A Snippet

The sound of paper tearing, over and over, awakens Penny. The tendrils of her dreams unwind, infecting her room with elements of unreality – there is a constellation shining through the ceiling, there the floor is water, and there Sara stands by the window on skinny legs with stork wings spread around her. A few sticky blinks and the wings are the gauzy yellow curtains, the legs attach themselves to the tray table that stands between them.

Sara in a long tee now sits cross-legged on the floor, lit in blue from the fading bulb in the streetlight up the block, and resumes tearing newspaper. A careless pile of thin strips already overflows from her lap onto the floor. Her hands throw fluttering shadows onto her chest and legs as she works, moving with unquestioning, pristine intent.

Penny is awake now but silent. Even her breath, she thinks, would intrude, would break the circuit of energy running from Sara’s mind to her hands. So holding her breath Penny watches greedily as the genesis unfolds, the first few strikes of lightning in the storm that will culminate in the freezing of time that is Sara’s art.

When the newspapers are all torn, Sara sits rigid. Her bare legs are now buried in newspaper strips. She bends forward and gathers them to her with wide sweeps of her arms, her chin nearly touching the floor as she reaches for a few stray pieces that have tumbled forward in the breeze from the broken window. The curve of her back could be carved in marble.

Then as Sara stands with her arms full of paper strips to carry them away, she stumbles and glances over her shoulder at Penny, who shuts her eyes and tucks all these images away like a thief.