chapter two.

“Our mother died,” said Evangeline. “Our mother died like a bolt of lightning splintering a tree into us three. I was 7 years and 12 days old and a black rock plummeted to the depths of the ocean, wrapped in a sigh of resignation. I stared out the windows in car rides and let myself fly away. I longed for dark swathed stretches of night to erase me for awhile. When I was fifteen I tried to fly. I practiced flips in my living room. I fell in love with the mysterious man who fought while in flight, who taught me the art of war. I loved him for his flight; I loved him for his dreamlike words. Then he left like a breeze, three years present, rooted, emulsified into my being, the next day disappeared. When I was fifteen I tried to fly. I used my fireplace as a springboard for a back-walkover, but in mid-flight I looked into the heavy eyes of gravity and I surrendered. In my dreams when I am chased I stop running and lie down, let it catch me to kill the fear. When I was mid-flight off the fireplace in my living room I looked into the heavy eyes of gravity and surrendered. It placed its hands tauntingly on my weak knees and quivering belly and pushed me downward. My feet tried to catch and missed; the edge of the fireplace slammed into my shins and I crumpled. I crumpled like a discarded essay ridden with red ink. I mopped up the blood and hid the marks. I ignored my brother’s wide-eyed inquisitions. I couldn’t say I’d tried to fly. A notch carved on each leg to remind them of their duty. And now the doctors say they were broken, and re-healed slightly offbeat. They are strong but slightly off, these spindled foundational branches that bear my weight.”

“Our mother died,” said Charlotte. “Like a wave snipped into knives by wind and rocks, chopping grey-crested over black ocean. I dove beneath, to let the force rock over me. But it caught me, swirled me violently across the dull inconsistencies of the rocky bottom. I went limp to conserve energy, my breath, and thought, I would surely die. But as the last breath expired, a current lifted me like a hand to the limp surface under grey clouds. I knew it had saved me and I dove into its depths, to its glorious muted existence with the glimpses of light magnified in its aquarian scatter. It was there that I remembered her liquid hazel eyes and the musky smell of milk, thin arms and the sound of the waterbed splashing as I snuck under the hot covers after a bad dream. In the sun-warmed caves resting on the bottom I heard the murmurs of her singing. I guarded her jealously, her indefinability rendered silence sacred. I emerged to breathe only, but underwater, warm pulsing love flowed into the crevices and drew together the wounds.”

“My feet are on the ground,” said Moriah. “They are glued by gravity, the force between two objects. I trust the stability of the earth and its irresistible pull to resistance – I am this, not that. The moment a thought forms it must be spoken – I must feel its shape on my tongue, weigh its heaviness in the air. I must say “it is round” or “it is sharp” or “it is crude.” I must speak so that it does not take root, because roots too closely intertwined necessarily must separate; there must necessarily be a perishing. My mother is buried in a sandstone box. The soil pushes up grass obliviously. I stand between the sharp dry grass and stare across the beach. The rootless sand drifts and blows away with a scattered sigh.”