Edgar & Lily
A Masculinist Hegemony
by Kim Falconer
Edgar’s Door
Edgar hides behind a door that isn’t there.
It hasn’t been there for ages.
Nothing’s been there for ages,
except the strange warm fog of his selective memory
that happens to include a door.
Behind it, he hides.
It’s his barricade against all things out of reach.
Edgar & Lily
Lily ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Edgar,” she called out as she reached the bedroom door. “You still working?”
She tried the knob.
“Eddy?”
Morning light streamed into the hallway from a high window. It filtered through
pine branches, making speckles of gold play over laundry piled in the middle of
the floor. She stared at it for a moment before turning back to the door.
“Breakfast’s ready . . . Edgar?”
She knocked on the door.
“In a sec,” he said. “I’m just finishing.”
She pictured him, hunched at his desk, hands curled over the keyboard, talking to
her out the side of his mouth.
“Great . . .” she whispered.
Lily bent to scoop up the dirty clothes and headed towards the stairs. She
reached the landing and hesitated before going back to the door.
She tapped, clutching the laundry against her hip like a child.
“Eddy? Please come. You’ve been at it all night.”
“Won’t be much longer . . .”
She pursed her lips and blew stray hair off her forehead.
“I’ll keep it warm then?”
She listened, her ear against the door. The keyboard clicked away, snapping
out a steady rhythm. She closed her eyes, lulled by the drone of his fingers
at work.
“I’ll keep it warm,” she repeated, “if you . . .”
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes darting to the window.
A sudden movement made the pine branch sway, light chasing shadow all around
the hall.
“You’re back,” she said, a red sock falling from her grip as she straightened.
A raven perched above her, his head cocked to the side, pale eye unblinking. The
sun in his feathers made him shine like mother of pearl. As his black legs tightened
their grip, he opened his mouth, flapped his wings and let out a raucous caw, loud
even through the thick glass.
Lily smiled at him before bending to retrieve the sock. She took a last look at
the bedroom door and went back down the stairs, taking them one at a time.
Ca-caw rauk. The raven’s voice filled the stairwell.
“Yeah, I know,” she whispered. “Evermore . . .”