untitled (dock)
She suddenly remembered the day at the lake when she was five, the buzzing of biting insects, the lapping of the water, the shimmer of the heat, and how the smell of everything--pine, grilled meats, cheap beer, sweat, citronella, toasted marshmallows--was mixed with sunscreen. But there was something else behind all of that. Something she couldn't quite place her memory on, but she could smell it now.
Now, she was in the stall of the the ladies' room in a bar somewhere in the depths of Berlin. The pulses of bass-heavy music moved behind, around, and through her. In front of her, on the floor, on the seat of the toilet, and in the toilet itself was what little had been in her belly moments before: thin, mucousy bits of orange and clear--juices, acids, maybe a touch of blood.
And suddenly, she was on the dock again, dripping wet and coughing and vomiting. And before that, her uncle pulling her out of the water. And before that, her brother . . .