a drifter’s drafts adrift

Here she parks her spotlessly clean Japanese car on the street across the house. She gets out of the car now, posh with a fierce pair of eyes, a piercing look that’s kind and tender: a paradox. With each click she clicks with her high heels on the floor, she looks around her — at no one in particular, apologetically. She pushes her way through the large room thronged with women and girls her age, all dressed in black, all wearing a sad look that they were taught to wear by parents — generation from generation, this face, this masque was passed from grandmother to mother to daughter to granddaughter, with no particular explanation of the reasons standing behind the ritual. It’s a masque they had to put on annually on a certain period of time. An annual masquerade — parade … call it what you will.

As soon as she sits the lights are hushed. Words echo in the air, a dirge, a diabolical hymn, a terrifying electricity fills the air gradually, gradually gaining momentum until it becomes so strong. Jolting. Staggering. Astounding. That’s when the words start failing to float in the air. They fall on the floor, heavy metallic objects. They thickly clink and clank. They bang on the walls of her head, immobilising her every thought. She becomes a living cluster of dumb numbness. Motionless except for occasional rigid jerks of dread and fright that creep into the air she breathes, the air that fills the room where she sits.

Next to her, an old woman pats her on the back. Well done.