Ida

Ida lives in a subdivision just outside of New Jersey.

The houses are all one story bungalows: white roofs of metal siding, red brick, green lawn.
Every thursday Ida and her daughter walk to the drug store 3 blocks west of her street to pick up her heart medication and talk to Ron, the pharmacist, about the weather. If it's humid Ida's rheumatism acts up and Ron sends her home with a bottle of aspirin.

On the way back Ida looks for the boulder, the size of a small sedan, which rests on the sky above her house. It gets closer every thursday, sinking down into the stratosphere like a slow needle in the vein of livable space. From where she is (the livable space) she is watching the skin, convex, stretch towards her.

The first time Ida noticed the boulder was the day before her 30th birthday.
It was just a small dent then, and she strained her eyes trying to figure out what she was seeing. She called the optometrist and told him about it, rationalizing it was a problem with her depth perception.
The next week she drove to the city for her appointment.
Her eyes were fine and she went home. When she looked up from the driveway it was still there.

Since then she has stopped actively questioning what this huge rock is doing above her house and just goes about her daily business. Her husband has died and her daughter has grown up and married. She leaves a bowl of milk out for neighborhood cats. The paper comes at the same time every day and she waters her gladiolas.

Jacqueline Spinto vacuums for Ida once a month. On July 27th Jacqueline finds her collapsed on the front step. There is a small trickle of blood coming out of her left ear and collecting in a pool on the cement. Her terrycloth robe is vomit stained, her eyes are staring directly towards to sun.
The air feels heavy, with the gravity of death.
Jacqueline notices the small stone which seems to have been placed delicately on the precise center of Ida's forehead.

And the air feels heavy, with the pull of death.