deal with it.
And then she smiled. The expression moved through her face
with difficulty, her flesh stretched unevenly across too many teeth,
her jaw open from both sides, bending inward in slow,
trembling arcs. The smile didn't belong on a human face,
but it was gentle, It was hers, and I knew
it so Yes, I would love my wife no matter
what she was