She Wore Purple
Kat Kleman has an MFA in fiction
from Penn State and an MA in English from Northern Arizona University. A native of Arizona, she now resides in Burlington,
Vermont, where she teaches English at the University of Vermont and skates as a member of the Green Mountain Derby Dames roller
derby league. She lives with her fabulous 5-year-old daughter, two parakeets, a pack of dogs, and a very brave kitten.
Second place: Ify
Chinedum, Nigeria
God of the Owl
Ify chinedum is a rising Nigerian romance writer, who blends passion,
fiction and non-fiction in the most endearing fashion that keeps your eyes glued to the print; she has a Bs.c in Accountancy
from the University of Nigeria. She also obtained a Post graduate diploma degree in journalism, from the International Institute
of Journalism Abuja-Nigeria. She is the author of "The gods are laughing", “Be the best you can be”,
“The drama queen,” many short stories and poems.
More about her works on www.ifychinedum.blogspot.com
Third place: Allie Marini,
Tallahassee, FL
This is How I Disappear
Allie Marini was not born, but WAS raised in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. She is a 2001 alumni of New College
of Florida. Her work has appeared in New CollAge magazine (New College of Florida) and Pan’Ku magazine (Broward College).
She currently resides in Tallahassee, FL and works as a hairdresser. She either is a chump, or has the greatest scam in the
world going. Writing is her first and truest love.
Now, for the stories:
About the first place winner, She
Wore Purple, Judge Eric Sasson said, “This piece
felt the most alive to me. The two main characters are beautifully drawn, and the author sustains an undercurrent of melancholy
that really moved me.”
Enjoy Kat Kleman's:
She Wore Purple
Every morning they walked like this: him coming out
of the subdivision as she was going in. It was a dance of coming and going, going and coming. Every day she wore
purple. Every day he wore long sleeves.
He didn’t know she watched soap operas in her
room with the shades pulled down, watched illicit affairs between people less than half her age in boudoirs created by a stage
manager and set designer. Didn’t know she blushed with pleasure while she watched.
She
didn’t know that he had a tattoo across his back in worn-out ink, seeping into his skin every second of every day, didn’t
know he hoped for the moment it would vanish into him entirely, become a part of his blood and pump in circles around his
weak heart.
She began walking at five-fifty every morning. She woke up at precisely the
moment the coffee began to brew, coffee she would permit herself one cup of, against doctors orders, before pouring the rest
of the pot down the sink.
She wore her purple t-shirt and purple shorts in summer, purple
jacket and sweatpants in winter. She tied careful double knots bows in her shoelaces, high enough from the ground so
she wouldn’t catch them as she walked. She placed her plastic visor on her head -- purple -- as she went out the
screen door with its thick iron bars.
She walked solidly, head erect, back stiff as clotheswire.
She took small steps in a quick rhythm: one and two and three and four and. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, she
turned left onto Crestone, then another quick left onto Linda Vista. Her path wound her through the development, past
houses nearly all the same, some with cactus -- prickly pears or some exotic foreign type with wiry yellow hairs curled into
wreaths on their heads -- others with imports of oleanders or roses nestled into the standard decorative rock.
She passed them all: the two-stories on Briar Rose, the houses with bread loaf-shaped hangars for R.V.’s. She
passed the Martins’ house, where they let their children wear their hair long, and the Embrys’, where they let
them wear their hair short and pierce things. She passed Lisa Mitchell’s house--Lisa Mitchell who had moved in
after her parents died, moved in with that musician -- there was no wedding ring. She passed the house with the yapping
dog, who couldn’t be more than six inches tall and no longer than even that. She passed them all -- passed the
rumors spread in whispers at church -- head erect, back stiff as clotheswire.
When she had made her
rounds she retraced her steps, walking on the same side of the street she had started on, placing her shoes in the imprints
they had made an hour before in the dusty sidewalks. She liked to keep herself on the same side of the street her own
house was on as she walked that line with the precision of an acrobat.
She always heard him say Good
morning, saw him raise his hand to his forehead as if tipping his cap, a meshed adjustable hat with an advertisement for a
construction company on it. She saw the way his eyes scanned her over, how her mother would say they held a lecherous
light, how he half-smiled. She acknowledged him without acknowledging him with a slight jerk of her chin.
He had to set the alarm every morning, fight his softened sheets and four full pillows, drag himself up out of bed to meet
the world. Walking was good for his heart, for his digestion, for his fragile legs. But sleeping was good for
his soul. When he slept, he was himself again -- young, a full head of hair. He was someone good; he was someone
whole.
When he slept he was sitting at the tables, hearing the soft whisper
of cards turning over, the songs of slot machines behind him. He felt the cold squareness of the dice just before he
rolled them. He tasted the gin, bitter on his tongue and tinged with smoke. When he slept he spoke to his dead
wife. When he slept he rocked in a chair on his porch in Nevada while his wife told him stories. It took him fifteen
minutes to shake off the taste of dreams.
He pulled on his long-sleeved shirt
and pants, even in summer. The thin edges of skin cancer had come, amorphous blobs that had been removed but could return.
He wore a hat, a safari hat, Australian, a gift from his son who traveled on exotic vacations to places neither of them could
pronounce. As if a hat could make up for his life now, with this son who traveled, this quiet son.
His son was asleep in the bedroom across the hall, door open in case anything needed to be heard, and he was careful not to
wake him. He took a muffin from the bread box -- he didn’t understand why his son, a bachelor of many years, had
a bread box and baked muffins. He kept thinking he would ask sometime, but breakfasts passed and dinners passed and
all they spoke about was the weather and his health. He slid out the back door and into the yard.
He walked reluctantly, taking small bites from his muffin as he walked. Chewing, then gulping them down. He, too,
turned left at Crestone and left onto Linda Vista. Every morning as he turned that corner he saw her. She squinted
at him from under her purple visor, frowned. Every morning he said, Good morning. Every morning she nodded. He
never heard the sound of her voice, only the crunch of her shoes against the asphalt, patterned with a scraping of the dirt
and pebbles that were trapped on the road as she picked up her feet.
He wondered where she walked,
if she walked like he did, down Linda Vista to where the pavement gave way to the dirt at the end of the world. He walked
to this place where earth met road, a secret place, a pocket of solitude. Just a quick turn sideways and through the
fence. The road disappeared into a sharp curve, then pressed itself into a trail, narrow and overgrown. He wore
his own footsteps into it, grinding a route that reinforced the original path.
There was the ditch where the wash ran afternoons during monsoons, where the sand was thick and loose and he had to step twice
as purposefully to cross. There was the giant Saguaro, each arm hundreds of years of life, reaching out to a sky that
was fresh with the day’s light. And there was the mesquite tree, shading the overturned couch with stuffing pouring
out and the rusted shell of a VW Bug.
Some mornings he’d see a hawk,
gliding and dipping above him. He’d stop and lift his face upward, lose himself in the graceful movements, feel
the blood drain from his head and his legs weaken as he watched.
