I called her wife, but that had nothing to do with love, all to do with

pairing, companionship, I guess, for we were always together and it just

seemed that was how it was supposed to be.
As a couple, we functioned in a perfectly complimentary manner,
sometimes I was the body and she was the shadow, other times, when I was
tired perhaps, I became the quiet shade, the nearly forgotten partner. To say
we needed each other would have made either one of us laugh
uncontrollably. Yet try and get between us and you had a real fight on your
hands. I wish I could point to one thing that made us us, but that would be
like pointing at the air and shouting, see, that is air!
Life had not been kind to either of us, although I couldnt speak of her
fortunes or misfortunes as we never discussed these things. It was simply
understood, a given. What made her her was as unknown to me as what
didnt make her her and perhaps in that is what made us us. Dont arrogantly
claim we were together for convenience, there is nothing convenient about
having a wife who was unknown to me in almost every way. Life is never
easier if another human being is involved. We didnt share things per se, we

simply learned you only needed half of what was required to live, half a
sandwich, half a bottle of wine, half the time to sleep, half the room upon a
bed, and so on. In fact if we shared in anything it was a silence that we
perfected in a most religious manner. And so together we were, in a way,
invisible, to everyone but ourselves.
Our days were mostly all the same, which was how we wanted them.
Then one day, some men come to visit, wanted to talk with us they said.
They just appeared out of the bushes, like they had been lost, one guy had a
camera, the other guy wore a t-shirt of Che Guevara. She was all willing and
chatty, I wanted nothing to do with them. It cant help us none, I told her,
can only hurt us, I said. But she didnt care, smile on her face, talking away,
talking about a life that she made up all of a sudden, stories that had nothing
to do with either one of us as far as I could tell.
I never got up to greet them. Let them see my feet is all, which stuck
out from under the bush where I was laying. I could see them, but they
couldnt see me. They even tried talking to my feet. I moved them as if
answering but otherwise didnt say a word.
Then the men left and well that was that. Well so I thought. It wasnt
but a day or so later that I noticed some peculiar sounding words coming
from her mouth, no provocation, words that just suddenly erupted out of the
blue, shed say, for example, so happy to have lived horribly than to never
have lived at all OR the only time that goes slow is the time we wish had

passed OR youll never eat something that is blue. Words like these would
rupture the silence we had carefully woven for hours, for days.
As these words came from her more frequently, my first thought was
needs attention! and was certain it had to do with the two men who had
come to visit, maybe their camera had captured something in her, stolen it
and she was now trying to get it back, or maybe she suddenly realized we
werent invisible and that others did in fact see us in ways we did not see
ourselves. In any case, I assumed it would pass.
The questions that came to my wife came slowly at first and it seemed
she had plenty of time to think of the answers she must have felt compelled
to give. But then the questions began coming more frequently until shed
start to answer one, finish it, then with barely a breath between shed have
to begin answering another. Then one day as soon as shed answer one shed
have to immediately answer another, so quickly you could barely distinguish
two answers and therefore two questions and then finally shed begin to
answer one and be only part way through the first answer before shed be
forced to answer the next question and then that answer too would be
interrupted by another and so on. And this went on for days, this babbling of
answers to questions I could not understand and could only imagine if my
imagination had that power, questions that certainly grew harder and darker,
or so I imagined as my imagination was not all that great or powerful, as her
eyes began to bulge and tear as she looked at me while she choked and

fought for breath, her lips chapped, coated with a white scum, bleeding, from
the interminable stream of words that withdrew from her her water, her air
and as you might guess eventually her life.
But then, even though my imagination was woefully inadequate at
such things, I gained the suspicion that this was the speech that preceded a
passage of sorts, that this was indeed how death approached, how death
began with a series of questions that came to you, questions that you could
no longer ignore and the closer you came to death or the closer death came
to you the more frequent the questions came and the more hurried your
answers. Until this time with my wife, I had seen death in another way
altogether if I saw it in any way whatsoever. If I thought of death at all, I
perceived of death as a gradual loss, a disintegration of the whole, pieces of
the body breaking down, rupturing, decaying, falling off, withering away,
being consumed cannibalistically by the body itself, eyesight fading, breath
growing putrid, bones brittle, the brain fermenting like cheese. That was how
I saw death if I indeed saw it at all, until I witnessed this transformation in my
wife, and now I was forced to look at something I had never really looked at
before and look at it in a different way and so I then saw death in a different
way, and this is how I came to believe in the true and other way of death.
Needless to say, this womans (wifes) incessant babbling made her
and so of course me (husband), a pariah to others, for who could really bear
this unending cacophony of nonsense that was shouted, shrieked, barked

