Carol

by Claire Morgan

She wished the tunnel might cave in and kill them both, that their bodies might be dragged out together.

An inarticulate anxiety, a desire to know, know anything, for certain, had jammed itself in her throat so for a moment she felt she could hardly breathe. Do you think, do you think, it began. Do you think both of us will die violently someday, be suddenly shut off?

She had seen just now what she had only sensed before, that the whole world was ready to be their enemy, and suddenly what she and Carol had together seemed no longer love or anything happy but a monster between them, with each of them caught in a fist.

Finally, Carol said in a tone of hopelessness, ‘Darling, can I ask you to forgive me?’ The tone hurt Therese more than the question. ‘I love you, Carol.’ ‘But do you see what it means?’

I say I love you always, the person you are and the person you will become. I would say it in a court if it would mean anything to those people or possibly change anything, because those are not the words I am afraid of.

Or to live against one’s grain, that is degeneration by definition.