When he reached the Saguaro, he’d
sit Indian-style in the dirt, smack in the middle of the trail, and sneak a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. His
son didn’t know he had them, thought he’d quit. He’d light one and suck in a long, deep breath, feeling
the nicotine rush through his pores. He’d only smoke half, saving the other half, with its bitter, re-light taste,
for the next morning.
This particular day he was retracing his steps to his door, walking slowly
to let the smoke that clung to his clothes blow off in the slight breeze. He was concentrating on the sidewalk, seeing
the ants cross cracks like they were canyons. He looked up for a moment. She was sitting outside her house, knees
against her chin, sifting pieces of gravel from her yard through her fingers.
She was scowling at
the rocks, he realized, when he was close enough to realize. She concentrated on the stream of rocks as they slipped
out of her fist, her face drawn and sweaty. She was younger than him, he guessed, but not too young. Sixties,
maybe late fifties. He was almost afraid to disturb her.
“Everything okay?”
She looked up at him. “Yes.”
Her voice was finer than he imagined, a silken thread just
barely thick enough to flutter in the wind. He studied her for a moment, the way the veins in her hands bulged like
spiders as they moved to scoop up the rocks, how bluish they were in her pale hands. How did her hands remain pale as
she walked day after day?
She felt his approach, could see his sneakers
just at the edge of her vision. When he spoke, she expected it. What he wouldn’t know was that she was waiting.
She had passed him as usual on her way home, greeted him as usual. She had taken the one hundred
sixty-seven steps to her driveway, then the twelve more to her front door. She had reached in her pocket for her key.
Her fingers felt the softness of old tissue run through the wash, then nothing. A big empty space where there should
have been fabric, where there should have been key. She wiggled a finger in the hole.
Her house
was sealed in by the electric metal shutters that insulated it -- warm in winter, cool in summer -- instant barriers at the
flick of a switch. The house was sealed up tight, the way it always was.
She looked to her neighbors’
houses, all the same in their beige and stucco. The family next door didn’t like her, let their dog howl all night.
There was really no one to turn to for help, not even people from church, people who complained when she didn’t excuse
their children from Sunday School for the church Fiesta, when she wouldn’t give up her time with them so they could
rehearse for the pageant.
“Religion has nothing to do with parties and plays,” she told the parents.
No, the parents would do her no favors.
She waited. She knew she should have taken better care
of her pockets, should have reinforced them with strong, black thread. There were many ways to prevent keys from being
lost, her mother would have said. She could have tied it around her wrist with string, or trapped it inside her shoe
where it would rattle around, smooth and familiar beneath her sock. She could have hid it under the doorstop, in the
mailbox, in the nook of a tree carved out by a bird. All these things she could’ve done, her mother would have
told her. And maybe that’s why she didn’t do any of them.
She sat because this couldn’t be happing. Other people lost things. Other people were irresponsible.
She was not. Every moment of her day was spent insuring that she was not like other people, not slothful, not weak.
Her mother would say, leaning forward and looking at her with dark eyes, that people had lax morals. So God punished
them by giving them car accidents, gonorrhea, lost keys.
At noon he walked the hot pavement
to the sidewalk in his slippers. If he leaned forward into the street a bit and craned his neck, he could see her, still
sitting, but now in the shadow of a small tree, its limbs barely grown enough to protect her from the sun. Her fingers
touched the gravel, picked one piece up, examined its rough edges, set it down. He brought her a glass of iced tea.
“Sun tea,” he said. “I make it myself every morning.”
She looked at him.
She looks like she needs more fluids, he thought.
There was a shriveled quality to her skin. Not quite wrinkled, but maybe puckered. A peach left too long in the
refrigerator.
She took the glass he offered her.
“Everything
okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” She gulped the liquid down in several gasps.
He could see it pass through her throat, worked down by thin muscles.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He went back into his empty house.
His son had left for work and he would spend the day in silence. Some days he watched the game shows, shouted out the
answers so his voice box wouldn’t rust shut. Usually he got them right. But nobody was there to congratulate
him, to be amazed by his memory, the sharpness of his mind.
She had lived in that house since
she had it built eleven years ago. She’d watched it grow from plaster and skeletal struts and crossbeams.
When her mother was sick and preparing to die the house was ready and they both moved in.
Her mother took her time in
dying. There had been other cups in the sink, extra food in the cupboard. There had been demands and requests
and orders and the last wishes of the already dead, someone telling her what to do and what God would hate her for doing and
with whom. There had been someone making too much chicken soup -- gallons of it -- on Saturdays. There had been
fighting, the rage of two women used to having things their own way, the knowledge that only one of them would prevail, would
survive.
Sitting there in the driveway, she thought about her house. There were protective coverings
on the furniture --machine washable once a week -- in muted grays and yellows. Throw rugs covered the traces of her
mother’s walker on the throughways of the carpet. The angle of the dining room table neatly intersected with the
line of the single framed DeGrazia print on the back wall. She had three plants in the living room, spider plants she
watered every few days. She removed clippings from them daily, tossed them in the trash instead of replanting.
Three plants were homey; more than that was a jungle. She had a television she watched at 5:30 every night to see the
local news. She wouldn’t watch the national anymore.
In the bathroom one toothbrush hung
from a holder fastened into the wall. She had covered up the hole for the extra toothbrush with tape. Her towel
draped neatly on the rack, and the bathmat was centered directly in front of the tub. There were no water spots on the
mirror.
From where she sat she could just see the front door. She had never felt so apart from
her house, so outside it, so separate. She had her constitutionals, and the Sunday School classes. But then she
always brought a piece of her house with her. A piece of fuzz from the carpet, a breath of air exhaled and breathed
in again. A key.
The neighbors began to come home from work. She counted them off
on her fingers. Mr. Berger. He had a lawn, a green waste of water, her mother had called it. Ms. Lawson.
A lawyer who wanted to be called Ms. That was two strikes against her, her mother said. The Garner family, husband and
wife and two teenage daughters who aligned their schedules so they all returned home at once, a tumbling, laughing mass of
humanness. They were too noisy, woke her mother from her afternoon nap. Across the street Mr. Krautter’s
son pulled into his driveway. Mr. Krautter took long walks. Her mother might have approved of that.
The policeman came, a burly man with a thin mustache. A fire truck came, horn blaring. Along the street curtains
drew back, faces peeked out.
“Go away,” she said. “God wants me to sit.”
They brought her milk. They brought her cookies.
She gave them back.
“Go away,” she said. “I’m sitting.”
His son came home after work and cooked dinner: heated roast beef and gravy over white bread, mashed potatoes on the side.
“There’s a woman sitting in her yard playing with gravel,” he said.
“I know,’ said his son. ‘I saw her when I drove in.”
He had known she was still there, had hoped it.
