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KNEES
by Caroline Berger


She is sitting in a circle of knees. Flat knees, bent knees, knees joining perpendicular thighs and calves, knees forming the apex of crossed angles, knees poking out from legs folded under. Conversation hangs like a cloud of gnats around her ears; certain sentences, or phrases, or particular words bite into her; largely, she isn't following. Largely, she tries to look quizzical, bent eyebrows. Tries to appear intent on the cigarette she is taking short drags of at paced intervals and which she ashes into an empty can of beer beside her right thigh. She narrows her mind into a space; a hallway leading to other places. Her niece: she is seven months old, though the last time she saw her was two months ago. Her sister says she is trying to crawl, but has not quite gotten it yet. She just lifts different parts of her seven-month-old self and puts them back down, in the same spot. Her niece, and her sister, and her parents, live in Ohio, which is not this place. Someone is speaking of Kafka, and the letters he wrote to Felice Bauer. She has read them. What a funny, self-deprecating man he was. Always exercising, always obsessed with his body. A hypochondriac. It's a wonder he ever got anything done. These people, the mouths attached indirectly to the knees, they speak so fast. They have already moved on to another topic, whereas she lingers on Kafka. By the time she has mustered the sentence, He based The Trial on a confrontation with Felice, they are already full into abstract expressionism in French cinema. Perhaps they already know. Really, it's too much--she thinks, aiming her cigarette butt into the beer can--the effort of forging a sentence firm enough to thrust into the cloud of gnats. One does not want to be observed flailing about. And perhaps the sentence is firm enough. Perhaps it is thrust, and pierces. Then what? The expectant silence, dribbling out of the pierced cloud of gnats. No,no. Not that. No, thank you. She stretches her arm out, tries to mask the glance at her watch. It is still much too early.