She was ungathered.

She was ungathered. Much like raspberries in the bramble. Much unlike unionized workers. And the season - it was riddled with hot spells. Every week there was a day that felt like a second coming: unnaturally warm, but gusty. Those days opened with the clatter of shampoo bottles blown off the windowsill, into the bathtub.

She had a tiny budget of time in which to gather herself. To begin, she spliced two classic titles, which yielded, "The sound of the wind." Which was a howl that cut to the chase.

When she was a kid and the hour was midnight and her mother chided her to sleep, she said, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Sometimes she stayed awake to do nothing but conduct exit interviews with her stuff. She was always parting with books, dresses, shoes. She wrote down whatever she could remember about the thing: who gave her the book and where she read it, what she had seen and with whom she'd danced while wearing the dress or shoes. Afterwards - weeks later - she loved to remember the thing and realize that she did not miss it at all. Which was satisfying because it meant she had used up all that it had to offer.