She sat on the stool for what
seemed like moments, but was in reality hours. But she wasn't
sitting so much as she was curled into a fetal position - upright,
head above knees - staring down the street; through the window;
small, dark confinement. She waited for them to come out. She
couldn't bear the pain of not knowing...He had told her that
she would be sleeping on the couch. He had told her, "Don't
do that! Please! trust me. You'll ruin everything. She'll be
gone in a few days!!", when she had threatened to expose
her presence to this unknown threat.
Hours earlier...really days...she
had finally seem them arrive from the airport. She stared as
hard as she could; head over knees, at the woman, this cousin
he had claimed was so incredibly beautiful and convenient. She
couldn't see a thing - so her mind painted the picture.
Hours - or days later - clenched
like a fist on top of that stool; ribs exposed...pain burning
the small of her back - she looked down. Again, the colon jumped
against her skin - bones jutted at sharp angles. He complained
that they 'cut' him during sex and she felt burning, searing
hate. She felt hate that she lacked what the unseen cousin had.
She hated the bones, the jumping colon...the lack of any female
curve. She never thought that the bone jutted because she had
long ago foregone eating. She never acknowledged that the curve
was lean muscle born from years of work at the career she was
letting go. She didn't think at all. She only felt hate that
she was a woman - powerless against this man.
He came out and called
her like the dog she was...setting and unsetting his car alarm
- staring up into her little window. It enraged her even more
that he knew her so well. He moved towards her - out of her sight
- and her heart leapt. "He wants to see me! He's chosen
me!", her weary self thought. But before she could unwind
herself from the stool, he had retreated back into the street
and into his car and was gone. She uncoiled anyway - the pain
seared and she could barely walk - and stumbled down the stairs
and saw something white peeking from the mailbox. Again her heart
leapt, "He's thinking of me! He misses me!" She raced
to get it - heart pounding - "What words had he written
me?", she thought. She read, "Be patient" on a
scrap of paper wrapped around a bottle of whiskey. She felt nothing
them. Her mind went blank and became one with the glass container
that defined her existence. She stumbled back up to her window.
She stripped naked and climbed back onto her stool. She uncapped
the Jack Daniel's and drank it all without stopping. She felt
the burn wrap itself around her stomach and she gave in to the
rage.
She used an old steel kitchen
knife and proceeded to cut out the ovary below the part of the
colon that jumped....with each cool, serene, slice of that knife
she cut away her femaleness. She became high with the pain...relished
it...the blood that began as a trickle became a stream, and then
a pool. Death came and flirted and she found herself laughing...each
slice of that blade punishing her, for her inability to not care.
Each slice of that blade easing the pain of the view waiting
outside of that barren window. Each slice of that blade rewarding
her for being weak.
Hours, or days later, she was
thirsty. She had managed to stop herself before actually removing
the ovary...but she was irrevocably scarred for life, in more
ways than one. She let it fester and even today refuses to have
the scar repaired or removed. It is her constant reminder...of
what, she is not sure...but she will not part with it. Over the
years, lovers have asked about it...she would make up stories
that couldn't have possibly been true...and to her amusement;
they believed her.
He never asked.
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