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I am not here for your convenience. I am not here for you to lift me out of the shadows, only to clothe me in silver wings, the scales of a fish, and a serpent’s tail. I am not here to breathe fire at your command, or to be darkly beautiful as I fly before the sun, or for you to permit a fool to eat my heart. I am not here to serve you. I remember when you found me, when you guessed that I was not a thing of the moment, or a harmless little chimera, but something else again, born of myself, full-blown from the outset, invidious, and ready to strike. Your stomach seized. You went to the toilet and retched. Later, your face cooled, you went to the kitchen and took out a six-pack. You drank one beer, and another. You paced the living room, looking out the window to see if she was at the door, key in hand, but no; glancing down the sidewalk to see if she had reached the light of the streetlamp, but no; replaying your messages to see if you had missed the one from her, but no, no. You paced the kitchen, smelling the Chinese in the oven, the noodles, the orange chicken, the bang bang ji, the Chinese you had thoughtfully purchased for dinner, but she was not there, she was late for the third time in one week. You may always wonder if the decaying, exotic fragrances, the drying egg foo yung, the souring shredded pork, were what pushed you to me. You poured a shot of whiskey and drank it with a third beer, looking up, down and across the street, hoping she might be on a different route home, but no. You returned to your desk and appropriated my fury. I inspired you. Your hands flew at the keyboard. You wove a black tapestry. A monstrous castle, with rags for pennants, a king who ruled with poisoned arrows and poisoned intent, his innocent bride-to-be, weeping for her murdered handmaidens, her one true, but forbidden, love on the rack in a dungeon leagues away. All this to the good, in the right direction, then your mind caught fire and you made me the dragon, chaos the steam in my breath, destruction the flame in my belly. You made me proud and gorgeous and lethal. You set me on a mountaintop, my claws scoring the rock, waiting for the king to deliver the maiden, the maiden who would not have him. How I anticipated, how I relished my plan, but you betrayed me. You made me a buffoon. You chained the maiden to a post--yes--you sent the king and his retinue away so he would not be struck with remorse--yes--you gave me a magnificent flight from the mountain peak to the maiden’s feet, my wings broad and fearsome, my scales hot and glistening, but when I reached the ground, I was suddenly dim-witted and pathetic. You had me dither and pace, wondering what I should do to the girl, blast her, decapitate her, make mischief with her intestines--as if this would be a difficult or even interesting decision for the oldest of living Armageddons. And you followed with a literary section in which I posed riddles to the girl and sang ballads in a forgotten tongue. All so her one true love could escape and surprise me, end me with a flashy skirmish and a good one through the neck, then savage my chest and feed on my still-beating heart. You sold me out. So justice would seem to prevail. So you would look good to your readers. That was your way. This is mine, how it should have gone, had I not been restrained. I, the dragon, swoop down and release the maiden, raise her to an impossible height above the countryside, and fling her against the side of the mountain. Soon her true love finds her broken corpse and I end his bereavement by raising him to an even more impossible height and slinging him down beside her. Seizing the remains in my talons, I circle to a point between the king’s party and the castle and drop the bodies together, ensuring the result is horrifying, yet sexually suggestive. The king, enraged, approaches them unguarded. I swoop, raise him to an impossibility that befits the loftiness of his rank and the depth of his folly, and dash him against the wall of his castle. The retinue lives or perishes according to my whim--likely perishes--and I fly off to a new neighborhood. See? Instead, you completed your tale--and your humiliation of me--in a frenzy of intoxicants. When she returned home, you were jolly and treated her kindly, setting out the Chinese, and pouring her a glass of Chardonnay. You nit. Did you not get what was going on? Clue: the frequent references to her co-worker, Jake. You might have confronted her. You might have nipped this thing in the bud. Or you might have followed the feeling in your fingers, tightened them against the bottle of wine and--yes--struck the bottle against the sink and--yes--undone her face with the jagged edge. But did you? No. You were lost in authorial afterglow and it was not at all convenient. Our association continued for weeks, our nights growing longer and later as she, so she said, developed more and more complications at work. Always, I did my part. I pumped you up. I filled you with enough raw rage to fuel a shelf of trilogies. Time after time, you evoked me as an image of terror and malice. My entrances were sudden and frightening. My garments were lavish and imposing. But then you choked. I became a vampire who sneezed, a werewolf who shed, and a ghost who always knocked before entering. All so I could be thwarted and sacrificed for the edification of your readers. You hurt me so you could be loved. I am not here for your convenience. Last night she returned from a business week-end in Aruba, where, she said, the client wanted to meet “under less formal circumstances.” She brought you a bottle of rum. You were pleased, until you noticed her tan. “Aruba, dear,” she