Self Portrait: Woman Waking

I woke up and the author of this story was still asleep. His head was on my belly: I could feel the curve of his ear cupping the vacuum of my navel. His body and legs were curled into an almost foetal position. By that I don't mean to imply anything to do with parenthood, immaturity or any of the other easy, lazy links that authors make. I am perfectly aware of the place of foetuses and foetal imagery in bad literature, so let me clarify: this is a purely visual image. I was not pregnant with the author's baby. Or with any baby for that matter. In fact, we had only had sex twice, and he had used a condom on both occasions.

The important thing is that he was asleep and I was awake. I had, for a few bright minutes that morning, a kind of power over the author. I imagined that I could see his hair growing. I prodded the living skin on his shoulder with the dry end of a ballpoint, and he didn't move. I knew that if I was to move, to exert any meaningful power, I would wake him instantly, and the power would evaporate.

I thought: I feel like I am walking along a riverbed, walking blind with my head in the air pocket created by the underside of an upturned canoe. There is no way of knowing when I will reach the opposite bank. I have no power over the depth of water, the strength of current, the hypocrisy of crocodiles. But really that doesn't matter because basically all rivers are the same. They all do the same things. They all evaporate if the weather gets too hot, freeze if it gets cold. They don't start flowing backwards on a whim. Basically, rivers are predictable.