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November 13, 2007

Nanowrimo: babel

That is not in his awareness, however. He is so in the moment of eating his bread, cheese and salt that they could be standing 5 inches away from him, their heads stretched towards his, their eyes wide and glistening and he wouldn’t notice. Would he notice if they put their hands out and prodded him, poked him? Laid hands on his shoulders, across his upper, lower back, a hand on his hip, maybe even lower? Mary is sitting on the floor (she insisted, that that was her place, that she liked it, that she couldn’t bear to sit on a chair, that they’d be doing her a favour), twisted and pressed up against the sideboard, so that she could see around the corner. She is staring at the back of the stranger’s neck, memorising the curl of hair at his nape, not just the hair itself, but the space between each making up the pattern, and the glints of candle light on each lock. She’s disgusted with the way he is eating, the single minded look of intensity on his face, the fact that he isn’t using a plate, so she stares and stares at his hair and the skin on his neck, the gap, shadowed, between his skin and the collar of the shirt. She wonders if the shirt needs washing and she remembers her grandmother talking about ‘turning’ collars. She can’t tell if the edges are grubby or if it’s just the grubby light that is a problem. She imagines that he smells warm and meaty and that that would not be as unpleasant as she might think. She does like a nice bit of soap, she reminds herself. The muscles in the small of her back twinge from the twisting.

Although it might seem that the stranger is completely in thrall to the bread, cheese and salt, he is totally aware of the eyes upon him, in particular from the middle-aged lady sitting at an awkward angle in the corner of the sitting room. He continues to bend over his food, keeping his back to the crowd, but eyeing up those behind him by glancing in to the darkened glass in the window in front and to the side of him.

Every now and again, in his glancing, he notices that the bearded man’s bulk shifts and blocks him from their sight, and in fact blocks out much of the light. He realises that he has a guardian, and turns to catch his eye and say thank you, once he has eaten one piece of bread and half of the cheese.

Posted by scumkitten at November 13, 2007 9:02 PM

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