She called me to come to Cloud 9 for some afternoon delight,
only it wasn’t afternoon.
She had called it sick after being up all night with a monkey
going crazy in her brain. Her stalker had sent another long diatribe that
scared her.
She didn’t want to be alone and said she needed me to be
there.
She showed me the messages when I arrived, one long monologue
that seemed to me like a dialogue with one part of the conversation cut out.
She had also shown these to our temporary boss who insisted
that she give the stalker’s photo and other information to the office
receptionist to be stored in the company computer – just in case something happened,
and she needed to notify the police how to find the stalker.
I did not want to make the long trip up from the southern
most tip of the county, but she sounded in such distress, I did, traveling in
the sharp spring sunlight in which everything, including my senses, seemed
stark, the outlines of the world exposed and her place full of sharp edges that
might cut me to pieces if I moved the wrong way.
She seemed less terrified than I thought she’d be when I got
there, taking comfort – she said – in my presence, though later, she told me
she had things to do, details she kept in some mental datebook of things she
needed to get done or other people she needed to see, sending me back on the
long road south trailing a string of her texts I could not answer for driving.
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