Pew(47)

I walked toward the back door. I stepped outside. The storm of people’s voices faded behind me. Annie was standing there, looking out toward the fields that stretched far from us, went places it seemed we might never go. A few others were there, too, their faces not numbed, just still. Air sat between us all like it will sit between anyone. The sky didn’t know one of us from the other.
What are we supposed to do now? Annie asked someone, perhaps me or herself or you.
Far from us trees were gathered in twos and threes. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be here. It was all an accident. All of us were meant to be somewhere else. I stood and walked away, and once I was one step away from her, I was as alone as I had ever been but I also knew that Annie—this Annie who answers to Annie but who has another, truer name—I knew she was not lost to the world just because she was lost to this place. She and I were deeper inside the world now, farther inside the dirt, braided into your vocal cords, the ones hanging in your throat.
No one knows where I went, and I don’t know where I went and I don’t know where Annie went or where you went, but I know that I went and was gone and was gone completely. That night, all was quiet, and all is still quiet. All is uncertain. Gray clouds churned overhead—and still they churn, still they cast shadows, will cast them long after we’re all gone. The ground is wet. I was alone then and I’ve been alone ever since. All of us are gone and were gone and have been gone forever.
All is quiet now; the sky is uncertain. I am moving, perhaps I am moving toward you. The ground is gray and the sky is wet. I am uncertain. The ground is not uncertain. I am not alone; I am with the sky and ground and you are with another sky, another ground. Is this ours now? The sky is certain and the wet is certain and I am quiet. Will we find each other? The ground is silent. I am uncertain. The sky is quiet. It’s never known any of us from the other. We speak with borrowed air. The sky only seems to be blue and have an edge.



BE ADVISED

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