His son read the paper as
he ate, savoring the words as much as the food in front of him. Occasionally he would mutter gang shooting or drugs
or murder in the first. The words never changed.
“Do you suppose I could take her
some leftovers?’’
“I lost my keys,’ she said through a mouthful of mashed
potatoes.
“In the gravel?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you retrace your steps? That’s what you’re supposed to do when you lose
things.”
“No.”
They sat in silence after that as she lifted
the food to her mouth with steady hands. He wanted to ask her more, but was sure she wouldn’t tell him.
Would she stay there all night? Should he call a locksmith? Could he bring her a pillow?
He brought her the best pillows. He took the plush velvet pillow from the couch, and the new extra firm from his own
bed, putting a fresh pillowcase on it. She sat on the velvet one and clutched the other in her arms.
He thought he understood why she was there. Her house, the same floor pattern as his but in reverse, with the kitchen
on the left of the door and the bedrooms to the right. He could tell by how the house was shaped, a mirror image of
his. Walls white, rooms silent. Only the hum of the television. He wondered if she watched the game shows, if
she gave answers to the questions in her empty room.
She didn’t want it, it wasn’t part
of her atonement. But it would be a sin to waste food, and she was hungry.
He did seem like part of the plan, though, part of the reason she was here. Like the air around them. Like the
setting sun. When she looked at him, he blushed. She could feel his nearness, a warmth radiating from his skin.
How many years had he lived across from her? Since before her mother died, at least. She looked at him. She’d
never really looked at him before, had never noticed how brown his skin was from a life in the desert, how his eyes had sunk
back a little in his head, making his nose even more prominent. She could smell the scent of man, a dark, musky sweat
smell. She hadn’t invited him to stay, nor had she insisted he go. He was just here now.
He sat only inches from her. She watched him watch her, felt his eyes cover her. Her mother would never approve
of a look like that. A look that lonely. She could hear her mother’s voice from the grave, rattling around
in her head, empty eye sockets boring into the secret place inside her and watching. She held the pillow he gave her, clutched
it tight, pinned it between her elbows, propped it against her breasts. It smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and sunscreen.
She wondered if he had to put sunscreen on his balding head.
She didn’t pull away when
he touched her face, the skin of his hands a thick leather mitt against her cheek. She expected his kiss, dry as dust,
as if he hadn’t used it in years. She felt his tongue knocking at her teeth and she expected this, too.
She let him touch her like that, body rigid, even though it had been a long time since she was last touched.
He liked the way she tasted, like shelled sunflower seeds -- just a hint of salt left. He thought if he closed his eyes
he could see his dead wife, could remember the wrinkles in the corners of her mouth when she laughed.
“Tell me a story,” he said.
“What kind of story?”
“Any kind of story.”
She thought she understood this man, wondered
if he lived with a son who burned the meatloaf when he cooked, a son who loaded the dishwasher the wrong way. She would
tell him a story, to quiet his rage at living with this son.
“Once there
was a young frog, who lived in the deep dark recesses of a yard. The frog lived in the desert, and dug deep into the
hard earth to hide from the hot sun. When they got a good monsoon the frog would climb up to the surface and soak up
all the water into its skin.”
“Is the frog a girl or a boy?”
“What does that matter?”
“It matters.”
“Okay.
It’s a girl frog. So she let the rain soak into her skin in the thick air of evening. One night she dressed
herself in a gown of mud and went out on the town, looking for a suitor. She was beautiful. She saw many frogs,
handsome frogs with hundreds of warts.” She stopped. Most stories were happily ever after stories, but she knew
better.
“Then what happened?”
“The mother frog wanted her
to come home.”
“Is that it?”
“Well, yes. What
else can happen to a particular frog?”
Like lovers, they watched the stars rise in the
sky, sitting close to each other with the dinner plate at their feet. He told her how his son worked hard, how they
were two bachelors living under the same roof pretending to be okay with that. He told her how his son never wiped up
the syrup from the bottle when they had pancakes for breakfast, how it left a sticky ring on the wood of the kitchen table,
how it was hard to close the lid to the bottle after his son was done with it. He wanted to tell her of the silence
in the house, how his ears rang with it during the day, how he sometimes wondered if he would forget how to speak.
Instead, he told her he had a wife once, many years ago, and that her face had faded from his mind until it was as blurry
as a distant cluster of stars.
She leaned on his shoulder, letting her hair touch his shirt,
feeling the boniness of his collarbone against her ear. She told him she could hear his soul under the sleeve, under
the skin. She told him she had watched fireworks like this, once, when she was a girl, sitting on the hill above her
back porch somewhere in Indiana, miles from the site, hearing the soft poofs of the explosions out of sync with the colors.
“What happened?”
“It’s not important,” she said,
seeing her mother’s face again, through the window of that back porch. It wasn’t hard to conjure back the
look of rage and disappointment as her mother marched outside to retrieve her. It was harder to remember the sting of
the slap that must have followed.
He knew what she would look like under
her clothes. He could see the whiteness of skin that had never felt the tinge of the sun. He knew there would
be blue veins in her breasts, trickling to her nipples. He knew that there would be wrinkles of flab in her hips, small
pockets like aged cheese. All this, he thought, is what makes a woman beautiful.
She closed
her eyes and allowed her imagination to creep into her mind, to paint vivid pictures for her, of his naked body with a small
tuft of hair wiry with age on the middle of his chest and down below. Of the muscles in his thighs, strong from his
morning walks, of how they could enclose her like the thighs of any one of those men from her soap operas. She felt
his pulse beside her. The thoughts came quickly, and just as quickly she knew they were sinful, just like her mother
always knew her sinful thoughts.
They fell asleep like this, one against the other, each dreaming
their separate dreams, he of lost keys and she of frogs and princes.
She awoke with a start
and for a moment didn’t realize where she was. He was still beside her, and her face flushed with the realization
that she had been resting on him, his arm under her head. She was sure that she should go. She got to her feet
and walked slowly along the sidewalk, kicking the ground, scuffing her feet along the concrete. There was a half moon
rising above the glow of the street lights. Shadows crept in at the edges of yards, in the middle of the street, behind
her as she walked encased in light.
She turned left on Crestone then left again on Linda Vista.
On Briar Rose in front of the Martins’ two-story house her foot slid across something that echoed and clanged and jingled
on the sidewalk in the darkness. She stooped to pick it up and gave a satisfied smile. Her key.
She retraced her steps and walked quietly to her front door. She looked back at him, at his face half lit by streetlights,
at the wrinkles on his forehead, at the tuft up hair springing up from his head. She thought that he reminded her of
someone she might have once known.
Her key slid easily into the lock.
She
took the quilt her mother had sewn all those years ago, the quilt she worked on while she was waiting to die, down from its
shelf in the hall closet shelf and tucked it around him, fixing it underneath his chin even though it wasn’t really
cold.
She left him sleeping in her yard, his body propped up against a velvet pillow and an extra
firm.
