– What if…

She opened a drawer in the kitchen, the one beneath the silver that held everything and nothing, like a purse, and dug about for a moment. She was sure it was there, just the sort of thing she would never throw out, and would never use. Half-empty blocks of twist-ties, a few clothes pins, the dull pair of scissors whose blades were loose, two corks, cheesecloth, three batteries as many years old (she took these in her hand). Her fingers reached deeper than the drawer would open, and aha! found the sticky-soft edge of a candle-stub lined up against the back wall, where the tide of shifting objects had rolled it and left it. She lifted it out, and closed the drawer.

She put the batteries in a small bag and wondered how to get rid of them. Like light bulbs, there was a right way and a wrong way, but she had never figured out which was which. She hovered over the recycling bin; but in the end she dropped the bag and its contents in the garbage. Another small poison. All right, and one less poison at hand. What if, what if.

In the bedroom, beside her bed, was a digital alarm clock with red glowing numbers. She unplugged it. Next to it a lamp: she unplugged that as well, rolled the cord into loops of wire, tied it around itself, and carried both into the kitchen. In the bathroom, two ceiling lights and a fan: she removed the bulbs and the fuse for the motor. Everywhere she looked, in every corner, was the inaudible outline of energy, the deafening hum of electricity running under the floors, up the walls, overhead, everywhere, everywhere she looked. She felt she was standing in a shuddering house, while winds blew all around it. As if standing in the middle of a fire, with nowhere to run.

But then (she remembered) this morning, the sun rose and carried nothing in its hands but light.

– When he comes home, nothing but the two of us, she thought. And that gave birth to an idea, which became a deed, which was mother to a hundred subtle changes, one upon another until, after three hours’ labor, she stood in a silenced home. The colors of the walls were fading with the daylight. Soon there would be nothing but the empty sky, maybe a moon, and a pitch-dark room. She set the stub of candle on a saucer, and lit the end. – If he wants to see me, this will be enough. Just enough to find his way from the door. Then together we can find the bed.

That was all that mattered, once the sun had left the sky.

He soon returned. It happened just as she had said.

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