Helpmeet

by Naben Ruthnum

she was watching Tom Horgan carry the bags in batches to the little house behind the fence where the carriage was stopped, the still chestnut horses breathing gouts into the air that made her puffing exhales look to be manifestations of a very small life.

“How did she make you from him?” “I wasn’t made. I led her to believe, through guidance, suggestion, through the floating motion of the form I had before this one, that she would be making something new if she followed the processes and rituals and chemical regimens found in various books that I also guided into her hands. She thinks she is coming here to find something she created, but I am something old that she has helped to bring back. And I’m sorry your husband was used to make me again.”