The Smallest Sound
kk
© 2005
There is this small sound. It goes with the mirror. It says get up. Get up and go.
Mother used to say the same thing. She used to say, my get up and go just got up and went.
It made me laugh.
This small sound. It’s a beating drum. A drum that tells me to move, scream, shout, testify.
He has never known pain. When things come so easily, doesn’t the soul suffer? Doesn’t one’s ability to empathize become impaired, as if the mind and body had not progressed at all? If I pulled his breeches down around his ankles, would I see a prehensile tail, jutting from the end of the spine, not knowing its own desuetude?
It’s a mosquito in the dark. A buzz that tells me to run, hide, make no sound, disappear.
How long before I won’t seem ungenerous by removing my hand from his? Even through these mittens I can feel the dampness of his alien palm and I can only wonder where everyone else thinks we’ve gone. If we don’t hurry, they will put two and two together. They will pair us off like geese and wait for us to produce golden eggs.
It’s a clang. It’s a clamor. It’s impossible to ignore. Why am I the only one who hears it?
I hate the perfection of these gardens. Why do they torture what is green and wild and growing into this? If I threw myself into the fountain and washed away this greasepaint, I would emerge my former self and he would be frightened of that one. Yes, she would prove too capable to be a robot’s consort. If he would just look at her, the her hiding inside this weight of fabric, they could shake hands, no harm, no foul, they could agree this was all just a big mistake.
There is this small sound. It goes with the mirror. It says WAKE UP.
Mr. Charming? I’m sorry. I feel sick. I’m sorry. I have to go. I’m sorry. I.
DON’T LOOK BACK! (You might see what looks like disappointment, but don’t believe it.) HURRY! (No matter how authentic it looks, it’s just a mask.) HURRY! (Poor alien thing doesn’t know the difference.) HURRY! (Pedal to the metal, girl–pity will never be an adequate substitute for love.)
Mosquitos playing drums, whirring wings studded with tiny silvery mirrors, chase me all the way home.
End.
