OFLUXO

She spends her savings on a house in a mountainous region near the opal mines. There she sits on a balcony completing her crossword. No one around, as she wishes, except for her grey windhound at the gate. Spring in solitude arrives and she wakes every sunrise to a thick mist which refuses to lift. Sound travels quick and far through fog as the particles are closer together. Unlocatable voices gather in the yard, whispering about directions, politics, auto repair. A cloud perpetually rests upon the house. Nothing visible past the driveway, though somewhere the cliff must end. The windows stay shut so that the chatter doesn’t get pulled in. Inside, everything smells like damp soil. Puddles form as she walks across the shag carpet, leaving behind a slugs trail of dew. She pleads to me on the phone, trying to tell me her house is stuck in some terrible climate, but all I can make out are futile sounds, a heavy wet mass like an overripe tomato dropping onto cold concrete.