Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Unlike a Painting, Waiting

A woman sits in the window of the gallery. She has been waiting for some time. Someone is supposed to come and meet her there. She took a shower today, and her teeth look scrubbed.

If a painting is on a wall, it is not waiting. The woman is surrounded by paintings, and she is as still as any of them. Yet this woman is waiting. Anyone can tell that.

She remembers for a moment a steeple she had once tried to construct out of soap. Someone mistook it for a candle and so lit it on fire. Nothing much happened, but it had still affected her. She only rarely washed herself with soap anymore. Today she had.

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