My Spinning Wheel (Excerpt)

A Story by Boces

Small part of something I started, but am not sure if I want to go on. Mostly an exercise in how I write.

Caroline was in a daze. What was going on? What had happened? She drifted in and out, time stretching and contracting before her very eyes. She snapped out, in front of her the unbroken, blue sky. Around her birds talked and cars moved. Motion all around and including her. To be still was impossible. Sedentary on a bench, yet still propelled by Earth's rotation and revolution. She noted how we move fastest when we are most unaware. She was shaken from her secondary fuzz by her pocket, specifically her phone. 1:45 it read. She thought for a moment whether it was AM or PM before looking up and realizing the obvious. She always checked the time before the notification. It was a message from Suzi. "come over, my aunt is here. youd like her, she is culture" it read. Caroline wondered for a moment as to whether Suzi meant cultured, or that her aunt truly embodied the concept.

Walking never felt involuntary to Caroline. She wasn't to the level of counting her steps, but was still conscious of the process whenever it happened. Left, right, left, right. She thought about what the most important part of the leg was, as if she had to choose a point at which to sever. Was it the foot, that provided a landing pad no matter what? Soles and toes giving balance, inciting motion through the ankles. Was it the knee, which simplified the clunky process, keeping her from looking like some sort of lock-legged monster? Was it the hip, to which the entirety of the leg was attached? Did the hip even count or is that approaching torso territory? Maybe there wasn't a most important part, maybe the sum was greater than its parts. She kept asking herself this, despite knowing these conclusions would only reach her. Never would a peer ask her this question, unless by some stroke of luck they were truly vexed as to which part of their leg they should keep. Caroline was satisfied enough with just herself, so she went on. Odder than her bipedal attentiveness, was her unconscious ability to navigate. Priority for brain matter was the leg matter, the route to Suzi's house was relegated to the backburner. Over a decade of rote experience was put into execution. Backroads and sidewalks traversed without a second thought; a driver-less car with a colloquial GPS. She arrived at the house. Roused from her self-questioning, Caroline gazed at the two story suburban home. She pulled out her phone. 2:30, a new record. She texted Suzi that she arrived and walked in without a second thought, ignorant of her redundancy. As she entered, an aromatic cold front washed over her. Industrial air conditioning and vanilla extract, a smell she had come to love but grow tired of at the same time. As if the stench had made the rest of her senses jealous, Caroline's ears perked up, trying to hear the smallest of sounds.

She heard two voices alternating in volume and presence: one light and quick, the other hushed and reserved. She could place the first, knowing who it belonged to for many years now, but the second eluded her. She walked closer, not trying to go unnoticed, simply trying to get where he needed to be. As she entered a fairly unadorned kitchen, two heads turned to her, but the conversation kept momentum.

"So you ended up getting COFFEE WITH HIM? After what he did to you?!"

"You'll learn some day it's better to reconcile then to hold a grudge; it was his offer anyway."

Caroline tried to think of all the beginnings that could lead to this ending, not wanting to ask the taller woman to repeat herself. Always finding herself on the tail ends of conversations, Caroline found it better to let the moment pass, rather than force many to relive it at her expense. Once it was clear that all the loose ends had been tied up, Suzi finally acknowledged Caroline's arrival.

"Oh! Kim, this is my friend, Caroline. She wants to be a journalist like you."

The older woman now shifted her whole body toward where Caroline was standing, a gesture that reflected a newfound interest.

"So you live for the news, huh?"

Caroline hesitated, as she is wont to do in this familiar setting. She wasn't exactly sure where the trend had started, but at some point Suzi found it funny to lie to strangers about Caroline, and she just had to go along with it. It seemed that her character today had to be that of an aspiring journalist, so she took a second to prepare the facade.

"oh, me? yeah, i like reading the newspaper so much. i just want to be those writers y'know? so uh do you travel a lot?"

"Travel? That's basically all I do! I work for an international net conglomerate, which basically just means that wherever they need me, I'll be there."

"is that why you're here then? or is it just vacation?"

"I honestly can't tell the difference anymore. But yes, I was assigned to come here just this morning to cover the recent Sapphire activity."

The Sapphire were a local organization, or cult rather, that operated within Caroline's hometown, Providence, Rhode Island. No one paid them close mind, seeing them as a pointless distraction, so Caroline was curious as to how they were newsworthy.

"what did they do-if you don't mind me asking?"

"YOU DONT KNOW ALREADY?" Exclaimed Suzi, "have you been laying out in FIELDS all day or something?"

"For an aspiring journalist, you don't really seem to be on the local beat, Caroline"

"sorry, i was busy today...i was uhhh cleaning the library. it really doesnt matter what i was doing actually, could you just tell me what happened please?"