Charts
and optimal dates and preferential temperatures. One line or two. As
if she could summon whatever it is that makes up the human soul as
easily as she could a cab on a busy New York avenue.
There had to be an easier way, but if there was, she hadn’t
discovered it. So Brid kept notes. A little black book filled not
with names and seven digits, but with the passage of time.
One month bled easily into the next, each day's observations
dutifully recorded in neat, tight script; pretty word bouquets to
share with the baby.
David disapproved, of course. “There's not going to be a baby,
Brid.”
Despite the storm, she fled the apartment; hailed a cab; slid into
the back.
“How's it goin'?” The driver asked.
She offered him her withered heart. “Terrible.”
He nodded, switched on the windshield wipers.
And she realized,
as she blotted her tears, that souls cannot be conjured, at least not
in words.
Where you
headed?” He said.
“I'm not really sure.”
* * *