but in my best behavior...

Natalia went into the store, and they looked at her. She bought a pack of Marb lights and they stared at her and her wide blue eyes and the curve of her mouth. And people stared because they wondered -

the sky yes, the sky curving in infinite black swoops, she saw, the massive blackness of the clouds and the paralysis of her limbs - the utter exhaustion. like the dream - Christ was a small man, and not arrogant, dark like unground coffee beans, cradling her head in his lap - "don't cry, you know it? there's no use. the point of fear - what is it?"

quoting Paul's letter to the Corinthians - "now we shall see things, as in a mirror dimly; until we meet - face to face - "

the hail was coming down. it was knives, it was sharp and cold and miserable. she could see the brick buildings from the corner of her eye. and where was Christina? the atheistic, persistently morose, pessimistic and miserable - afraid and of course not admitting to the fear. and Christina - was she already gone?

Natalia could see the hugeness of the sky, the black hole that ripped in ragged edges, and nothing behind it but a void.

She slid her ID across the counter and fished a ten from her pocket, ragged and soft. the woman behind the counter was heavily pregnant. She looked miserable; defeated. The pockets below her eyes were sagging and Natalia wanted to say "I'm sorry - "

cigarettes in pocket she slipped the lighter with the edge of her thumb until it was sore. She imagined Christina slowly in the the bathroom, towling her long hair dry, the soft rolling cello arc of her porcelain collarbone. Little tiny pear like beads of water on her neck. She got in the car and switched the ignition. It was snowing in soft heaps. The was a balloon of swelling panic in the back of her throat. She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it and breathed. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The sky was ambient and white.