...Curtains For Her...

She had seen the film 

a long time ago.

So long ago that 

it shouldn't matter now,

   and yet it did.

So many years. So many

compared to the mere 

two-hour running time

it took for the theatre 

to project the light contained

in that set of reels behind her head.

Odd how those two hours 

of celluloid exposure

held far more influence 

on her personality

than decades of 

standing at the ironing board

watching ‘General Hospital’ and 

‘As The World Turns’.

No, and it wasn't even

the full two hours 

which had lain the scar.

Two minutes perhaps.

One hundred and twenty 

seconds at most.

She never took showers anymore.

For more than thirty years,

no water had risen up the pipe

to fill the shower head and rain down

upon the dull yellow white 

of aged porcelain enamel.

Since that special night 

so many years ago,

she could not nor would not shower

and yet the shower curtains 

had never been removed.

She did not shower and yet 

no bath was ever taken without 

the shower curtain being drawn.

There in the bottom of the tub,

six feet below and beneath 

the topmost edge of the plastic shroud,

she lay still while tepid gray water

made peninsulas and 

vast islands of her flesh.

Consecutive night 

after consecutive night,

she lay there in her damp sarcophagi

until the chill of the water 

forced her to reach forward,

pull the plug and commence 

the slow fade of water

from the multiple wells 

of compressed skin.

Presently, she would pull herself up

to stand before the translucent 

pink plastic of the curtain,

and still, she would not 

bear herself the sound of 

rings sliding along rod

until she was satisfied 

that all possible water had made 

the spiraling funnel to that 

darkness deep beneath her.

Thirty odd years had passed since

a certain revelation of cinematic passion

had passed through her cornea,

and yet here, just now,

pulling aside the curtain.

There stood nothing. 

Vacuum.

An expanse of empty air.

Reaching across,

she pulls forth a 

large terrycloth towel

she knows he's left for her

and yet deep in her heart 

knows

she will never ever 

possess his love.

Ó2000 Jack David Hubbell