Closure: Movement

She looked up, her gaze fixing on me. Her eyes had a guarded look to them, which soon, however, assumed an intensity that she, perhaps, could not feign. It felt to me like she was boring a hole through the canvas, piercing past the oils with her stare, asking, is it true? Are you there?

A shout was frozen somewhere in my throat and I struggled inwardly, straining against the confines of my prison, feeling more trapped now, more than ever, now that I had begun to, once again, wrestle with I knew not what. It was like this, too, the first time I regained consciousness and found myself where I was. Only now, I struggled more fiercely—against these unknown walls, against immobility, against despair—because I knew that someone had somehow found out where I was.

Did prayers still get heard in this day and age?

She rose from the chair and walked toward me, her steps wide, determined. She stopped just near enough so that I could hear her soft, deep breathing.

She laid a hand on my arm, running her eyes all over me. I knew that her hand was on my arm because I saw it there. This lack of feeling pained me the most. So, I braced myself, giving it one final, solid push, as if physical effort would free me from the incomprehensible state I was in. It was almost painful, the strain; so that when I felt I had reached the end of my strength, I eased back, slowly, exhaling the tightness.

She was so near. I could see just exactly how beautiful her eyes were as they looked searchingly at me, how they were like whirlpools I wanted to go to pieces in, how her gaze was like a spell that held me, as if her eyes were arms wrapped tightly around me, yes, and I, wretched being, longed to bury myself in her aliveness, to feel her, palpable, in my hands, to be palpable in her hands.

I felt myself weakening, the longer the seconds ticked away; felt, more painfully now, the helplessness that I had long ago learned to come to terms with.

Oh, God, that she had come so near, so near.

So near.

I felt that I could no longer bear it, and I prepared to give up.

The jolt was indescribable, then, when I began to feel, very faintly, the feather-lightness of her touch as she trailed her thumb along my hand.