Claw.  [20 Sep 2003|07:01pm]

"You're killing me," she cried, laughing backward. 
He didn't look up. 

The walls were shrinking, but she flipped a switch 
and they 

were normal. 

"Killing me." Looking down. "Killing me."

She slammed her palms flat against the plaster, 
face into the cool. Squared her toes against the 
baseboard and held herself there.

He heard, but didn't listen, because so what, he 
knew. He wondered when the trains stopped running 
and when the old stopped breathing. Who wrote the 
first fictions of empires and why weren't they 
questioned? If they were, what happened to the 
dissenters? 

She trembled, hoping vainly for a word. The 
waiting became a palpable form, growing and 
breathing between them. 

In the end, he left silent, and her nails 
left claw marks in the wall.