Page 96 of I Am the Messenger

She looks up.

"Time to start, Ed."

I'm ready. "Yes?"

"Could you read the words behind me please?"

"I can't."

"Why in God's name not?"

I focus harder on the words but still can't make them out.

She's shaking her head at me now. I don't see it but feel the disappointment as I glue my eyes to the desk. I stare for a long time and actually feel upset that I've let this woman down.

A few minutes later.

I hear it.

A whipping noise followed by some creaking reaches into my ears.

I look up, and what greets my sight is a shock. It boots the breath from my lungs--the teacher is hanging from a rope in front of the blackboard.

She's dead.

She swings.

The ceiling's gone and the rope is tied tightly around one of the rafters.

Horrified, I sit there, suffocating on air that seems to have no oxygen as I breathe it frantically in. My hands stick to the table, so much that I need to pry them off when I stand up and attempt to run out for help. My right hand hits the door handle when, slowly, I stop and turn again to the woman hanging from the rope.

Slow.

Almost creeping.

I walk over to face her.

Just when I think she looks even vaguely peaceful, her eyes shock open and she speaks.

It's strangled and coarse, her voice.

"Recognize the words now, Ed?" she says, and I'm left standing there, looking beyond her at the board. Now I see the title at the top and understand what it says: "Barren Woman."

That's when the body tumbles to the floor at my feet, and I wake.

Now it's the Doorman at my feet, and the dusty yellow air is in the lounge room from the rising sun outside.

The dream lunges at me a few seconds after I open my eyes and I see the woman, the words, and the title again. I feel her falling at my feet and hear what she said. Recognize the words now, Ed?

"'Barren Woman,'" I whisper.

I know I've heard it before. In fact, I know I've read a poem called "Barren Woman." I read it in school because I had a depressed English teacher. She loved that poem, and I recall some of the lines even today. Words like "the least footfall" and "museum without statues" and comparing her life to a fountain that rises and falls back into itself.

"Barren Woman."

"Barren Woman."

I rise fast when it comes to me. I nearly trip over the Doorman, who, by the way, is not impressed. He gives me a look of You just woke me, pal.