My neighbor drinks vodka. The bad stuff. Gallon jugs. Plastic. Nameless poison.
She hasn’t brushed her hair all the way through since I moved here but advertises her distrust of Christians.
Halfway through the night, she fights, some times, with her boyfriend. She screams at him to leave her fucking house because she fucking hates him and it’s fucking over. Moments later, she’s in the street behind him, asking him where the fuck he’s going.
I jump at the screams and the noise of the delirium. I always have something to say, some threat to issue, some wise phrase to issue forth. However, I put my head back down, happy to be comfortable in my bed, and say nothing.
Some times, she over-does it, takes a little too much, tired, perhaps, of this stupid ritualistic torment.
He finds her after she mentally disappears or watches her drift away. He carries her to the shower. I can hear them. Her body flops, not responding, her mouth fumbling. They aren’t sentences, usually. Regardless, he doesn’t answer her. There are times when they are both quiet, the roles for this pseudo-baptism well defined.
He runs the cold water over her. She flops more vigorously in protest, and confusion.
Apparently, she doesn’t want to be woken.
12-23-06