The Shrine 1

Jack,

The four walls of this hotel room are windowless and panel-brown.  The carpet is that shade of gold that might as well be green.  There is no bedspread.  The painting over the single queen is a yellowing mountain landscape, cut with a river (items 2 and 3).

The bathroom is by the door.  There is a small yellow-enameled bathtub and yellow-enameled toilet and yellow-enameled sink.  It probably once looked sunny, before the grout turned black.  There is a light over the sink shaped like a bread loaf, and a bare hole in the wall where Adam has torn out the medicine cabinet.  There are miniature bottles of soap and shampoo, all turquoise, behind the shower door which is cloud-colored and marked with streaks (items 5-7).

The front door of the hotel room has a conspicuous metal bar, which I know wraps around to the outside where it's padlocked shut.  The turning mechanism for the deadbolt has been removed.

In the spare skeleton of the room, I search drawers and find a change of clothes, fresh panties, and a makeup bag stuffed with tampons (items 8-25).  No TV, no alarm clock, but an analog on the wall.  I count the items in the room including furniture, that fill up the empty space.  Twenty-nine.  Thirty, counting myself.

The livid red poppy (item 31) Adam's left on the card table that is bolted to the floor is a calling-card, I guess.  It's sagging for how long it's been laying there without water, the petals become weak like the skin of the elderly.  The petal flop when I lift it up to smell it, knowing full well poppies have no real scent to speak of.

The center of the flower has a black heart and a cool yellow eye.  It smells heavily green and sharp, the stalk furred lightly like an animal.  That, the missing mirror, and the acrid smell of his cologne, are the only clues I have that he was ever here before I woke up.  But there are ways those are plain symbols of Adam and the soul he embodies - the hole in the wall punched there in his rage, the waft of his bourbon and cigarettes and cologne reeking of regret, and the apology flowers left on the table.  Because to be a romantic the way he is a romantic, is to also be a deeply flawed and vicious man.

The story of why I am here has been told many times by Adam, and with more eloquence than I've ever been able to find in myself.  Yes, the brute of him has occasion to be eloquent, and it's his eloquence which lends him so readily to viciousness.

I'm here because...

Despite the availability of certain massive and universe-spanning destinies, I'm often still a girl.  Although I can hardly breathe a word of that sentence without having to inhale, somewhat forcibly, the return argument of a girl being the specific embodiment of those destinies.  I want to be allowed to throw all my divinity away, but I can't without having to choke on every piece of it on the way out, until I'm a microcosm of the kind of reasoning that explains how we are what we are, no matter how you might want to change things.

The explanation of why I'm here is provided, on the table next to the poppy, on cream-colored paper, in his graceful handwriting (item 32):

Pip,

I imagine you'd find some humor in the fact that I knew you first, by your red hood.  Of course, I mean your Clairol hair color.  I mean the lipstick you wore two Halloweens in a row, and never between.  I mean the bra you keep, in the bottom drawer.  I mean your blood exposed by jaggedly burst capillaries, under your skin white as the snow upon which I dream it spatters.  I mean your tongue, revealing itself when you laugh.  I mean the anger constricting my view of you, walking unguarded and alone at night.  Of course, Epiphany, I mean the sting of your scent in my nose.

There is only one thing that has hunted you more ardently than your wolf, and that thing is me.

4 rounded paws, posterior 2.6 inches in length, 2.2 width, anterior 2.1 inches in length, 1.8 in width.  4 toes, none opposable, with small nail markings.  Staggered step patter, with alternating direct register.  Paws keep the same pressure of impact: The animal is a healthy, red fox.

Tail swish impressions after long (400ft.) stretches of travel.

Love,
Adam