Unseen is untouched

There are spaces in between and inside. Vast cavernous spaces where loneliness resides like on tiny piece of cork in a wine glass. Like one whisper going out and nothing returning.

Sister Ann said mysterious things like this all the time, and I'd try to figure them out. "But Sister," I say, liking to call her sister because it made her closer to me, closer and like blood to me, of the same flesh and heart, "Spaces? Do you mean places?"

She'd take another drag off the Pall Mall, closing her eyes when she took a long suck off the cigarette, filling her lungs and holding her breath to remember, etch in memory, each sweetness in her mouth. Then she'd exhale like she was giving birth, something new and wondrous. She scratched more red hair out of her habit and looked at me.

"Evelyn, spaces, places. What difference does it make? Look at us," she motioned from me to her with her cigarette hand. "What's between us?"

"Nothing," I shrugged.

"Exactly," she took another drag, checking her watch at the end of it. "We better start our walk soon." We had these daily walks. She'd somehow convinced the priests that I needed to be outside more and receive a proper education in God's creation, first hand. She knew what they liked to hear, how to say things so she could get what she wanted without anyone suspecting anything. We stopped at the woodshed on our first walk, before she really knew anything at all about me. But she must have known something, since she offered me a smoke and smoked in front of me that first day.

Then we'd walk for an hour or so, rolling in the fields to wash the smell from our clothes. And she did teach me things about the trees and herbs and birds. I knew something of the forest after Sister Ann. It's quietness. It's solitude. It's the place I went to hide, to figure things out. It was a place to know myself better in.

Sister Ann and I'd walk like phantoms through the forest. Our arms trailing behind us, to our sides. We had a compulsion to touch things. The oak leaves with their thorny extensions. The tree bark, bits of stone. Sister Ann like to lay in the cool shade in the dirt with her arms and legs spread out.

"I am the world," she'd murmur. "I feel everything." We were like phantoms walking through the forest.