A curtain opens into darkness. We sit. The hum of a bedroom fan, the sound of distant car doors opening and closing, like the gills of the night. Slowly, slowly, the light comes up, just enough, just enough, to see the shape of a body in a window frame. The hand to the mouth, the arm across the stomach. Slowly, slowly. The shape a body makes in waiting. A bus goes by, the fan hitches. Our body moves across the window. Slowly, slowly. We can begin to see the bed. It is not large, but oh, it is an ocean. 

The faintest light of early morning is pressing its hands against the curtains. It wants to touch. It wants to peel back the horrors of the night. Tears are streaming down our body’s face, not like sorrow but like sweat, a process like breathing, like crossing a room for a glass of water, face calm. A sweater is removed, a sweater is put on. The hair pinned up and taken down. A fight, a fight. Our body continues to wait, for it cannot rest or sail this ship alone.

The curtain never shuts–the lights rise up, the lights grow dim, the body departs, the body arrives–there will be no shutting until all is shut. But moments, moments, there is no waiting, for someone is here.