Marlene
He was married
with a small house on the river
It was a mess, cluttered and dirty
forgotten, neglected, like his wife
Her name was Marlene
she had Alzheimer’s, or dementia, or some other mental curse
But she was still coherent, at least a little
coherent enough to know I was sleeping with her husband
He was short, with longer, shaggy hair, ten years older than me
He was dirty, but it was from being a working man
Not dirty like his house
He wasn’t even “my type”
Then again, I’ve had a hundred types
I’ve settled for a hundred more
But I loved the water
so I went to his home, to sit with him by the river
Marlene, not completely lost in her mind
ran at me, screaming
Her thick, gray hair wild and untamed
like a feral cat
A woman driven mad by illness and infidelity
He grabbed her just before her attack
calming and soothing her with a soft voice I had not heard before
And then he kissed her
It was passionate, unbridled
I watched in awe, in envy, in disgust
And I ran
The next day, after work
there was an envelope on the windshield of my car
Inside was a note
“Meet me at the falls near my house”
and a key
I parked on the side of the road
where the trail would take me to the base
of the town-famous river falls
It was exceptional, 200 feet of cascading water
cleaved by nature’s fury some time long ago
He was there, waiting at the bottom
He told me the key was mine
it was a copy, for his new apartment
“What about Marlene?” I asked
“She’ll need someone to care for her”
And as if produced by our words,
Marlene appeared atop the crest
We could hear her screaming
even over the noise of the falls
The last lights of day shone through her white nightgown
Blown about by the wind
Her dull, gray mane
made bright and silver and beautiful
swirling around her face
She was luminous, a visage
She seemed to float, just for a moment
When she leapt from the precipice
to the jagged, unforgiving ground below
Cascading, like the falls
Beautiful and angry