Sensation

         Tense, yet composed, not a wisp out of place, Margo entered the chiropractor's office ready to collapse. I can't go on like this, she thought. Long hours filling out forms and mediating implacable clients left her in need of release- without the complications of close or contrived relationships. She filled out the clipboard-form and found a seat in the waiting room.

         Across from her, gazing into a long luminous fish tank, teasing tetra with his finger, a boy no more than sixteen stiffened slightly, turning as he felt her gaze. He smiled, meeting her eyes, curious yet nonchalant.

         Margo smiled to let him know she meant no offense.

         They studied each other momentarily for signs of the complaint which brought them each to this moment.

         "What happened to you?" She asked.

         He lowered his eyes; lightly sucking his lip, then looked up into her eyes. "I was hit by a car," he said. "I was riding my skate board," he said. His voice, the pitch of change.

         She considered his shape, only then noticing the elliptical raspberries on his elbows. Always overlook the obvious, she thought. Her self-critic revealed itself with a slight darting of her dark hazel eyes.

         He didn't seem to notice. "What happened to you?" He smiled revealing a straight white line of teeth and celebrity dimples. A smattering of pale freckles danced across his nose and cheeks camouflaging deep red scratches just above his jaw. A mop of light-brown curls frizzed across his forehead.

         Margo felt the corners of the room tilt up. She lost her breath for a moment. She sucked in a deep breath then let it out. A half chuckle escaped her throat. "Stress," she said. She nodded her head as if he should understand.

         "Oh," he said. He nodded as if he did.

         A middle-aged woman, wearing an Eyore smock, opened the door to the hall. "Gabe?" She spoke from behind her clipboard then lowered it and smiled in the boy's direction. He waved low from the elbow, smiling shyly at Margo as he passed through the door.

         Margo felt her heart blip into her throat-  remembering. She leaned back in her chair, stretching her legs one at a time, closing her eyes, savoring her thoughts. When she opened them, she felt guilty and a little embarrassed.

         The woman called her name. Margo followed her to a small room along a green-tiled hall. A wide long hydraulic table with a padded hole in one end consumed the center of the room. In one corner a wall-mounted desk, a low stool on wheels in front of that. Margo perched on the stool. She pawed through a basket of weary magazines by the desk. Nothing caught her eye. She studied a large lithograph on the wall opposite, there, an orange and gold sunset, streaked down between slate mesas onto a mint-green desert, abstract, precise.

         The doctor peered in around the half-closed door. "Are we decent?" He asked.

         "Not yet," she said.

         He chuckled as he stepped into the room. "So," he said, perusing her form. "What can we do for you today … "

         "Margo. Call me, Margo."

         "Okay, Margo."

         "Make me cry," she said.

         Surprised, he studied her face the same way the boy in the waiting room had studied her. "You look tense," he said.

         "I've had a week-"

         He set the clipboard down, pulled a dressing gown from a large drawer in the desk and passed it to Margo. "Put this on and lay down on the table. Get comfortable," he said. "I'll wait outside."

         Margo left her clothes folded neatly on the shelf under the table, taking note of the dust, and put on the gown. She lay down on the table carefully snugging her face into the padded hole. She brought her arms up around her head letting her hands drape over the edge. She stretched her back, squeezing and relaxing her low-back muscles.

         After a few minutes, the doctor rapped on the door. "Are you awake?" He asked.

         "Hmm-m," she said.

         He carried in a CD player, which he set on the desk. He plugged it into an outlet under the table. "You don’t mind if I play some music?" He didn’t wait for her answer. He pulled a CD from his pocket and set it in the player. "This is something new I'm trying. If it's not what you want, buzz the nurse and we'll try something different."

         "All right," she said.

         At first, Margo didn't hear anything. Then the sound of a tittering stream and a light bongo beat, then the whooshing blend of wind and rustling pine needles met the stream, the sounds mingling.

         "Can you hear that?" he asked.

         "Yes. It's nice."

         "Is it too loud?"

         "No."

         He pushed a button on the bottom of the table. The surface of the table began to vibrate subtly to the beat of the softly padding bongo. "I'm going to leave this on for a few minutes." He pressed his hand over Margo's shoulder.

         "Your hand is warm," she said. She smiled at the floor.

         He smiled at the back of her- remembering. "I'll be back in a bit to check in." He dimmed the lights and left the room.

         The rhythm grew stronger and more pronounced. The table reverberated needles of sound through Margo's body. She winced when she first felt it, sharp and delicious, then slowly she  began to relax. Gentle pulses rocked with singing water.

         Rain tapped and sprinkled. Margo began to imagine the scene, the sweet scent of forest decay, waffling winds persuading rain-laden branches. A robin swooped a long arc from the ground up into a tall pine carrying an elongated worm in it‘s beak. It gobbled the prize then began to sing.

         Devil's rain fell coolly down into her thoughts tickling her skin from the inside. Trickling sensations feathered the edges of her thighs and sunlight freckled against her eyelids opening bright amber meadows behind her eyes.

         Margo’s mind wandered. Angry faces receded into dark forest reaches, as the beat held her to the moment. Gabe smiled through her inner vision, waving low from the waiting room door. She remembered sixteen and rain fell through her eyes.