Annick Goutal, Songes

A woman spends the evening of her thirtieth birthday sitting on the back porch with a glass of red wine in her hand. Stirred by a breeze she can barely feel, a heavy bough from the neighbor's frangipani tree sways over the fence, its bluish-white blossoms floating against a background of rustling leaves. Their heady scent with its barely persceptible rankness takes her breath away for a moment; then the warm air settles around her again and only a faint thick sweetness remains. The deck chair sends up a metallic tang along with a rhythmic creak; she must have been bobbing her foot restlessly for some time now.

She takes a sip of the cabernet and feels its bitter fur mellowing to a vanillic softness around her tongue. There was a time when she professed not to abide the scent of fresh flowers, but those too-clever days are mostly in the past. The greyish-green of the trees is becoming indistinguishable from the greyish-brown of the wood fence, and soon she won't be able to see the frangipani tree, just smell it, along with those night-blooming white flowers that line the driveway.

Her kitchen light is starting to feel warm on her back, and she enjoys wanting to stay out and go in at the same time. But whatever used to seem mysterious to her about the dusk is now just another part of her, and she doesn't need to be outside to feel it. The wine glass clinks against the chair as she rises to go in.