. . . a band of angels, their small quivering wings rustling a whole new sound, jubilant and sane, singing music as spherical as a chant, lifted Sophie . . .
Aren't They Wonderful? Don't They Feel Good?
*
Sophie has something to say about strength but she weakens each time she writes the word. She thinks of past love.
*
An entry in her journal:
A sniff of light
a shimmer heard
behold a bolt
next savored sheen
palpable irradiation: illumination
And she’s satisfied life is good: hasn’t she written a poem? Then she looks. For something. To break. Knows she can’t do it. Bangs drawers. Cabinets. Looks for something to kick. Her foot busts space. She sees herself. Stops. There is no end. Tomorrow is coming. Now she’ll sleep.
*
Once Sophie and her mother Jane had been shopping. They’d been at it for a while; tension was clawing at their nerves. They were in a basement downtown, in a huge store, old and dark with smells. Sophie, 17, was not happy. Jane, 43, was not happy.
‘Please buy this dress,’ Jane pleaded.
‘It’s ugly,’ Sophie said.
‘You look fine.’
‘I don’t want to look like this.’
‘Please.’ Jane suddenly dropped to her knees, looking as stylized as a madonna. ‘Please,’ pleading, ‘I’m begging you. I’m on my knees.’
Sophie became a frozen shrine.
They bought the dress or they didn’t. When Sophie thought back to the dressing room, she only remembered the dress was green. She only remembered her mother.
The bus ride home was an extension of the dressing room frieze and a relief for Sophie because she could answer Jane’s screams.
‘Get on the bus.’
‘Don’t shout at me.’
Sophie didn’t forget the people who looked at her and her mother, with interest contempt disbelief unconcern, and the dull skies and grime now part of the sidewalk and people, again, a blur all around, each person with eyes to see and ears to hear but robots only, not recording her feelings, sensing or reflecting them, mannequins, props of flesh for her family drama, and she remembered thinking,
‘I can handle anything after this.’
The yelling picked up with Jane: ‘Get on the bus.’
‘Don’t yell at me.’
‘You snot, get on the bus.’
‘No.’
‘Damn you.’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘All right,’ Jane told Sophie, ‘you’re alone.’
Damned, Sophie took the next bus and arrived home half an hour later than Jane. She remembers nothing more.
*
Sophie wakes in the night. Someone has said, ‘No!’ Sophie?