After she closed and locked the door behind her, she hung the key on its hook. She crossed
to the window and pulled apart the blinds. Thirty years ago, she would’ve stayed next to him, would’ve slid
her hand up inside his shirt and twisted his chest hair into soft loops around her finger. But thirty years ago she’d
fallen in love with a man who sang to her outside her window, a man twelve years her junior. He asked her to marry him,
to move to Spain with him.
“He doesn’t need you,” her mother said. “Just watch,
he’ll go without you.”
The man in the yard looked nothing like him. She watched
him for a long time.
He woke when the sun climbed high enough to pierce through his closed
lids. There were indentations in his arms and legs from the gravel. All his muscles ached and he needed a hot
bath. He was sorry she’d left in the middle of the night, had felt her rise beside him, heard her feet shuffle
as she traced her steps. He thought of her voice, of the way she’d spoken to him. He could take the memory
of those words back to his house, repeat them over and over in his head when he watched the game shows.
She woke with her head in her arms at the hard wood table. It was dawn. The man in her yard still slept.
Call the police, she could hear her mother say.
She went to her kitchen and pulled two frying pans
from the cupboard. In one, she scrambled four eggs, in the other she cooked bacon. She poured juice from her pitcher
into two glasses.
He played with the soft edges of the quilt. Patches seemed to
come from anything: silken swatches, burlap sacks, old shirts with the buttons still attached. There was no color scheme,
only slight variance in size and shape.
As he folded it up, the door opened.
She set a plate of food and a glass of orange juice in front of him, then turned and went inside.
He didn’t expect all this, the blanket, the breakfast. He’d only wanted the sound of her voice, the story.
A moment later she returned, carrying her own plate and glass.
As they ate, they
talked.
“My mother went straight to heaven when she died. She never committed a sin.”
“Never? When my son was eight he broke his elbow leaping from the top of the refrigerator to the
counter. Just missed the edge and pop! Broken elbow. I told my wife he hurt it on his roller skates.”
“How she must have scolded him for being so clumsy.”
He looked at
her. “She cried about it.”
He ate every speck of food, wiped the grease up with
his toast and licked the crumbs from the tines of the fork.
She smiled.
He
held the quilt out to her. “What a beautiful blanket. Where did you get all those pieces?”
“I don’t know. It was my mother’s.” They held it between them. She looked at each piece,
squinted at patterns that seemed familiar. Suddenly she stepped back. “They’re from me. Every
one of them.” Her first communion dress. A flowered pillowcase she hadn’t seen since she was ten.
An old handkerchief she thought she’d lost. A shirt she’d thrown out when it got a hole in it.
He handed her his clean plate.
“Would you like to come over for dinner,
too?”
“My son always makes dinner for me. He needs me to
be there.”
She thought about it, about her mother joining all those
scraps of her dresses, like second skins, all those pieces of her, as if to stitch her daughter into something she could keep.
“No he doesn’t,” she said. “Your son doesn’t need you there tonight.”
He started to protest, but she put a finger to his lips. “Trust me. He’ll be fine.”
For our second place winner, God of the Owl, this quarter’s
judge, Eric Sasson said, “I enjoyed the fable-like quality of this piece. It's a great example of how specificity
can make a story feel authentic. I really felt immersed in a new world.”
Enjoy Ify Chinedum's
God of the Owl
Orie market day was usually the busiest market day in Nze. People came in
from as far as Izura village to buy and sell in on Orie market days. Ifeachi had woken up quite early, so she could finish
up her chores and take her mother’s palm kernel nuts to the market. She washed the big jar behind the hut, to get it
ready for fresh water. Mother always said that when water stayed in a jar for as long as three days it was no longer pure
for use. Ifeachi had her doubts about the authenticity of her mother’s beliefs, but made it a point of duty to empty
the big jar behind the house and devotedly wash it clean, every three days.
As she walked down the lonely path that led
to the orji stream to fetch water, she let her mind ponder over the problems that has troubled her mother so much lately.
As an only child for ten years, Ifeachi tried to understand why her father had to married another woman. However, to marry
a third, was going to the extreme, she thought. At her young age, she understood the tradition of her people. They had little
or no use for female children, and a woman who was unable to bear male children for her husband was considered to have failed
in her marital obligations. If the other women had been a little bit nicer to her mother and herself, it would have been easier
to be happy in her father’s home. But, that was not to be. Chisom, the second wife taunted her mother endlessly, for
her inability to have more children, let alone bear a male child. Only last night, Ifeachi overheard her mother crying, which
was the third time that week. She made up her mind to
have a talk with her father when she returned from the stream.
She’d ask him why he’d married two more women when he seemed to love her mother so much. If only her father had
the slightest idea that she was worth three male children, he wouldn’t have gone for a third wife.
Lost in her
thoughts, Ifeachi suddenly had the urge walk faster. Something was about to happen, she could sense it; someone was in need
of help. She broke into a run, and came out to a crossroad. On her right was the orji stream, but she took the left turn instead.
A pregnant woman stood in the middle of the road, her hand clutching her protruded stomach, as she stared down at something
on the ground. From where Ifeachi stood, she saw it was a chameleon. It was believed in Nze, that when a pregnant woman crossed
part with a chameleon, she had a miscarriage. Ifeachi, spoke softly to the chameleon, and watched it slide away into the nearby
bush. She assured the frightened woman that there would be no miscarriage. The woman looked at her strangely, but thanked
her, and hurried away.
“Papa, can I discuss something with you’” she asked twenty minutes later.
“Certainly my princess, what is it’” Uchendu asked softly.
“Is it mandatory, in our tradition,
to have more than one wife’” Ifeachi asked without preamble, and watched surprise register on her father’s
face.
“Eh, not really my dear, there is no law that insists you marry more than one wife, but it is allowed, if
it is your choice.” He father replied.
“Then, it was your choice to marry Nne Nnedi and Nne Chisom’”
“Yes, my child,” he whispered. “It was my choice.”
“Why’” she asked again,
and watched his expression move from surprise to shock, and then to uncertainty.
“I…I don’t think
I know what you mean my dear, why what’
“Why did you marry Nne Nnedi and Chisom’ I mean, it wasn’t
as though you were forced to. Would you have, if I was a male child’” she asked and waited for his explanation,
her expression hopeful. Mazi Uchenna cleared his throat for a third time, as he searched for the best way to answer his query.
“Come on now Ifeachi, your father has visitors, and you still have chores to do.” Ugochi said from behind them.
“But mama, I’m talking with papa,” She’d protested.
“I know, but you can always continue
later, right now, papa has visitors.”
“Yes my princess, we can always continue from where we stopped later.
I have to see my visitors now.”
Ifeachi thought her father sounded greatly relieved to see her whisked off. Somehow,
she knew there won’t be a second opportunity for her query. Uchenna stared after his daughter in surprise. He’d
asked himself same questions too. That had been before and after he took the decision to bring in his second and third wife.
