Red Like Fire, by Norbert Kovacs

Red Night, by Louise Bourgeois (USA, b. France) 1945-47

Red Like Fire

She sets two large, dark eyes on the room flooded by the red fluorescent light. She has lived shell-shocked in the nearly bare apartment. Little money is at hand to support her small family and herself, newcomers to the city. They live on the least food. Her mind runs in circles when she thinks about it. In bed, her little ones press to her sides. She wants them to feel everything will be okay. The children rely on me, she considers and strokes their small faces. Beyond her, she gazes into the oblong mirror on the wall above the dresser. The eye-like glass distorts her shape on the bed. She sees there her bare arm, the blue blanket that wraps her front. She considers the bends and folds of the blanket in the mirror alongside the idea of her life. What folds and bends am I supposed to unravel?, she thinks. Will my fate become clear if I do? The light from outside fills the room an insistent red, and her heart pulses with the colour. The red seems a fever she is suffering. But it also feels like a great buoy lifting her.

Norbert Kovacs

Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He loves visiting art museums, especially the Met in New York. He has published stories recently in Blink-Ink, Zephyr Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and The Write Launch. His website: www.norbertkovacs.net.