Hélas

Displacement should be less sudden, less intense. But, hélas, it isn’t.

It always creeps up on her when she least expects it. As she cleans the kitchen sink, takes out the trash, does the laundry – well, you know, in the midst of the kind of things that require only the most routine thought.

Today, she won’t see it coming at all.

She’s almost offensively happy, smiling at and dancing in a little blue dress to some song on her black headphones. She shuts the washing machine, which starts its gentle whooshing. The sweet smell of baking bread fills the room. She stares for a bit at the three large suitcases that have found a home in the middle of the floor for the last week. She's going to be re-shelving clothes from these cases when it finds her.

She checks on the bread. There’s still time for the loaves to be done. She drags on of the laundry baskets and starts to pile the clothes on them. While transporting the first load, she stops halfway between the open-plan kitchen and the walk-in closet and sets the basket down.

The disquiet readies itself for a delicious pounce.

‘This cream shirt could do with a wash’, she decides and whips it open. A small cream lighter, a plectrum and some change clatter to the floor from the pocket. She gathers them, sets them on the counter. The room is filled with a moment of silence as she opens the machine to add the shirt to the load. She turns around looks at the counter again. The sun catches the metal and glints.

She cocks her head to one side, thoughtfully chewing on her lower lip. She even picks up the basket and walks away from the counter, towards the closet.

Three steps into that walk, it gets her and she collapses under the weight of the invisible displacement.