But, how was he to explain the situation that led to his actions to a ten year old’ How was he to explain to her that
it was more of her mother’s idea than it was his’ He didn’t have enough time to ponder the question further,
as four elders marched into his obi.
“Mazi Uchenna, we greet you.” The elders said in unison.
“I
greet you too my fellow elders,” Uchenna replied. “Welcome to my home.” He added, and offered them seats.
“Mazi Uchenna, I just saw your eldest daughter Ifeachi, that girl is rapidly developing into the finest young woman
in this village,” Mazi Nduka observed, “Are you sure it’s not time for us to start bringing our drinks
‘” The other elders laughed in agreement.
“Mazi Nduka, keep your eyes and your drinks to yourself,
my daughter is only ten. Besides, you can’t stand her intelligence. That child reasons deeper than an adult.”
There was more laughter, as the elders acknowledged the bowl of koala-nut placed before them. After the koala-nut had gone
round, Mazi Nduka, who seemed to be the group’s spokes person cleared his throat, and announced what had brought them
to Mazi Uchenna’s compound.
Ifeachi carefully rounded the backyard, to give her a clearer view of her father’s
obi; in fact, she had to hear every word that was being said. She knew her mother would be furious if she caught her
daughter eaves-dropping on what her father discussed with the elders in the confine of his obi. For all her mother knew,
Ifeachi was behind the hut washing up used clay pots. The moment the elders walked into their compound, Ifeachi knew they’d
not come for a social call. She had read the thoughts of Mazi Nduka, when he walked by her. It was another aspect of her life,
her parents were not aware of. She could read people’s thoughts, communicate with animals, and sometimes hear the wind
speak. As she listened to the elders’ hushed murmurs, she knew she was right. Their visit was definitely not ordinary.
“Mazi Uchenna we have not come to bring doom to your household, neither are we certain, that
it was your compound,” one of the elders was saying, “We just thought to warn, that you advise the members of
your household to be more careful for the next seven market days, while sacrifices are being made to the gods.”
“That’s
right Mazi Uchenna,” another elder said. “We will be going to Okonkwo and Ahana’s household as well, to
do same. For all we know, it could have been any of your neighbors. Dibia nwkocha didn’t say which home for sure.”
Ifeachi watched the elders march out in a single file, just as they had come. she waited a while longer, and observed her
father’s countenance. She could tell that her father was greatly bothered by what the elders had told him. She wished
she could read her father’s mind as she did the rest of the family. That was something else that remained a mystery
to her. Ifeachi could read the thought of her mother, the other wives and their children, but had never been able to break
into her father’s thoughts. On different occasions, she’d looked intently at him, tried hard to break into his
thoughts. On those occasions, her father had stared back at her in an expression that seemed to warn her to back off.
As she watched her father, from his troubled expression, she knew the elder’s visit, had to do with Ikwikwi- the owl.
Mazi Uchenna paced around his obi, anyone could tell that he was greatly troubled. This was one time
he truly did not understand the gods. Why would ikwikwi hover around his compound’ Why did the owl even come any where
within his vicinity’ He wondered. As far as he could remember, he had not missed any sacrifices to the gods.
He’d done the cleansing for his wives’ monthly uncleanness, made sacrifices for the lives of all his children,
and even for their chi, so, why should this come to him’ He asked no one in particular.
“What is the problem
my husband’” Ugochi asked from behind him. “You look very troubled; does it have to do with the elders’
visit, what did they say’ She poured out question on question without waiting for him to respond.
“Ugochi
please,” he said with an upraised hand. “If you want me to answer your questions, they have to be one at a time.”
He said and motioned for her to sit down.
“There is a problem,” he began without preambles. “Something
bad is about to befall us. The elders’ coming today was to inform us, that dibia nkwocha thinks ikwikwi may have passed
this way.”
“What!” she exclaimed, her eyes popping out in frightened alarm.
“They are not
certain it hovered above this very compound,” he quickly added, to reassure his wife. Even though he didn’t feel
a bit reassured himself. In fact, he feared greatly for his household. His wives and children are all he’s got. He didn’t
want to think of what he’d do if any member of his family was taking away from him. But, he couldn’t let Ugochi
know he was as frightened by the news as she was. “It may be nothing really. Like I said, they are not certain it was
this compound. They only want everyone living around this vicinity to take extra caution for the next seven market days, to
ensure that necessary sacrifices are made that’s all.”
“But I don’t understand,” his wife
replied. “I mean, why would Ikwikwi come this way’” she asked, looking into his face with questioning eyes.
“My husband, have you missed any of the sacrifices’” she needed to know.
“No, I haven’t.
You know me Ugochi, I don’t procrastinate when it comes to making sacrifices to our gods,” He replied.
Ugochi
drew closer to her husband, and took one of his hands in hers. “Please think closely my husband,” she pleaded,
“Perhaps you forgot one sacrifice’”
“Ugochi, I did not, and cannot forget my duties. You know
how much I love you all. This family means everything to me. I assure you that I cannot forget to make the necessary sacrifices
for anyone of you, never!”
“I know my husband, I know, and I’m sorry…” she replied and
began to cry. Mazi Uchenna gently pulled his wife into his arms and held her closely. For a while, he said nothing. He didn’t
know the right words to convince his wife that there was no need to worry, especially, when he was very worried himself. While
he held his wife, he did a quick mental check to ensure he hadn’t forgotten any of the sacrifices after all.
There
were seven major sacrifices the people of Nze never delayed on. These sacrifices represents the seven market days.
Much as it wasn’t easy keeping accurate tabs on the numerous sacrifices he made for his household and himself, Uchenna
was very diligent not to miss any.
“You know,” Ugochi whispered after a long silence. “I thought it
was in my dream, that I heard ikwikwi’s hoot.”
“What are you talking about my dear’” Uchenna
asked, and put his wife slightly away from him so he could stare into her face.
“I don’t know...I…I’m
not sure,” she whispered in despair, “It must have been a dream. Pay me no attention.” She added quickly.
“No, No,” Uchenna replied in disagreement. “If you dreamt about ikwikwi, then I want to hear it.”
He insisted.
“Then you think it means something’” she asked in a thin voice.
Uchenna pulled his
wife back into his arms. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You must tell me this dream that you had
Ugochi. It may or may not have any relevance, but I need to know what it was.”
“I don’t know if I can
recall it all,” she replied, shaking her head in despair.
“You have to try to recall it please.” he
insisted. “Can’t you see that if ikwikwi was in your dream, then it may have been here, maybe for a different
mission’ Please my wife, I know you’re afraid to recall this dream, but it may be our chance of keeping this family
safe.”
“I was in the kitchen preparing your favorite soup,” she began, “While I was cooking in
this dream, I called out to Ifeachi to get me water from the jar behind my hut. While I waited for her to return with the
water, I bent low to push the woods into the fire, I felt a presence. I raised my head from the fire, and few feet from where
I was, was this bird. It wasn’t an owl, it was just a bird.” she said and looked up to her husband.
