SLOW REVEAL - excerpt
The flood gates opened and in poured the crowd, anxious to witness Postmodern Post Mortem. Throngs of people were trapped behind twin stanchions strung with golden velvet ropes. They couldn’t wait to fill the ample space that had on its soaring white walls large works that had not seen the light of day in nearly two decades.
Naomi raced to the restroom to stave off the nausea. How selfish she’d been those last few weeks feeling nothing more for Jonathan than for a horse with a broken leg—an awful senseless death, unforeseen, one that demanded a certain detachment for the sake of self preservation. Like the lame horse to which she imparted her empathy she imagined herself hitched to a post in the sweltering heat with no trough to drink from, or worse, falling beneath the four-legged creature about to be crushed.
“Excuse me!” Brigitte’s hand shot up from beneath the stall door. “No toilet paper, could you help me out?” Naomi slipped a wad under the door and Brigitte responded by clutching her wrist without any intention of releasing it. Naomi faltered, supporting herself with her free hand, her eyes caught in the narrow opening with a view of Brigitte’s red stockinged legs, draped with crinolines. For a moment she thought she would faint but Brigitte let go just in time. Fearing no escape, she opened the restroom door, looked both ways then tore through the crowd out into the street without looking back, hoping she wouldn't find Katharine who had seen her streak through the gallery like a comet and disappear, leaving behind that familiar distress, the feeling that never again would one witness such a spectacle.
Naomi raced to the restroom to stave off the nausea. How selfish she’d been those last few weeks feeling nothing more for Jonathan than for a horse with a broken leg—an awful senseless death, unforeseen, one that demanded a certain detachment for the sake of self preservation. Like the lame horse to which she imparted her empathy she imagined herself hitched to a post in the sweltering heat with no trough to drink from, or worse, falling beneath the four-legged creature about to be crushed.
“Excuse me!” Brigitte’s hand shot up from beneath the stall door. “No toilet paper, could you help me out?” Naomi slipped a wad under the door and Brigitte responded by clutching her wrist without any intention of releasing it. Naomi faltered, supporting herself with her free hand, her eyes caught in the narrow opening with a view of Brigitte’s red stockinged legs, draped with crinolines. For a moment she thought she would faint but Brigitte let go just in time. Fearing no escape, she opened the restroom door, looked both ways then tore through the crowd out into the street without looking back, hoping she wouldn't find Katharine who had seen her streak through the gallery like a comet and disappear, leaving behind that familiar distress, the feeling that never again would one witness such a spectacle.