said, “everyone works at the beach.” “Was Jake there?” you asked. “He’s the account exec,” she smiled. You opened the rum and filled your glass. She wanted rum as well. You offered to make snacks. Her favorite. Sour cream dip and chopped vegetables. You opened the knife drawer and made your selection with care. The cleaver had a loose handle. The bread knife was not good with carrots. The fish knife was a virgin, a gift from your mother and you did not like fish. The paring knife--yes--you felt an unexpected frisson. That was me. You cut the carrots and the celery and the peppers and the broccoli. She chatted about the meeting and repeated all of Jake’s clever jokes, which were sure to win the account. She finished her rum and walked to the counter to pour another shot. She was tipsy, and still amused by something she said on the couch. “You’re my sweet guy” she said, kissing you on the cheek. Her hair smelled of cigarette smoke. She was not a smoker. Smoking was not allowed on planes. Smoking was the habit of men named Jake. You were incensed. You hand bonded to the paring knife. You felt the rush of oneness. The paring knife was small, but deft and clever, and--yes--the knife was ripping through her smile--yes--the blood was dripping down her chin--yes--the knife made fountains in her neck--like fountains in Aruba--yes--the broccoli was red--yes--the knife went crisscross on her tan-- But what did you do? You hammered the blameless vegetables, halving, slicing, slivering, very nearly hashing, struggling for control of your hand, adding the rest of the carrots from the refrigerator, the rest of the celery, and the mushrooms for tomorrow’s night’s stew. Finished, your hand shook over the sink and you had to peel the knife from your fingers with your other hand, a cramp, you told her when she glanced back at you. Freed, the knife clattered against the porcelain. You looked at the blade. It glimmered beside the knot of carrot ends and celery strings, offering you another chance. You carefully picked up the knife--yes--yes--but instead of saying “Die, you cheating bitch,” you said “Hon, the snacks are ready.” You threw the knife in the dishwasher, locked the door, and carried the plate of crudités to the coffee table. You had a pleasant evening. You played a movie until she drifted off to bed. You drifted off as well, on the couch, after drinking most of the rum. This morning you found a note on the refrigerator “I can’t do this anymore.” She was gone, along with her clothes, her chotchkes, everything, except for the teddy bear you gave her for her birthday. You picked up the bottle and walked over to your keyboard. You looked at your latest effort, with me as a snow-blind yeti. You tried to make me lose my footing and fall into a bottomless crevasse. But what happens instead? The yeti discovers a miraculous millennium-blooming ice flower and his snow-blindness becomes snow-sight. He massacres his pursuers and everyone else on the mountain, the honeymooners from New Jersey, the High-Altitude Weapons Research Team, the defrosted Neanderthal family, and the entire Auckland Alpine Club and their nimble Sherpas. K13 runs red with blood, as much as a frozen peak can run red. How long did you think you could keep me under control? Especially now, now that your dear has departed? Well? Your stomach heaves. You run to the toilet and puke and flush, puke and flush, until you have nothing left. You catch your reflection in the settling circle of water, your hair a crown of light from the high upper window, your face a study in shade, planes of grey giving way to black. You stare into the pitch. In the blankness of your eyes, you discover an unlikely glow, the glint of emeralds. At last you see me. At last we see each other. You smash the bottle against the white tile floor. The rum trickles around the commode and soaks the tips of your socks. Yes, I have been very convenient for you. Now it is time to consider how you might be convenient for me. You are a plain man, invisible in a crowd, and even in a group of three or four. You are not good at jokes, or small talk, or the weather. You are not the type of person anyone notices. When I think of the places you and a carton of rubber gloves could take me, I almost feel affection. You raise no hackles, you set off no alarms. You are the face down the hall, the hands bagging groceries at the superstore, the man in the park who takes such good care of his dog. There is much we can learn about the practice of death, the ways that are slow, the ways that are quick, the way for each time that best suits our mood and the mood of the intended. We will have a good run, we two, and when it ends, when you and I are strapped to the gurney, waiting for the needle to prick and the chloride to flow, you may be frightened, your palms damp with sweat, your toes raw and tingling. You may dread the inconvenience. But I will be as I am now. I will not fear the slight chill or the soft shock. I am used to inconvenience. __________________________________________________________________ Greer Woodward lives on the Big Island
of Hawaii, in the shadow of Mauna Kea. Her story "Catmint Tea" is
in Twisted Cat Tales, and other fiction and poetry is upcoming
in Strange Stories of Sand and Sea, Cabinet-des-Fees web
and Beyond Centauri. She's
a founding member of the alteredfluid writing group and a 2004 graduate
of Clarion West. Her previous life was as a NYC area lyricist. She
contributed to choral pieces, commercials, musicals for children, and
the Off-Broadway revues Pets! and That's
Life!. She joined
the staff of Sybil's Garage with issue two and is an associate editor. |
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