Caribou Island

15

Irene lay awake panicking. The pain had become untouchable, and this meant no more thought, no more sleep, no more reason. She had to get up, couldn’t just lie here.

She wanted to pop another Tramadol, but she’d already had four in less than an hour and was afraid she’d overdose. She wandered the house, pacing back and forth in the small kitchen, over to the fireplace, into the bedroom, back to the kitchen, holding her head with both hands, squeezing at it, begging for this to stop. She wasn’t religious but found herself in something close to prayer. Please, she begged.

She walked outside, into the cold, the night sky clear. Wearing only her pajamas and a pair of boots. She hoped the cold might muffle the pain somehow, walked down their driveway to the road, her boots crunching gravel. Quiet tonight, without wind. She was shivering.

The trees all around seemed almost an audience, standing there waiting, watching her. Sentinels in the shadows, hidden away on a moonless night. She had never grown accustomed to this place, never felt it was home. The forest itself felt malevolent, even though she knew it well, the name of every tree and bush and flower. That worked during the day, naming, but at night the forest became a presence again, animate and unified, without name.

Irene turned and hurried back home, the crunching of her own boots seeming to come closer as she gained speed, and she saw the quick shadow of an owl cross her path ahead, the low swoop, silent. An omen, but one she didn’t know how to read. Disappeared into the trees. No call.

She hurried inside, shut the door, and made her way slowly in the dark to the couch by the fireplace, lay down, exhausted. Wanted desperately to sleep, her eyes heavy, but the pain wouldn’t allow rest. She had to get up again, had to move. Being still let the pain gather.