*
Una walked with the crown of her head as touching heaven, her spine straight as a thrust spear. The core lay upward and became squeezed. Her heart seemed to pierce the clouds. The book of the shoulder blades closed, tight shut. The granite dormitories stood skewed on either side, as if unable to resist the pressure of God's thumb. There was a crack down the front of the world's rational complacency and coherence, an opening of mathematical wrongness -- there for students to ponder, to fall through or ignore. It lay quietly across her forehead too. The world -- considered by itself -- did not add up. But as a kneaded paste of what was to come, it made a different kind of sense or was about to -- always on the verge, just like a human.
There was a man in the garden. Who was that man? He did his work and didn't look at her.
She was certain she knew him. She couldn't remember how. He was very attractive to her. Not knowing what to do with it, she took the attraction and shelved it like a book on some back shelf (behind the shoulder blades?), leaving it there to be latent and ready. Then she looked back and found the attraction unshelved, in front of her, bursting her heart. It had nothing to do with sex. As she stepped forward the man no longer stood in front of her, was no longer visible. But he was still there.
All around her were the green and succulent trees. As still as her own heart.
*
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