There was perfection in the severance of whatever we called union

This was the time where dew beaded on her forearm hairs and reminded her of cobwebs or silver mail. Waves of heat were visibly coming off her body, distorting the grass and trees. She thought of a start corral at a winter race; the bodies packed together made a similar blur of heat throbbing just above their heads. A thermopolis. Raza shivered. That was years ago, when just the sight of great clumps of runners could change the weather or at least her mood.
She spit her remaining saliva into the dirt to show it didn’t matter that she was under siege. They were down to eating rats but they threw the last of the meat over the castle walls to show their attackers that it didn’t matter. Thoughts were doing that pearls on the parquet thing again. She had run, and then walked, and then limped, and then crouched, coughing and sighing, only to stand up – head rush – to begin running again. There was severance in the perfection of whatever we called union with whatever we called God, she thought, then, no, that isn’t right, you’ve missed it again.
The perfection comes from the union and the separateness together, she thought, slowing to a shuffle. The perfection comes from being with God and then being cut off. In that order precisely. The not happy ending and being okay with it. That’s what made Tereza a saint, she figured: Oneness, or whatever, and then her failure, her loss, the dark space, the white arm without dew reaching into darkness and there was nothing there except her reaching.
The peace comes from the knowing that the bow no longer sings and the bell is stuffed with paper and feathers, too full to chime. She wished she could read and write in Latin or Greek, preferably both. She wished she was fast like RoboSnatch here, passing her on the left. R.S. was squeezed into a two piece black spandex thing, no hips, almost no breasts, built like a guy, running like a horse with a bit in her mouth, chin tucked down and eyes up.
Kelsie had fallen behind weeks ago. There was no doubt Raza ran without pity, even if other hopefuls like R.S. made her look somewhat gauche. The pity in fact leeched out of her all through the beginning of the run and she was left adamantine, sunburnt over her usual tawny sallowness. Kelsie however was greenish white and then she got that mottled color tourists got before they ignite in a second and third degree burn. And then eventually she had to stop.
Just leave me here, she told Raza. I can’t go any more. Just leave me in the shade.
There is no shade, she replied.
Kelsie put her palm up to shield the sun from her eyes and she looked at her friend.
My journey ends here, she said. Leave me here, I’m gonna watch the birds. I want them to be the last thing I see. I’ve dreamed of this moment my whole life.
Raza was startled. Kelsie had never spoken like that before and Raza honestly didn’t think she was capable of any … she didn’t know what. Self poetry, maybe. She felt guilty for thinking Kelsie, probably her final friend, was dumb.
The sun was getting lower and the mountain on the other side of the strait had turned pink. It was not a breathtaking view but it was something else. She didn’t give a shit about the view or any view but she wanted some clean water. Her father told her that dreams were held in the mouth and honey vinegar and hot water at the bedside and sipped first thing in the morning would wash the hidden dreams into your mind and you’d be able to speak them. She would drink that in her white bedroom in Miami. Miami. The word alone conjured another life, nights and days of doing her toenails inches away from the new white berber, aqua and lilac roofs, hair down to her ass, writing her name in steam, the sweet and alluring smell of dry ice, cigarette smoke, the feeling behind her knees after a snort of dope, music so loud it decayed and became something else. The black guys in matching cheap black sweatsuits and picked-out floaty hair standing by their cars on Old Ocean Drive at dawn, feet wide apart, hatches up, vibrating. They always seemed to be waiting or watching. She thought they liked having people watch them listen to music that had been blasted into something else.
Raza hadn’t seen her reflection in a long time and she didn’t care to.
Now I am further ahead/ than either of us dreamed/anyone would be. What Kelsie said half delirious lying on the grass reminded her of a poem by some lady about a doomed climbing team. “I have never seen my own forces so taken up and shared and given back … we are moving almost effortlessly in our love” And: “We will not live to settle for less”
Now here she was on a road with no name, passing and being passed by other – and she had no other word for the living except -- hopefuls. Or the road once had a name but it had been forgotten, blissfully forgotten.
She would live to settle for less. She was in the process of settling for less and less right now and it was bringing her to perfection.
In fact it was pink to begin with because of the fucking feldspar in the granite. Why why why. She couldn’t help her friend.