“Go
on,” he said gently.
“It just stood there, on that tree trunk Ifeachi liked to sit and sing to us. It simply
sat down there, as though it was waiting for someone or something. I stared at it, and it stared back at me.
“What
does this bird look like, can you describe it’” Uchenna asked.
“It was white, glistening white all
through, except for its eyes. There was something about its eyes; I felt it as it stared at me. Initially I thought it was
a stray bird, which got lost with the darkness. But, the eyes I looked into were as bright as the sun itself. It had no particular
color, one moment it was blue, the next it was a shade of green and yellow, and then it was just black. I remember I blinked
severally as his eyes swapped colors. For some reasons, I could not move. I couldn’t speak; it was as though some
force halted my existence. And then, Ifeachi returned with the water I asked for.
“Did Ifeachi see this bird’”
Uchenna asked quickly
Ugochi looked up at her husband in confusion. “That’s the part I didn’t understand,”
she replied.
“How do you mean’” he asked again.
“When Ifeachi appeared, the bird danced
around in a seeming recognition. That’s all I remembered, before a deep sleep came over me.” She finished.
They were both silent for a long while, after Ugochi’s narration.
“How do you mean, it danced around Ifeachi
in recognition’” Uchena asked, breaking the silence.
“You know, it just went round around on the trunk,
sat down, got up, and turned around again…like it beckoned at her or something, and Ifeachi simply smiled at it.”
“She smiled at it’” he asked. Uchenna couldn’t help but smile himself.
“Why do you smile’”
his wife demanded.
“You know our daughter’s love for animals. Ifeachi will smile at an ant. It was just a
dream” He said dismissively.
“No, you don’t understand,” she insisted. “Ifeachi smiled
at this bird in recognition. They stared at each other as though a form of communication passed through them. I felt it.”
Ugochi insisted.
“It’s okay my dear,” her husband assured her, “I’m sure you’re right.
You can’t imagine how much problem you’ve solved by recalling this dream.” He added.
“I’m
surprised myself,” she replied. I tried hard all morning to recall it, I couldn’t, not even a line.”
“I know. These things happen. In any case, I need you to warn the rest of the family. Chisom and Nedi are to keep
a watchful eye on their children; everyone has to be extra careful for the next seven days. Tell Ifeachi, there shall be no
wondering off to the bush or stream alone. We must all move in little groups. We must all watch out for one another closely,
while I find out from the dibia, what this dream of yours means.”
Ugochi assured her husband that she understood
his instructions, and promised to ensure that she conveyed the warning to the rest of the family. She thanked him and left
the obi, but not before she extracted a promise from him that he’ll be careful himself.
As Ifeachi listened to her mother narrate the dream she’d had to her husband, Ifeachi felt the same guilt she feels
whenever she manipulates her mother. Something was fundamentally wrong with her, she’d always known that, only she’d
not been able understand it, least of all voice it out. For starters, no one would believe her. Worst of all, people will
begin to dread her like a plague. These thoughts kept her from telling her parents that she was different from the other children.
As she watched her mother’s desperate efforts to recollect details of the dream, she was filled with sudden apprehension,
especially when her mother mentioned that she seemed to commune with the white bird. She was indeed surprised that her mother
could recollect so much. She’d manipulated her mother’s thoughts, and made it all seem like a dream. In reality
though, it hadn’t been a dream, and her mother had actually seen the white bird. It had been a close call.
Ifeachi
had heard the bird’s hoot, earlier that evening, while she was gathering fire woods for the evening meal. The bird,
which she’d named Pela, had come to keep her company, while she worked. Pela has been her friend ever since its birth.
Ifeachi had found the tiny bird in the bush behind their compound, and while she wondered how the bird got there, it spoke
to her, in a strange language and she understood. While she sat on the tree trunk that night, chatting with her pela, her
mother emerged from her hut with an oil lamp in hand. Ifeachi guessed her mother was on her way to answer the call of nature.
Her heart wrenched at the shock on her mother’s face when she saw her daughter speaking with the white bird. Pela’s
mother, a big black owl, must have sensed a human presence, for it quickly ducked behind the trunk. Ifeachi was
left with no other choice but use her powers. She’d simply planted a dream-like picture on her mother’s
subconscious.
Her mother had gone about her business, as though she was in a trance.
Ifeachi’s greatest worry became the villiage
herbalist. dibia Nkwocha had always frightened her, from infancy. He always looked at her with a strangeness that
frightens her. She was glad when she stopped accompanying her father to his shrine. Even then, when she used to carry some
of the items for the sacrifices as far as the ukwa tree where she’d drop the items and run back home, she always
felt his eyes watching her all the way home. With this recent happenings, she had a feeling the dibia would make an appearance
soon.
“Ifeachi…Ifeachi”
That was her mother. Ifeachi made her way back to the task she was supposed
to carry out. “I’m coming mama, I’m almost finished,” she called back.
“Why is washing
one pot taking the whole day’” she demanded.
“I’m here mama.” Ifeachi announced
appearing from behind her mother.
“Come in to the house, I want to talk to you.” Her mother said. Ifeachi
followed, already certain of what the discussion would be. She was surprised however, to see that the other wives were already
seated with their children. She sat down quietly, berating herself for the fear and worry on their faces. She felt responsible
for what was happening. She wanted desperately to tell them there was nothing to worry about, but how do you explain that
you are friends with a community’s dreaded enemy’ How do you explain the fact that you communicate with animals’
The village will simply brand her an obange . She just prayed silently, for them to stop worrying so much.
Everyone
agreed that they understood why they had to be extra careful their father made more sacrifices to appease the gods.
That
night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Ifeachi heard a whisper in her sleep, and knew her friends were around. She got up
from her mat, as silently as she could, and tiptoed out of her hut. She had to warn her friends to stay away for a while,
as well as extract a promise not to hurt her family. Twenty minutes later, Ifeachi returned to her sleeping mat, satisfied
that the compound was quite. It was as though no one had stirred.
However, she woke up the next morning with the feeling
that something bad would happen. The noise outside indicated that her mother was already up and about. She got up, rolled
up her mat, and went out to greet her mother, after which she began her morning chores. It was barely 7am, when two of the
elders who’d come to see her father the previous day walked into the compound. Ifeachi noticed that their faces looked
quite strange. Her father was already at his obi. He too was usually early. It was as though he was expecting the elders to
be back today. Ifeachi was truly frightened, So much so that she couldn’t decipher their thoughts. More so, her mother
was already walking about in nervous strides, as she too strained to hear what the elders had come to say. Ten minutes
later, the two elders hurried out of the compound as though the devil himself, was on their heels.
“Ugochi…
Ugochi’” that was her father. He never called her mother in that manner unless there was a serious problem. Ifeachi
was certain the feeling she’d woken up with hadn’t been imagined. Her mother went round to wake up everyone in
the compound, and summon them to the obi where their father waited, she knew it won’t be long.