and moaned from her throat, who could bear to have those bulging eyes of
the soon to be dead from all this staring into your face while these cracked
and bleeding lips lobbed their pussy spittle at you. Who could bear it?
No one could. Only I. For she was my wife, and yet I did bear it not so
much out of obedience or vows as we shared none between us, but because
I actually found comfort in that noise much like some sleep better with the
window open to the busy street below than in the quiet of the countryside.
My wife of course could not survive long after her babblings took over our
life, and refusing treatment or assistance she finally babbled her way into
silence one night. I held her in my arms and listened as the ranting grew
quieter, the raving grew softer, until nothing more than a murmur could be
heard and then nothing but a whisper and finally even the whispering was
gone, silenced and for the first time I felt her warmth, I felt her weight, the
softness, the suppleness of her body realizing then and there that after
fourteen years as my wife I had never held her before.
And it was then, suddenly, that I realized I had lost something dear,
something irreplaceable and for the first time in my life I suddenly felt all
alone, the rest of the world dark and empty, like a perpetual night, I was
horrified by this aloneness that I felt, this deep and darkening solitude, this
terrible hollow, the feeling of I have been left alone that threatened to
cover, to drown, to pull me under anytime I sought a new breath. I cried and
spoke through my tears to the I have been left alone and I begged it to

leave, I begged it to give me back what had been taken from me, pleaded
and beseeched the I have been left alone to put an end to this terrible
hollow somehow. But I cried and begged to no avail. The I have been left
alone was too strong.
It controlled every aspect of my being. I even tried to call upon other
forces within me such as I will sleep all day and night but the I have been
left alone was far too strong for this and invaded my sleep and took over my
dreams with the same torment as my waking times. I tried I am a drunk
but the I have been left alone again was too strong for that and it drank up
my drunk and in that way became even more drunk than I and its being
drunk made it even crueler and more pitiless than it was when it was sober. I
tried I do not deserve this and then I tried I need to die and I even tried
I will become and do whatever you ask of me but the I have been left
alone was far too strong and wily for any such pitiful attempts of mine.
Until one day, tired of facing nothing but the terrible hollow the I have
been left alone created for me, I started to run, and suddenly I realized that
while I was running, the I have been left alone was now a step or two
behind me, I could still hear it breathing and struggling to keep up with me,
but it was behind me all the same, and of course once I stopped it caught up
with me again and my life would again be as terrible and hollow as it always
was when I have been left alone was controlling me.

Yet these new found moments of freedom caused me to run at first

once a day, then twice a day and then several times a day as I came to
realize that as this fitness of mine strengthened, the fitness of I have been
left alone did not strengthen and so what started as gaining a step or two
on I have been left alone grew to several strides and eventually a whole
block or more and as my fitness increased further, there were times when I
almost forgot the I have been left alone was pursuing me and I would run
for hours without feeling it (I have been left alone) in my presence at all.
But while I have been left alone may not have fitness as one of its
strengths, stupidity was not one of its weaknesses and so while it saw me (its
prey) gain steps on it each day, it devised a way to combat this and began to
take from me (its prey) what it could and the first thing it took from me was
I have no pain in my foot. When it took away I have no pain in my foot I
suddenly had troubles running as it hurt to run and the more I ran the more it
pained me. Yet still I ran as this was the only way to be free from I have
been left alone and so it (I have been left alone) took something else from
me, it took away I have no trouble breathing and when it took this from me
I could not breathe and so when I ran it not only hurt but I would grow dizzy
and gasp for breath and nearly fall down from a lack of oxygen to my brain,
but still I kept on running so strong was my fear and loathing of the terrible
hollow of I have been left alone. Then, seeing that it (I have been left
alone) was losing this battle with me (its prey) as long as it took only one
thing at a time from me, it (I have been left alone) began taking away

many things at once, it took away I have no backache and I have no

trouble defecating and I have no mysterious growths on inconvenient parts
of my body and then it took away I have no itches in my butt and I have
no toothaches and I am not sleepy. It took away all these things and more
and yet so great was my (its preys) fear and loathing of the terrible hollow of
I have been left alone, I continued on, dragging myself sometimes, not in a
run anymore as it was far too painful to run, but in a walk, a shuffling
unhurried walk that was now sufficient to keep ahead of I have been left
alone as it (I have been left alone) was now in fact too burdened down
with all the things it took from me (its prey) and so maybe I have been left
alone was not so smart after all, in any case while it may have been smarter
than me, it was not as smart as I (prey) was resolute. And when I (prey) saw
what was happening to I have been left alone I began to shed even more of
my (preys) things and tossed them on it (I have been left alone), things
such as I remember how to do math and I can touch my toes and I dont
care about insects and I (prey) saw that it (I have been left alone) was
falling further and further behind me as it became more and more burdened
with the things I shed upon it and so I continued to shed more things such as
I dont need to pee in the middle of the night and I dont need glasses to
see and I will never pick my nose in public and I wont bark at children
until finally I (prey) had cast so many things on it that I (prey) could no
longer hear even the faintest of footsteps or breaths of I have been left
alone and so that is how I finally defeated I have been left alone.