Swallowed in her rhythm, swinging her ballast in a circle, heavy with dip then rise, dip then rise, her breath hard, eyes crunched in slits, she forgot whatever was breathing inside. Forgot it might be scared, sick, confused. It was the weight she liked to feel, the way it balanced her frenzy. How it kept her suspended, diagonal, safe from fall.
She sweated.
When she let go the blanket flew, blurring itself over the grass. It hit a tree. The yelp that broke upon impact a validation that important parts of an organism had just been shattered.
That’s what must’ve broken its back, she thought later, as she sat cutting off its dewclaws with a razor.
She wasn’t a fan of useless things.
xTx
The Chronology of Water
Lidia Yuknavitch