She arrived at the Promenade, filled with savages worshipping
the heat, licking iced milk products, turgid artificial nipples,
unnaturally creamsugarated. Sweat studded her face. Her outside
had become nearly as red as her inside. The door to Undergrounds
opened with a bang and as she ducked underneath to enter her skirt
tore at the seam. She pulled the shredded suit from her body,
followed by blouse, bra, shoes, stockings, panties. Even her tampon
string was pulled out and a wash of blood streamed down her legs
and onto the floor. She rummaged behind the bar and pulled out the
bottle of floral aromatherapy oil she formerly meditated with and
rubbed it generously into her skin. Despite its recent blackening, the
painted forest came back to life around her. A thin cry made her turn
to see poor, underfed Sheba emerge from the garden, dyed blue by
the anarchists. The cat purred weakly around her ankles, lapping at
the menstrual blood.
She sat down against the far wall and crossed her legs. Her
breathing, labored and bruised, now began to repair itself. The
tumblers fell into place and her twisted emotions aligned themselves
like pinions. She sat there for minutes, hours, seeming eons on end,
trying to remember, working to rearrange the deranged data into a
pattern that made sense. She had to go back, to see the path she took
and why it had ended in catastrophe. Layers of scaffolding fell away
to reveal her own unsullied image, far before, before Undergrounds
and Roy, before the Crystal Ship, before even this body. She saw
herself as she truly was, both beautiful and horrid. In providing her
services to man, being used by him and then ignored, the horrible
had gotten the upper hand. She should serve only herself. I am the
fulcrum upon which the world rotates, she understood now, and
whether they notice that does not matter. It would go on rotating
regardless.
She would give it all back to Roy. What use had she of this? Of
him? She was fundamentally complete, a virago. Her splendor was
timeless, a brutal beauty of the bone. Tears rolled down her face and
her body, mixing with the menses on the floor as she shuddered and
her flesh swayed around her like giant eggs, fruits, breasts, eyes, bull
scrota—fluid bags filled with life. She stood up majestically and
stretched herself towards the ceiling. Through the hole Roy punched
with his penis she saw the promise she no longer wanted. She felt the
earth shudder and saw clouds of dust come crashing down around
her watering eyes.
ABYSSINIA
358
 |
 |
 |
 |