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Shadow
August 23, 2006
The thin curtain pushed gently into the room by the breathing of the breeze. Where it lifted, sunlight splashed and stretched across the floor.
He lay on the rumpled bed, lapped by blown light, shifting shadow. He turned his head to look at her. She was busy with day-start, pulling on clothes with brisk efficiency.
“I’ve got a lump under my arm, in the armpit, could you look at it?”
She fastened something with an audible snap and leant over the bed.
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t show.”
As she turned and left the room the breeze fell, the curtain dropped.
by Rachel Rawlins of frizzyLogic
Categories: Short Shorts
Rachel Rawlins
qarrtsiluni 
The wonderful descriptions bring up an Ingmar Bergman scene for me. The photo has a story to tell too. Wow.
Powerfully visual, bleak in tone – Bergman exactly. Superb.
What a fantastic amount of rich detail you’ve captured in so few words. What seems to me to be the brisk, casual cruelty, or self-absorption, of the woman which is noted in her curt “Don’t worry, it doesn’t show.” is exposed in a quite stunning moment.
i love this image, lapped by blown light.
after reading the story and looking again at the photo the picture put me in mind of two snakes, one uncoiling and dominating the other, and the other with its wet bloodred flesh exposed. For some reason, possibly my misreading of both story and photograph, it brought Tennyson’s ,i>In Memoriam to mind, the section containing his ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’.
ha Bergman and Tennyson, I wonder if they get coupled often.
These are the cantos I was I inspired to go looking for
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/cuius/idle/evolution/ref/memoriam.html
Whew. I was thinking of a truncated Browning.
Extremely powerful.
Mikey, thanks — I hadn’t read the Tennyson, and it hit me with full force this morning when I followed your link. One more reminder that human beings have struggled with all those questions of brutality and unfairness for ever.
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t show”…..said the spider to the fly….as she moved over to another part of the web. What a killer piece! Hit me like a 2×4!
Ow.
Devastating.
Gosh, thanks all. I’ve been away and out of contact so apologies for not responding earlier. Thanks for all the feedback, much appreciated.