http://www.steigerbeat.com/ suzanne steiger's creative non-fiction blog en-us steigerbeat.com http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html after nine years of marriage, she had heard her husband say her given name only a handful of times. he used her appellation sparsely. so, there was no doubt he had her attention. and was serious. he would say her name and she'd stop. she stopped everything. she stopped still. but, mostly she would stop breathing. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html every joint sprung a leak. she never could fix the plumbing. she was a fire sign, you see. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html a constellation of stars marked the palm of her right hand. head fate and life lines arced by three smaller stars forming an orion's belt. i don't know when he branded her, but marked, she was. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html on memorial day weekend, she sat on the hillside and made note in her book of everything that was blooming she wrote daisy butterweed yarrow fleabane vetch hemlock caltalpa trees fields yellow with buttercup http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html everything he touched turned to shit. i would think twice before i would let a man such as he put his mark upon me. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html her homeland was filled with places to hide. sheltering nooks and crags, hollows and crannies. all fortressed by mountains of limestone. to this day, she hated open spaces where the sky seemed too heavy to stay aloft. she craved darkness and close quarters. she wanted nothing more that to burrow in a closet - smothering herself underneath dusty clothes and musty shoes. unfortunately, whenever someone would come across her hiding beneath their work boots, they would cry out, startle, and think her odd. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html her hearing aid batteries were running low. the intermittent whistling set my teeth on edge. i took a deep breath and let the swollen heat of the morning wash over me. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html there is a certain kind of mite that will infect the tender stems of a hackberry tree with a cancerous fungus. when this happens, the hackberry will defend itself by forming a gall around the affected area. out of this gall will shoot a cluster of new growth called a witch's broom. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html she had size 44 triple-d breasts. once, when we were primping in front of the bathroom mirror at a local tavern, i saw her pull her lipstick, her cell phone, her i.d., her money, her diaphragm and her hair brush out of her brassiere.. http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html i could tell by looking across the ridge when he'd be coming in to work. turkey buzzards were his totem. and two of them would circle in the sky whenever he left the house in the morning. i was always so anxious to see the hateful things... http://www.steigerbeat.com/blog.html she slammed her massive paw down against the edge of the bowl - dog food sailed through the air and scattered. daintily, she would pick out her favorite pieces. the stars first...then the diamonds...