“Ikwikwi hovered
around this compound again last night” her father began without preamble. “Dibia nkwocha is certain it had made
a stop here.”
Ifeachi’s heart jumped to her mouth. She suddenly felt very pressed.
“Can I be excused
Papa, I need to go behind the house,” She said, startling everyone. Her father looked like he was going refuse, but
asked her to hurry it up instead. Ifeachi scrambled up to her feet and fled her father’s presence like someone being
chased. Behind the house, Ifeachi quickly did her business, and moved to lean behind a small tree. Her heart was pounding.
Should she just tell her family that owl had come to visit her, Or should she remain silent and watch her family worry to
death’ What if dibia nwkocha identified her as the culprit’ Already her father’s compound has been identified
as the exact compound it had visited. How soon before they linked it all to her, she wondered. While Ifeachi was behind
her mother’s hut, wondering how to save her parents of the needless agony they were going through, and still have her
identity concealed, dibia nwkocha walked into the compound in unhurried strides, with his entourage, which
comprised
of two young boys of about 10 years each, who’d been given up at infancy to serve the herbalist at his shrine. The two
elders who’d left the compound only some minutes ago were in toll.
At the jiggling sound of dibia nkwocha’s
attire, Uchenna looked up to see who had come calling. One after another, the rest of the family stood to their feet to pay
homage to the dibia who was considered the eyes and spokesman of the gods. When they made to leave the obi,
Dibia nkwocha
gestured for everyone to remain where they were.
“Mazi Uchenna, I greet you and your household.” The dibia
said staring from one face to another. “The frog does not run in the day time for nothing, either it is after something,
or something is after it,” He said again, and the elders with him nodded in agreement.
“There is a reason
ikwikwi has paid you a visit these two days. We all know what happens when the evil bird hovers around, there is death almost
immediately. For these two nights however, ikwikwi has made a stop here, and I can tell you it is not for death.”
At this piece of information, Uchenna and his entire household signed
In great relieve. It was good to know that no
one was going to die.
“Dibia Nkwocha,” Uchenna interjected “You don’t know how relieved I am
that this is not unto death. I have done all the necessary sacrifices for my household. Please tell me, why does ikwikwi continue
to hover over my house then’” he asked.
“That is why I am here,” the dibia replied. “I
have come so that you can tell me who my special child is.”
This was another shocking piece of news for the whole
family, who stared from one surprised face to another and then back to the dibia.
“Your special child’”
Uchenna asked.
“Yes Uchenna,” the dibia answered, and began to move from one frightened householder member
to another. After he’d gone round everyone, he stepped back and smiled. “Where is she’” he asked.
“I’ve always taught that child was special.”
“I really don’t understand what you mean dibia,
all my children are special,” Uchenna said.
“Where’s your eldest girl Uchenna, I don’t see her
here.” The dibia challenged. It was then everyone realized Ifeachi hadn’t returned. But before her father could
ring out instructions to find her, she walked in slow frightened strides, with her head bowed. There was no point to hide
any longer. The moment she heard the dibia’s, jiggles, Ifeachi knew her time was up. She’d also heard all that
was said.
“Come, my child,” Dibia nkowcha said with an encouraging smile, and an outstretched hand. That
was the first time they all saw the dibia smile. “Don’t bow your head in fear, you have done nothing wrong.
On the contrary, you are the help sent down to the people of Nze.”
For the first time, Ifaechi looked directly
at the dibia without fear, as she placed her tiny hand in his large hairy hand.
“Just what is going on here’”
Uchenna demanded.
The dibia looked around the group, with a mischievous smile, as he decided on an appropriate way to
explain to them that this seven year old child has reconciled them with the gods of Owl, and that never again would the hoot
of Ikwikwi represent death in the village of Nze.
“My princess,tell us, and don’t be afraid, what is Mazi
Nduka thinking in his heart right now’” the dibia asked her gently.
Ifeachi looked directly and the elder
in question. “Mazi Uchendu is feeling sorry for my papa. He thinks papa has bad luck that his first daughter is an ogbanje.”
Ifeachi announced. And everyone gasped. The elder who had he’s thought exposed turned away to leave, but was held back
by the dibia.
“Not so fast Mazi Nduka. Before you leave, you have to tell us if the princess is correct’”
The elder could not deny that Ifeachi was right. In the same manner, Ifeachi told what everyone’s thought in his
or her mind. However, when she got to her father, she stared at him nonstop, but could not tell what he was thinking.
“What
is the matter my princess’” the dibia asked.
“I can’t tell what papa is thinking.” She
murmured.
“Try my child” the dibia encouraged.
“I can’t.” She insisted, “I’ve
never been able to break into his thoughts.”
“That is because you got these special abilities from your father’s
linage.” The dibia explained. Uchenna moved closer to his daughter, and embraced her. “What else can you do my
child’” he asked after a while.
“I can hear the animals speak. Ikwikwi and pela came to play with me;
I usually meet with them on my way to the stream. Sometimes I hear the grasses talk, and they hear me too. Also, when someone
plans evil for mama, I know what they’re planning and abort it before they can carry it out.”
“What
else’” the dibia asked, when she paused.
“I heal, and I can heal.” She whispered. Everyone wanted
to know what she meant by that.
“Ifeachi never had a wound like every other child,” Ugochi whisperd in retrospect,
more to herself. “She falls down, scratches her feet, before sun set, it’s like nothing happened.”
“Yes mama.” Ifeachi said. “Remember that night you where very ill, papa had run out to get dibia nkwocha’”
“You touched my tummy that night that was you’” her mother asked in disbelief. Uchenna had returned with
the herbs from the dibia, to find his wife sleeping soundly like nothing had happened.
“I had to mama.” Ifeachi
cried. “I knew you’d die before papa got to dibia nkwocha’s shrine. I didn’t want you to die. I’m
sorry,” She said crying. Ugochi pulled her daughter into her arms and hugged her tightly.
“Stop crying my
baby, I’m not angry, thank you for saving my life.” She cried with her daughter.
It wasn’t long before
the news spread around the village. Everyone began to call her princess Ifeachi, like the dibia did. They brought their sick
to her father’s compound, with variety of gifts which consisted of tubers of yam, cocoyam, palm oil, live goats, and
other gifts. Never again did the people of Nze dread the owl.
About our third
place winner, This is How I Disappear, Sasson said, “The language in this piece is lyrical,
witty and macabre at the same time. The author makes clever use of rhythm and repetition to create tension and hold the reader's
attention.”
Enjoy Allie Marini's
This Is How I Disappear
This is how I disappear.
I am reflected
back: inverted, silver, inaccurate.
There is inconsistency in my image: rippled not by motion in water, but instead
by my own internal critique. When they call me beautiful there are times I can nearly believe it. Not so, here in the bathroom,
splashing water against my blotchy skin, swollen eyes, ragged throat. To capture beauty, however momentarily, I chase a melodrama
of my own making.
