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Know the Night (Maria Mutch)

-an excerpt

IV

THERE ARE THREE STAGES OF TWILIGHT, and we've passed them all. We have made the descent, carefully trod each stair into night, but instead of resting there on the bottom landing, in the deepest dark waiting unfeelingly for the ascent, we wake in the middle of it. Gabriel is up.
When I open the door to his bedroom, I find him slathered. He is sitting on his bed and his right hand brims with feces the consistency of pudding, his hand cupped as though he's holding a small bird. His face is smudged, and on his quilt are several Rorschachs: a flying eagle, a vase, a topographical map. His pants and the back of his shirt are covered, too, and his eyes are wide as he watches me in the inexorable pause. Here in the night we have a language of seeing and of the senses. Something in his expression suggests his fascination is not untouched by revulsion; it seems he's playing with contrasts, testing the way that his own interest comes up against an instinctive distaste, and waits for my response. I can see him assessing my body language, and how still I am at the door in a kind of momentary paralysis. I'm wondering which piece of him to clean first. 

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