Parlance

She was sitting in her favorite chair, holding a Corona in her hand, when she looked over at me and with all the seriousness in the world, said in a low voice, “I am eternity.”  I found this odd because normally she wasn’t given to such profound statements.  As I searched for some hidden meaning, she reclined further into her chair and rested the Corona on her stomach.  A small ring of water grew from the bottom of the bottle into her shirt.  She was staring at the ceiling, with her head hung backwards over the arm of the chair, softly humming a strange tune.  I was watching her chest rise and fall with her breathing and it seemed like at any moment it would stop entirely.  Her glossy eyes came down and found mine again and she noticed I was still puzzling what she had said earlier.

“Well?” she said at length.  “Well what?” I replied, unwilling to admit she had confused me.  She was the kind of girl that enjoyed asserting her intelligence over mine.  Not that she was necessarily smarter than me, but as most women do, she had a way.  She supported her ideas, right or wrong, with a confidence I knew I could never match.  For the most part, I never even tried.