It is a love affair, my affliction.
They are all only supporting players.
I am
both director and directed. I am the star and the understudy, the stage and the script. I have fabricated myself in a manner
most becoming--everything about me is artificial. My eyes are not blue without colored lenses. My hair is deliberately and
artistically foiled into more shades of blonde than nature herself could even imagine, let alone create. I am unrealistically
and unseasonally tan. Teeth: first corseted in orthadonture, later capped. Fingernails: gel tipped and polished. Legs: waxed
hairless. Features--painted, primped, curled and made up to enhance what's beautiful and minimize what's less than.
It only follows that the rest of my body, too, is ill-gotten and deceitful.
I find myself in this room a lot. The
tile is comforting, cool, a throwback turquoise, grandmotherly. It never disappoints me to lay my cheeks, burning, against
the walls, the floor. The porcelain of the toilet is always soothing to me, the way my body heaves against it until again
I am light, an empty vessel. I wash my face, streaking black scars down each cheek. A swab of baby oil and the mascara settles
in rings around my eyes: tired, inverted, afflicted. A swish of mouthwash, and, quickly as communion wine, I am absolved,
it is forgotten, I am forgiven for having eaten.
They do not see me.
I have obscured all traces of the me
in me.
We both see the construct.
In that way I am like well-used, yet maintained, furniture. They see my artifice, which I have named after myself, and dressed
very carefully. She laughs when it is appropriate. The imperfect me, beneath, laughs at what a dumb cow she is, what
an idiot they all are, never seeing her big bovine eyes filled with fat blankness. They are happy with her.
I do
all the dirty work.
You have seen me disappear and said nothing.
You are only here to bear witness.
I
have trumped biology, am a true marvel of nature, a wizard of the cosmos: you must eat to live, and I do neither. I consume
and exist in theory only. I am reflected back: inverted, silver, inaccurate. I am only truly alive when I feel the tickle
of my fingers against my uvula, or the familiar, beautiful thrum of my own emptiness. I would say I want to change, that this
is all killing me, but I jealously guard my sickness, because it is the only thing I own that is mine, truly, and that is
authentic and real. It is my freedom and my trap. I am never anything except hungry. I am never full. There is a second me,
and she never stops lying. She will never get better.
I am the pinnacle of strength and the paragon of weakness.
I have a high tolerance for mucus, vomit, blood, and a low tolerance for a full stomach, satisfaction, or family dinners.
I panic at the thought of eating and have to go through the motions when I am caught out. I admire anorexics, who have divorced
their treacherous hunger. I am greedy for all of it-- the cheese, ice cream, the gravy and the cake. I inhale desserts
without ever tasting them, like they're the last morsels of food on earth. I gobble everything that anyone has ever given
me whole. Everything always comes up undigested, a shameful splattering of my body's pyrotechnics and the brute force
of my desire to be rid of everything.
I retreat to the bathroom, a pocketful of ready excuses. No one ever questions
me. You all watch me disappear and say nothing. I am always entertained by the perplexed looks and silences. I am not a strong
woman. I would break on close questioning, though I have prepared every lie I can think of to parry and feint with. I want
you to catch me and you never do. They know my routine and say nothing. I will die if you catch me and I'll die if you
don't. I am as disappointed in you as you are in me, we were both brought here to never measure up.
I used
to run water to obscure my gagging. Now I don't bother.
It is always churchly quiet here. No matter how loud the
house, the restaurant, the gas station is-- the bathrooms are all static, like I've walked into a vacuum. Maybe I bring
it with me. Maybe I invent it and its part of my crafted fake-- maybe it's only quiet because I want it to be. I ignore
everything except the thumping of my blood and the gag-and-release. It's like sighing, but messier, and you have said
nothing, but borne witness to it all. I have said nothing, either. It is our implicit agreement to not discuss this. I wonder
why you bother feeding me. I wonder why I don't just scrape my dinner plate into the toilet, cut out the middleman.
To truly hold anything up to the light is to expose it, and anything stripped bare under fluorescent lights is not
only flawed, but ugly as well, and ugly is unforgivable. I live inside a seashell, the outside of which I polish daily. The
inside, where I am, reverberates with emptied echoes of the pounding crests of the sea. I am a hermit crab here, afflicted,
inverted.
There is no forward momentum in this story. There is no action and no plot. There is only one character,
me, and I told you from the outset that everything you have read, everything you see, it is all a very deliberate, yet lovely,
lie. There is no forward momentum because that which doesn't live can't grow. What doesn't grow can't move.
I am caught in a loop that repeats itself over and over again. There's no action because I have removed all elements of
surprise. There's no plot because I've edited it out. There are no other characters because there is only one character
here that you need to know about.
There is a tyrant here, that lives in my head, unshakeable, silver, wrong. The
reason and the reaction do not match, they cannot. I am watched but unseen, listened to but not heard. My cords are cut but
I am screaming, and it all echoes soundlessly off of turquoise tiling. I am in a church of the damned, praying to a porcelain
god, and finding only cold water to soothe my sore throat, no baptismal fonts, just water from the lime-crusted spigot. I
am empty. It is a relief to be light again, to feel the tightness released.
I am not a baby but I am deathly afraid
of fat, of dinner plates, and hermit crabs. I pinch in lenses to see out of eyes the color of oceans and sit under dryers,
under a vast nebulae of foil to be the color of sand. My only prayers are to not be hungry anymore, and you have asked nothing,
I have revealed nothing, and we, in our denial of my bones and skin, have borne witness to none of it, we have ignored me
slipping out of the woods and onto a cliff, and we both watch in numb interest and I slither towards the edge.
I
cannot meet my own eyes in the mirror because I am ashamed and enamored of my affliction. I protect it because it is mine
and I love it because it has rules for me to follow. I have planted and tended and created this monstrous flower. I have named
her after myself and the sea.
This is how I disappear.
I am reflected back: inverted, silver, inaccurate.
You have seen me disappear and said nothing.
You are only here to bear witness.
This
quarter’s judge was Eric Sasson.
In
1997, Eric received his MFA from NYU where he studied with Edwidge Danticat, Deborah Eisenberg, Ted Solatorof and E.L. Doctorow.
He's taught fiction writing at the Sackett Street Writers Workshop in Brooklyn, NY, and in the past two years
he's received scholarships to attend the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Southampton Writers conference and the Key
West Literary Seminar. Last June he was named a finalist to attend the Summer Literary Seminar in St. Petersburg, Russia.
His stories have appeared in The Minetta Review, The Advocate, The Long Neck, Forbidden Lines and The Belletrist Review, among
others, as well as stories forthcoming in The Ledge and Alligator Junniper (both competition finalists).
You can read
his work online at Limp Wrist Magazine:www.limpwristmag.com/ericsasson.htm
