Gwen, in Green

She watched them from the island. They were far across the marsh. There was no way to reach them and inflict pain in return. There was only suffering. And suffering could be momentarily eased in only one way. She drove down the island to the pier, saw some of her former friends, and issued invitations: It began again and, her soul hungering for the release, bloomed quickly into what ordinary people would have considered a bull market in promiscuity. However, she was no ordinary person. To her had been revealed a Utopia, a heaven of coexistence. That communication was mostly one-­way was a problem. She could not explain. And, unable to explain, she soon lost the conviction of her own knowledge and shared the incomprehension. It was incredible that such pain could be doled out in such mass quantities. Yet it continued. In the healthy marsh, where the black mud was covered at high tide and kept eternally wet, the grass grew to a thickness of about ten individuals per square inch. One bite of a drag line killed a square yard or more. And with the grass, numbering quickly into the millions, went thousands of snails and periwinkles. Gleaming white angel wings were ripped from the deep mud, along with razor clams, quahogs, oysters near the edges of the small, watery runs, other varieties.

Truly it was the Planet of Death.

In many ways it was worse than the clearing of the trees, for there death had been an incisive blade or a massive rending. Here it often was a slow, lingering death, smothered, crushed under tons of mud, jostling along in the carriers to the spill area, interment under one’s fellows and an absence of sun, and air. Death did not cease to hurt suddenly, but ached like a sore tooth and the multiplication of death was enough to disturb the very air, itself, make it heavy with sorrow, rancid with decaying vegetation, acrid with soundless screams. And she felt it all and tried, encouraging the ripe, swollen feeling, to drown it permanently in flesh. But eager as they were, those young boys and young men who came often to the point, numerous as they were, it was impossible to fill twenty-­four hours with the anesthesia of carnality. And as the digging approached the island, the screams grew louder.

George was concerned. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something wrong. She was dreaming again, not sleeping well. Many times he’d awake, missing the soft heat of her in his bed, and find her walking the room, or staring out the window, or merely sitting wide awake in a bedroom chair, her cigarette glowing in the dark. It was not the same old problem, he knew that. Never again would he be concerned with his wife’s lack of sensuality. In fact, the change in that respect was gratifyingly spectacular. He teased her about having to call in outside help, but he bore up manfully under her demands and, in fact, loved it.

But there were dark shadows under her eyes. She was not eating properly. She was losing weight. Her waist was flat and thin and her breasts were smaller, but tighter. She was, he told her often, one sexy-­looking broad, but why didn’t she go to a doctor or something and find out why she wasn’t sleeping? He bought non-­prescription sleep aids and forced them on her. Then he called Doc Braws and got, without an office call, a mild sleeping pill which worked equally as ineffectively as the non-­prescription drugs.

His life, on the whole, was a dreamy, pleasant one. Semi-­retired, working only because he enjoyed it, owning his own large acres, a nice house, and a private swimming pond which he used often, a beautiful, sexy wife who was his friend as well as his lover, he had no complaints, save for his worry about her health. However, she continued to paint a bit, kept the house clean and orderly, and cooked great meals with an emphasis on the things George liked, meats and seafoods. If he noticed the lack of fresh vegetables on the table he pretended not to, because he wasn’t fond of fresh vegetables anyhow. There were always enough canned foods in the house to provide a balance, and he took his morning vitamin pill without fail.