PARAPHILIA TRASUMANAR

like the hit of working at something that gets your personal passions flowing. Anyway, away from that, I do try my hand at a bit of literary writing.” I pointed to the unruly stacks of binders and paper which lay scattered at various stations around the apartment; precarious towers competing in height with those adjacent composed of books, compact discs and vinyl LPs. “Not my job, but definitely my vocation. It’s something of a work in progress you might say.” I said this with some degree of self-reproach, painfully aware that my creative writing had in fact been floundering since my relationship with Poppy had ended. Smarting still from the wound of this experience, my muse had yet to muster the strength or confidence to re-saddle the creative horse.

“You seem to have much you want to say.” Annie scanned the stacks with wide attentive eyes. “There is so much I want to say too. So many images, stories, proverbs… But the words are rarely good enough. Too often the wrong ones kiss me.”

I chuckled. “I’d settle for a cordial handshake from my words, let alone something as intimate as a kiss. An absent nudge would be an improvement. A boot to the balls even.

Anything to suggest there’s actually some life floating amongst the literary sewage I’ve crapped out.”

Annie sniffed and sat upright. A pause. And then: “Are you comfortable with espionage?”

I regarded her quizzically, intrigued by this apparent non-sequitur. “Are you a secret agent, Annie? Should I be worried?”

A smile brighter and more ephemeral than a lightning flash. “A writer is essentially a spy,” she said.

“Is that what you feel you do in there?” I pointed to the heavy tattered volume on her lap. “Spy on whom?”

Again with the shrug. “Myself of course. Why else keep a journal if not to examine your own reflections; the dirty, earthy ones; the salty bitter ones; the wild electric ones? I am imitating a memory of belief that is not mine to own. But I am sculpting my own meanings, sculpting my own truth.”

My pleasure in Annie’s speech was cut short as my gaze drifted down to her pale bare legs. Her naked feet were caked in dirt, the skin almost blue with cold. Angry red scratches and grazes bloomed callously on the tender flesh of her calves. Sarah Vaughan had eased into a rendition of ‘It Never Entered My Mind’; an impossibly sad testimony of solitude.

I leapt to my feet. “We better get you cleaned up.”

Filling the bathtub with all the hot water the antiquated immersion tank would yield, I supplied Annie with clean towels and a robe and left her to tend to herself. As the ghostly reports of her soft splashes drifted through the wall, I dug out an old hand-knitted jumper I hadn’t worn in some years. Despite the creases, I imagined the girl would be thankful for the added warmth it offered. From a long undisturbed bedroom drawer I retrieved an unopened package of woollen tights; another drab remnant of a void relationship. The tights were deep forest green in colour, Poppy’s preferred shade.

(Poppy, I’m impaled upon the branches of your silence…)

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