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	eanie found the number and made the call. She was worried about Lily. She could see that her great aunt was exhausted almost to the point of collapsing. She also thought that some of the cuts on her legs needed to be bandaged.       “Great aunt Lily, what should we do now? The lady at the power company said it would probably be a few hours before they could get out here and check the line. She said there are outages everywhere, and a lot of flooding on the roads.”       “I don’t know. I hate it when the power’s out. Everything stops working. The house is a mess. I could see water all over the floor in the other room when you went through there with the light. Will you please check all the rooms in the house and close all the windows? And put some newspaper on the floor if it’s wet.”       “Okay. Do you want a drink or something to eat before I go? It’s kind of weird leaving you in here in the dark. Is there another flashlight anywhere?”       “I have another light somewhere, but I don’t remember where. I’ll be okay. I’m not hungry. I’d like a glass of water, but we don’t have any water. Maybe a little juice.”       They both had a glass of orange juice. The dirty glasses were left in the empty sink.       When Jeanie got back from closing the windows and drying the floors, she found Lily dozing in her seat, tipping dangerously to one side.       “Great aunt Lily, I think you need to lie down.”       “I can’t sleep when the power is out. It makes me worry. I know it’s silly, but I am not comfortable being asleep when I can’t turn the lights on if I wake up. My alarm clock won’t work, and I am filthy. I need to have a bath.”       “We can at least get into some dry clothes and lie down. You don’t have to go to sleep.”       After Jeanie had gotten clean clothes for them both, and they had changed in the darkness outside the beam of the flashlight, Lily insisted on staying downstairs. Jeanie brought her a light blanket, and she lay down on the couch in the living room. The house was very humid and stuffy with all of the windows closed, and no fans working.       “I’ll be in my room, if you need anything. I’m going to leave the flashlight here, for you.”       “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll be fine. You’ve been a dear. Go lie down. If you hear the power company trucks, please let me know. My hearing is not as good as yours. Thanks, sugar.”       Jeanie made her way to her room by feel. The walls felt clammy, and the floor was a sticky under her bare feet. The only sound was the muffled rumble of the rain. Her legs were not very clean so she put a towel on the bed to protect the covers and another towel on the pillow for her damp hair.       She slept for a while; she wasn’t sure how long. A beam of light sliding across the wall over her head and then dipping across her face woke her. It was the power company truck turning around in the driveway. The rain had slowed to a faint patter punctuated by the strong, fast drip, drip, drip of the overflowing gutters onto the ground in the flooded garden outside her window.       Jeanie sat up on the edge of the bed, feeling heavy and disoriented. Her eyes were sticky and clotted, and her skin felt gritty; it was not normal to wake up dirty. She was thirsty. She groped her way to the living room to tell her aunt that the truck had been there.       “Great aunt Lily?” She found the flashlight on the floor next to the couch and clicked it on. Lily’s head was twisted at an odd angle and there was a glossy dribble of spit coming from the corner of her mouth. Her breathing was deep and steady. Now and then she gave a little gasp or snort, and her head would jerk slightly to the side.

	Jeanie thought she looked strange, even unwell. “Great aunt Lily. Wake up.” She shook her again. Lily gave a sharp, spitty inhale, and opened her eyes. Since Jeanie had the flashlight on her face, she couldn’t see anything. She coughed, gasped, and pushed at the light to get it away. Jeanie turned the flashlight off.       “It’s me, great aunt Lily.” She took hold of Lily’s flailing arm. It took almost a minute for Lily to remember where she was and calm down. She was sitting up, with Jeanie beside her hugging her to calm her down, when they heard the refrigerator kick on. The power was back. Jeanie got up and switched on the lights.       They both were silly with relief. First they fixed scrambled eggs and toast for a late supper. Then they each took a long hot bath, washed their hair, brushed their teeth and went to bed. It was almost midnight. The rain had stopped.       Something woke Jeanie a few hours later. She thought she had heard a voice. The house was quiet except for the usual faint ticking of her bedside clock, and the refrigerator and freezer periodically kicking on. But, very faintly, she could hear another sound; one that was not familiar at all. At first she thought it was an insect. Then she realized it was a voice, talking. Very faintly, she was hearing a man’s voice talking in a low, nonstop monotone.       Moving as quietly as she could, she rolled off of the far side of her bed and hid there. The voice seemed no farther away than before. She looked behind her. Lily had left the hall light on for her, so the room was not entirely dark. There was nowhere inside the room that someone could hide. She crawled to the window and listened. The voice didn’t seem to be coming from outside. She couldn’t tell where it was; it was just there.       The floor was hard. Her knees hurt, and she did not want to stay there, alone. She got up and walked, fast, to the door, looked quickly up and down the hall and then ran to the stairs. She was halfway to great aunt Lily’s room when she realized that the sound of the voice was not changing. It sounded the same in halfway up the stairs as it did on the floor next to her bed. And she could not see any person anywhere around her.       At the same time as she thought ‘He’s inside my head’ she was flipping in her mind and going there, going into the Eunice place ‘behind’ her. She caught herself. She didn’t want to. It had become so easy she went without effort; without thinking but this time she was afraid. Then she realized that the voice had stopped.       Instead of going into Lily’s bedroom, she went into the bathroom next to it, turned on the light and locked the door. The bathroom was very white with the light on. Jeanie put the seat down on the toilet and sat in the brightness, and the quiet. She stared at the floor, listening, waiting, and gradually, relaxing.       She noticed a tiny sparkle of light on the wall opposite her. It was a drop of water, catching the light as it trickled to the floor. A few seconds later, there was another drop glittering along a crooked path. There was a puddle. The ceiling was leaking. Jeanie could see a dark stain. In the middle of the ceiling, it was dripping, slowly.       She got a towel and blotted the wall. She wiped the floor dry, and dragged the damp towel up the water trail. After a moment, she saw a new bead, clear and slow, precisely following the trail where the drywall was still damp. When the drip was level with her face, she put out her tongue and let it run into her mouth. It tasted of dust and paint. Continue on next page
	Copyright © 2002 by Jay Arraich. All rights reserved. All photographs copyright © 2002 by Jay Arraich jay@arraich.com	next page Animal Rights arraich.com Links