44 Kansas Street ...Chapter 1.1 and a half

The Adagio

She slept, barely waking to use the bathroom. She slept until her body ached and her eyes hurt, she slept until she started dreaming dreams she would wake from and go back to. The dreams were hibernation, she was knitting herself into a backstitch mend. She slept until she awoke.

There was quiet. The noises in her head had flat lined for the moment. The quiet felt right and so she woke. Under a heavy goose down white comforter and a thousand count linen sheet she was snug as a bug in a rug and she thought of her kids, "too much, not time". She liked being cocooned in the sweat, steamed warmth. She stank.

Peeking her head out like a leather back turtle from its shell, she retreated. “Ough” The AC was too cold. “Do I need to turn it up” she thought “or is it down”? Oh lord, her stomach was round and hard. "Oh God why"? She couldn’t hold it any longer, she would have to risk freezing or......., she twisted then turned and with a cow like death sound, she moaned out loud, "too cold" but she had to go. Wrapping her self in a discarded robe laying on the cold Spanish mosaic tile floor she shimmies, scoots and tiptoes in one motion into the bathroom. “Ahhh” as she sits, barely and didn’t think: flat line. Seconds turned to minutes, wrestling with the knowing she had to figure out the AC situation and couldn’t think, didn’t want to think, she finally puts on an extra bathrobe, wraps herself in a too big towel, turns on the shower and calls the front desk to be rescued. She waits long enough to let them in avoiding their this one is out to lunch glances, then retreats to the cloying steam in the bathroom with its’ rainfall shower.

She stepped in and did not move did not think, just stood. It was scalding and perfect. It was like coffee without the caffeine, a slap without the sting, a hug without the arms. It was heaven or near perfect. Under the do not enter sign a thought slipped in. She saw herself as a child, playing in hot showers. She could never get enough it made her happy. Protesting always when time to leave, leaving only when she became pruney and dizzy with the heat. Told many times by her mother it was bad for her skin she didn’t care, she hated cold showers. Even drinking cold water never feel right. Now she was hot and dizzy, she’d been in there too long and she hadn’t even washed herself. She didn’t care. Today's motto was she didn't care, out to lunch, out to the mall, out! But out or not, she had to get out of the shower before she fainted. “Would anyone care if I fell and hit my head and died?” “Not now”, she thought “not yet”.

Out of the bathroom robed and pink she sets her compass to the coffee on the cart pours a cup and walks to the window, opens the drapes and looks out, it was dark. "Oh its night". Curling tips of waves she barely sees through the glass she imagines she can hear. Clear in the near distance, their frilly skirts flare open wonton yet demure as they touch the shore like mischievous can can girls. She felt almost deaf blind to all but little things. Only what she needed no more. Coffee done she returned to the cart and pours herself a glass of wine. Drapes drawn back full, the frills of the waves against the blackness of the sea and sky, she turns off the light, sits on the bed in darkness, drinks and watches until the sky begins to lighten she closes the drapes, cause she wasn’t ready for day and went back to dreams.

Hours and dreams passed into days until the lightening sky beckoned her outside. How do I dress she thought, what is the temperature is it hot, cool, sweat pants, shorts what? Finally deciding yoga pants and hoodie would do and if too cold she would come back in. She suddenly felt exhausted. "Too much thought" she thinks "not ready". Before she threw herself back in bed she puts on the clothes grabs a card, hat, sunglasses stuffs her pocket and walks out. As she closes the door she feels exposed and clueless. "How do I get out"? She needed to get to the water so she had to think. "Follow the exit sign". And she follows it like a beacon in a fog, gets to the elevator passes through the lobby quickly escaping buzzing sounds and finds reprieve by the water only steps from the entrance. She all but ran to it, but didn’t have the energy so she walked and followed the edges as far along the beach as she could and sat and this said the lord was good.

The sun rose in all her glory and she kissed her gently warm and tender and she hugged her soft and kind and she stroked her face, her lips and her hands and she breathed for the first time in days maybe in weeks maybe in years she breathed. She felt like she had been resuscitated. And she breathed and continued to breathe. The grey became color, lit bits and pieces, flecks of red and yellow and blue almost like a van Gogh coming into focus and the color became sounds, the gulls, the waves and distant buzzing became voices and she sat in the slow adagio of morning, it was good. “What day is it?” she thought. Looking around her she finally saw beauty. She had longed for beauty in a quiet half mad mind numbing way for sometime but had pushed it aside with a promise of soon and now it was here, she was in it. The sand was a translucent white diamond like powder each grain so small a mirror image of their sibling as if inseparable yet one of a kind daring to be touched like water. And she touched and she played and she smiled. The ocean was as blue as the sky in competing hues of blue each one daring to be different and more beautiful than the next. Inconsolably, they were a blend and a match too perfect and seamless to choose, to tell apart. And she looked and she wondered and she marveled. The palm trees brushed the sky like a feather trying to tickle its face into laughter slow dancers stirring in the morning light shimmering with pearls of dew not yet lost. And she looked up and she looked around. All this she saw as morning came and she knew she was here where she needed to be. As she left the waters edge, she knew.

....Chapter 2....Odds are....Keep Reading.

#serialnovel #Women #shortstories