At one o'clock in the morning, twelve past in fact, it was the second day. She was standing in the kitchen at the sink with the washer full of dishes and her hands full of soapy lonliness and she put the coffee cups in the cupboard with a sort of sigh.
"Dear God..." she started. But it wouldn't do. Why did everyone call God 'dear' anyhow? Being called dear always felt somewhat condescending to her. "Oh God..." she began again. No, that was a little disrespectful. She closed the cupboard. "Oh Lord...!"
Perfect.
"Oh, Lord... I need to talk to you about something. Actually, really, I need you to talk to me. Well, what I really mean is, I think, is that I'm tired of talking, and, well..." The darkness outside the kitchen window was broken with a neighbor's bedroom lamplight, a blinding square in the thick night.
The scratches on the back of her hand stung under the hot water. "I wish you would touch me," she said aloud. "It doesn't have to be a full on embrace or anything. Or a hand hold. I'd settle for a poke, really. It's been so long." Her lips trembled with the effort to say the words.
Suds turned orange from grease. Fingernail polish chipped away into the water, little pink flecks among the remains of yesterday's leftover rice and the quickly disappearing bubbles. "You know, you've probably heard me asking this. I ask it a lot. At least, I have, a lot, just this year." She sighed. "It's not like you can't. I know you can. I know you would. I don't know why you won't."
Something caught in her chest and she sort of leaned on the counter, getting water on her pajamas, wet hands gripping the sink edge. "You know... nothing anyone can say or do will make me turn my back on you. It's not like you have to fight for my salvation. Lord..."
She dried her hands, and grabbed a handful of spoons and spatulas, noisily stuffing them in drawers and jars.
She stopped talking out loud then, but silently she was screaming, knowing He would hear her even without sound, "I'm going to believe in you no matter what, and I'm going to love you no matter what, but if I don't start feeling your love back pretty soon I'm going to become bitter and I'm positive you told me not to do that." With a plastic clink, one last spoon was put in its place.
She wanted to snap it in half.
At twenty-eight past one o'clock in the morning on the second day, she dragged herself up the stairs, and she hadn't sung a song to anyone but him in forty-eight hours, and she'd been working very hard on surrounding herself with good things. But on that second day, in that dish-washing morning, it seemed the bitterness had been set in for quite some time already. |
Submission Name: The Second Day
