Читать книгу Feebleminded - Ariana Harwicz - Страница 14

Afterwards, if I’m not delirious, he said he had to stop coming so often. He wanted to say something but he couldn’t, though he said it clearly enough when we went under the bridge and the echo sent it back. Something about his situation, the context, being responsible. That we’ll still see each other, that it would be crazy not to, that I’m not in his brain so I can’t understand, that I should try being in his brain just for a second, that he won’t be able to drive all the way here so often. That he’s risking everything. That he’ll text me about when we can next meet. I listened with the reverential astonishment of a feebleminded woman getting things muddled, lost in the countless details that engulf her, a plague of microbes on the esplanade. I mistake the swishing of the animals for the plants, sunburnt lizards scuttling into the drainpipes. By the end everything was vague, inexact, blurred. What had he just told me? We were still yoked together. My mouth an elongated snout. Where were those words coming from? Why had he chosen them and not others? What language should we use when we name things? How does anyone manage to speak at all? What had he said. I’d forgotten already. It was the thick liquid of his saliva collecting and separating in his mouth. That transition of a mouth into divinity. Like an incurable genetic condition, he finished his speech and we kissed. And kissing was a steady advance, knife raised high.