Corridor

I point the way for him from my window, say my usual piece, tell him to go through the corridor. It runs, as we all do, under things, dimly lit, dimly long, dimly there, longer than any real corridor, more dim than long, more dank than dim or long, but it’s the only way in. More unseen than seen, more unsaid than unseen, just a hollowed out conclusion. Not a corridor at all, but he’s frantic for a handle at this stage. He feels like a little darkness perhaps, wants only to be something dim wrestling within it. Gabriella plays in the shadows of the entrance, games of chance: pitch and toss, pitch and dark, pitch and black. I sigh with my little why when there’s no one left to play with. Follow me, if you please, she’ll say to him, I’ll show you the way. Calling the shots, the body blows that set the tone. She wings them, if she can. She’s that way inclined. He trailed behind her, like a sigh from a punctured heart, a current in a fetid air, leaking like a stare toward a destination he only vaguely comprehends, and which I would have gone to great lengths to describe for him if he had not been so easily convinced it was a corridor.