Last Afternoon

She watches the dog from the kitchen window, smiling slightly at the knowledge of his escape. “El amigo flaco” as Gina has taken to calling him, has eluded all gates and fences once more and sits on the incline of grass taking in the view. Hit once again, with the sudden realization of impending finality she cocks her head, like Chango the dog, and listens. The only noise is the frantic humming of the refrigerator. The rest is absolute silence. She likes to pretend that she can hear her sister and Maca upstairs sleeping, listen to the slow and steady movement of their breathing.

Something stirs within her. She cannot say exactly what; it is neither pinprick nor throb, but there it is, steady, growing, calling for movement. No, that’s not right. It is not movement but rather the lack of it. Something calls for stillness. For observation. She sees the dog take off, long limbs galloping down the hill, and envies him. She takes her time and looks at the infinity in details within the only house in this long skinny country she can truly call a home.

And there it is.

Something odd, something she had not felt for years, from when she was a child. The forementioned stirring—it is the desire for prayer. More embarrassed than she would care to admit, she carefully creaks her way upstairs, checks on the quiet silohuettes of her sister and sister-in-law and goes into her room. She looks out the window and thinks of her father. The contents of her thoughts are infinite and beyond words. With the awkardness that comes with a long-forgotten exercise, she kneels. Her knees creak, her body recognizes. She closes her eyes and prays.

(Mid-word panic, her eyelids flutter, she has forgotten the words. She has decided that she will not get up until she remembers them and simply murmurs words in a jumble until they don’t make sense and suddenly, like a child dominating a bicycle, they’re back and she’s off.  Her mouth is suddenly filled with hot saliva. She is crying hard, silently.

Something she has mastered quite well lately. 

Something she is hoping she will unlearn soon enough.)