I know how to get through this and other things

She had fucked up so many times before. That dead weight now hung off her, in a way that easily settled any scores. Henry would be pleased, but then Henry always was. He prayed for her misfortune. Lost they said of Henry. Henry who was now all gone. She took a glass of water, turning the tap carefully. The pain was rising again, shooting like an un-straight bullet. Out the window and  across the beach head, the sky was grey with tumult, something blowing in - crowned with yellowish black, threatening the day. All around the flattened sea, tremored with uneasy calmness, she wondered if the boat would still come . She took a drink, glancing at the kitchen clock. Four hours before she could hit the morphine again, with bitterness she noted that desires always came early, and with them the  need for the easy subtle drown that must eventually hold sway. 

All around her the house stood quiet, apart from the tremor of an odd and old clock, a legacy from some aunt or battle long discarded. But here she was after all, with a leg full of  plate and lead, the results of choices, but wasn't everything down to choices in the end?. Yes at six, the boat would come, and with it, Sturges, her only visitor for the month. With all the things asked for and quite possibly a few more, she wondered about Sturges, what was in it for him? after all wasn't she passed everything  and him still a youngish man. She altered her graze, bringing it back through the near shore, concentrating her vision on the reflected image in the kitchen window, the bright pierce of eyes, faded blue, and some how still utterly dead, encased within a crown of white and lines. Was it all pain in the end? She looked out to the garden. A pot had half blown over, quite possibly a strange wind blowing in the night, she would have to go out  and fix it later, maybe with the stick she could still walk. Maybe beyond  the regret, something other than the memories  of  failure lingered. She set down the glass on the draining board, just as  the bitter chime of the upright struck in another room. Moving against the jutting marrow of her inner slef, Hobbling with her aloneness, she moved slowly to the front of the house, turning on the porch light incase the storm should come. Leaning heavily in a old good chair to wait for the handyman; lost in the company of  thoughts, and of course her ever constant and abiding pain. MB