Presence, cont'd

Trish is lying on the black tiles of her apartment kitchen, staring up through the skylight. For almost two days she hasen't moved. Her face is made of smooth hard clay, with a surging ocean behind it, wanton to burst through the wall, to loosen and shatter her face. If she let it, this river of tears would flood over her body, eventually drying swirling salt formations on her skin, vague white sand on the desert floor of her stomach and legs. Her clay face is a Jewish one. At once vibrantly pale and dark, harshly beautiful, like every movement she makes, like a desert sandstorm. A small fissure breaks in her smooth cheek. The crack spreads in small spidery lines, and the clay mask breaks; the salty deluge shattering the wall. She thinks "and they went down into the depths of the mighty waters... and then the Egyptians got fucking drowned... the Egyptians are the ones supposed to drown, Godamnit!" One side chants, Thy way was in the sea, they echo, Thy paths in the great waters." She sits up suddenly, screams "By the hand of Moses and Aaron? Say it, you fuckheads! By the hand of Moses and Aaron!" She pulls her self up against the counter, crazed, a glistening fire in her eyes. She picks up a glass jar. "Where the fuck is Moses now? Ready to save the fuckin chosen people?" She thrashes it against the wall. Whispers, "If not Moses, who?"