The Dark Corner by Mark Powell

Author:Mark Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781572339675
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press

In late April, Malcolm convinced Jordan to go with him to Charleston. He woke early, walked the streets until nine, then headed back to the hotel to find Jordan cross-legged in the floor, A Course in Miracles open in front of her, her iPod playing some sort of rhythmic drumming. Seven beats per second, she had told him. It was primal, the rhythm of the earth's core. She looked up and smiled, lithe and trim in a tank top and pajama pants. The note he had left still sat on the nightstand by the phone.

“Good walk?” she asked.

“Hot already.” He propped one foot on the bed and untied a shoe.

“There's so much energy here,” she said without looking at him. “So much psychic trauma.”

“This was a major battle. A siege. It went on for days.”

“It's like the whole area is the scene of one giant dislocation.” She kept her eyes on the screen. “It's like only when something is taken from its context can you truly see it. And everything here has been knocked off its foundation. I dreamed about the bear last night. Like it was waiting to tell me something.”

They made love atop the duvet and walked to the Aquarium. It was lunch time and they had the place mostly to themselves. They climbed the stairs to the large freshwater tank that occupied the entirety of the third floor. The tank was in constant motion, fish circling at all strata, ignoring the long dip net gliding along the bottom. They watched the trout and catfish, long sleeks of muscle patterned like snakes. Alligator gar drifted near the surface like deadfall limbs, and Malcolm studied their archaic form. They were older than he had ever imagined, and more beautiful too, and he found his eyes tearing as they looked at him without recognition, his shape held in the gloss of their eyes; and then he understood: they did not need him. They did not understand him. And they would go on another million years after him. His life as insignificant as starfall.

That evening they walked to a Thai restaurant on Upper King. When they got back to their room Jordan took a baggie of marijuana from an Altoids tin and lit an incense stick. They sat on the floor at the foot of the bed with their backs against the comforter. The air conditioner spewed glacial air that seemed to vanish in the heat floating through the open balcony doors.

“The bear keeps coming to me,” she said.

He took the joint from her, held it, let his head loll back onto the bed. On the floor an ice bucket sweated.

“We should shut the sliding doors.”

“The room is nonsmoking.” She took back the joint. “It came last night and wanted me to follow it. If you follow your dream totem to whatever place they take you, the totem will give your message. It means something in your life has to change. Or is going to change, I guess.”

His eyes felt brittle. “I feel like I should shut that door.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.