Black Boxes. Caroline Smailes

door is closed.

      But it will open.

      I could open it.

      The window has locks.

      They are not fastened.

      I could open them.

      [sound: a yawn]

      But I am trapped.

      Trapped within the visuals.

      Performing within memories.

      Experiencing the rawness of emotions from events that should be buried.

      That will soon be buried.

      In a grave.

      With me.

       ~with us.~

      [sound: sobbing]

      But you did come back.

      You came back tonight.

      You came back to kill me.

      I need to sleep.

      [fifteen second silence]

      The memory.

      This lack of structure is worrying.

      I have altered my way of being.

      End.

      Middle.

      Beginning.

      Beginning.

      End.

      Middle.

      The working backwards endwards, forwards, middlewards.

      It is somewhat distressing.

      The memory was paused within the visual of a me and a you.

      In between the twisted wrought iron gate, with the thick paint broadening the bars and your red front door.

       ~Was your front door red?~

      [silence]

      We are motionless.

      A single breath will gust us over.

      Us.

      [sound: a loud sigh]

      But.

      I can't recall the weather.

      I can't recall the sky.

      [voiced: my memory is falling]

      [volume: low]

      Let's say that it was red.

      That the clouds were red in the pale blue sky.

      Details are often insignificant in the backward workings from here to somewhere before there.

      And.

      Let's say that your arms wrapped around me.

      That's a true fact.

      I can feel the sensation.

      My stiff body and rigidly straight arms by my side. And that was when you told me, everything is going to be ok.

      [voiced: everything is going to be ok]

      [volume: low]

      In warm tones.

      In what I believed to be warm tones.

      I believed it then.

      I don't now.

       ~Or do I?~

      Perhaps I do.

      I still think of those ailing soft and sugary tones.

      I sometimes enjoy them within the memory.

      But.

      And there is always at least one but with you.

      Then you said that, everything will be fine.

      And then you said, abortions are practically routine these days.

      [voiced: abortion]

      [volume: high]

      And that was when I pulled out of the tight tight hug.

       ~Do you remember those words?~

       ~Any of those words?~

      [voiced: abortion abortion abortion]

      [volume: high]

      An abortion.

      Abortion is a red word.

      It brings red.

      Red seeps out from each letter and it drip drops to the floor.

      It makes the view from here red.

      Noun: Abortion.

      Etymology: I can't remember.

       ~Why can't I remember?~

      The termination of a pregnancy through the removal of a foetus or embryo.

      The noun drips red before my eyes.

      Abortion or abortive.

      Perhaps I can't recall the etymology because the adjective came first.

      I am focusing on the noun.

      I know the word abortus.

      It is the past participle of aborire.

      I believe that it means to disappear.

      But then I recall aborire meaning to miscarry.

      Past participle.

       ~Am I making up words now?~

      Words sound familiar.

      They roll from my tongue.

      Meaning seems to be lost.

      I am not what I once was.

      [silence]

      You knew everything about me.

       ~You used to know everything about me.~

      About the me before I was the +ANA in ALEX+ANA.

      It was a consequence of being friends first.

      So you knew.

      You knew that I had had an abortion.

      After man number seven.

      Three days before man number eight.

      I didn't wait.

      The intercourse with man number eight, ended with his cock dripping my terminated foetus' blood. Onto my stomach.

      I had wanted to be back to normal.

      I had wanted to be normal, to pretend that the abortion had never happened.

      That was when I knew normal.

      When I could recognise my normal self.

      I sometimes wonder if I love that dead foetus more than I do my own breathing children.

      [six second silence]

      You knew that I had been pregnant before.

      And that I'd decided not to have that baby.

      That foetus.

      That foetus was sucked out of me.

      [sound: a sucking noise]

      And you knew that I'd just gotten on with the whole thing.

      On my own.

      Without making a fuss or protest.

      I never liked commotion.

      And you probably saw my actions as calculated and cold.

      I didn't think.

      I