Status Updates From In the Heart of the Heart o...

“The dark soul of the world…a phrase I should laugh at.”

“The world out the window shifted. Houselights streaked the snow. Like the urine of dogs by trees. Though it didn’t seem corrosive but lay lightly on top like something transparent-a diaphanous robe.”

Strange. Absurd. I am the wife of the house. This point of view I tremble in is that of a god. I feel certain, somehow, that I could give myself entirely to it, were I not continuing a woman, I could disarm my life, find peace and order everywhere; and I lie by my husband, and I touch his arm and consider the temptation. (...)

(...) Shut in my room as I so often am now, with my wife's eyes fastened to the other side of the door like blemishes in the wood, I try to analyze my feelings. I lay them out one by one like fortune's cards or clothes for journeying, and when I see them clearly, then I know the time is only days before I shall squeeze through the back screen of the Mean's house and be inside.

(...) The wintertime had finally got them all, and I really did hope that the kid was as warm as I was now, warm inside and out, burning up, inside and out, with joy.

Then Pa took the gun away and put it in his pocket. He had his shotgun hanging easily over his left arm, but he slapped me, and I bit my tongue. Pa was spitting, I turned and ran down the path we'd come, putting one arm over my face to ease the stinging.