Just Then

There was sunlight, warm honey pouring through the window, spreading across the floor. There were motes of dust caught in the sticky heat, glinting, winking, semaphore reminders of housekeepery undone. There were beads of amber catching the light, upping the ante with their stillness. There was the baby, frenetic motion shattering the Zen, beads clacking as they flew through the air.

Among the fey we drummed and sang "Fuck you, fuck you...", only she didn't, she stared up at the trees, green against sky, and softly babbled my secret thoughts to the unseen. She didn't mind that some of those thoughts included rocks and possibilities and finality. She was caught up in the trek of the transparent wee snail inching its way along her arm. I was caught up in promises and the way the sun shone on the blue stones.

I wonder if she knew, when she babbled and wriggled and snuggled in and slept deep and hard and limp in Jenny's arms, I wonder if she knew that it was the only, the last, time, that in a few hours Jenny would carry the memory of her weight and warmth beyond life and into what follows.

It's all now. There's no yesterday, no tomorrow. All she has is now...hungry now, wet now, tired now. She moans, whimpers, whines, eh-heh-heh-heh, until I find the thing that now demands.

The cat curled at her feet, but she slept on against me and I dozed wrapped in the coolth of cotton sheets and the warmth of content in cat form, both of us lulled by the quartet of purrs and little mewlings.