punishment #2
They came to my door, badges gleaming, and spoke scornfully. “Good afternoon, miss. We have some questions for you.” These men already hated me, and I wondered what it was they thought I’d done. I was willing to believe them over myself; they were so tall, their hair so sleek. “What happened as you rounded that curve in the dirt road?” I did recall something miniscule: I’d driven over a branch—yes, I’d sensed it under the wheels. I told them this, and their eyes got cruel. “You hit and killed a woman and her little girl.” At that instant, I exited myself and stayed away for many years.
When I return to myself, I’m trudging down a familiar dirt road alongside a familiar snowy field. It’s far below zero. There should be a red barn in the field. My whole life it has always been there; the single most cheerful sight in the universe. But the barn is gone. They could have devised no crueler punishment. It’s dangerous to cry in this weather. One’s eyelids begin to freeze shut.
“Don’t cry,” someone says—the voice of a mother. Then I notice them beside me in the falling snow. I recognize them immediately, though I’ve never before seen them. They both look so peaceful, passing barefoot among the snowflakes in their summer dresses. I wish I, too, could stroll through the blizzard in a summer dress. I feel disinclined to apologize. They’re better off than I. “It’s just that there’s a man involved,” the woman says mournfully. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter. He burns his toast every morning.” “You think I have a responsibility to your husband?” I say meanly. Awful things must have happened to me over the years; I’ve become unkind.
There was a man involved on my end as well. He was touching my face as I rounded that curve. He was saying something that seemed essential.
I turn back to discuss this matter further, but they’ve vanished. On the telephone wire, four inches of snow; three blackbirds taking flight.
punishment #3
I’m the kind of irksome girl who replies “I am feeling fabulous today, thank you” when asked “What’s up?”; who devours virtuous, fibrous foods as though she enjoys them; who lists her blessings on fingers and toes; whose stupidly wiggling limbs fail to embarrass her when she dances.
Eventually, the villagers can’t stand me any longer. They cast me out. And they’re in the right. How right they are is proven by the good-natured way I take to the road, three teabags and two bran muffins in my knapsack. Against their better judgment, some of the mothers ask if I shouldn’t include something more in the way of creature comforts. “Creature comforts!” I yelp merrily. Reassured yet again of my irritating eccentricity, my incapacity to feel shame, they turn their backs. Little do they know that a half-hour down the road I’m whispering to myself “comforts creature comforts creature comforts” and weeping because there is nothing in my life that resembles a creature (small, sleepy, furry, warm), nothing in my life that resembles a comfort.
I develop regrets: I should’ve acted disgruntled, disguised my enthusiasm, bitten my tongue, worn a poker face. These regrets fly above my head like crows. They wait darkly on telephone wires. Sometimes I think to myself, “Maybe those aren’t regrets. Maybe there really are crows.” Then I think, “That’s the kind of thinking that gets you in trouble.” I go from village to village, settling briefly in each before they realize that I’m the kind of irksome girl who X, Y, Z. Understandably, they cast me out.
One day, I see a boy in the marketplace. He has a large, stupid head and buckteeth. He presses his nose aggressively into a bundle of those cheap white flowers that have no scent. “They smell pretty,” he says to nobody. Then, noticing me staring, he addresses me: “They smell pretty.” Thereafter, he and I try to restrain ourselves from parading our glee in front of everyone, but sometimes it’s impossible to rein in our high, stampeding laughter.
punishment #4
Because of everything that’s happened, they’re forced to settle in a small square suburban house. Adam, driven by natural instinct, tends the lawn. He even figures out the lawnmower. Eve, however, almost burns the house down when she attempts to use the stove. She declares she won’t eat anything until she can eat fruit right off trees in their own yard. There are no trees at all in their yard, much less any fruit trees. Quickly, they learn the difference between making love and fucking. Afterward, Eve cries. She walks through the rooms, recalling the clean golden light of the other place. Here, the air is velvety with car exhaust.
Much to their surprise, Eve has a baby. They didn’t know anything about anything. They’d assumed she was getting fat from all the potato chips he bought at the gas station since she refused to cook. But then one day she starts to feel large, dangerous things happening in her gut. Adam is still a slow and nervous driver; by the time they get to the hospital, the upholstery is soaked with Eve’s blood.
They do the things they’re supposed to do. They send their sons to school. Eve learns how to cook, and how to operate the dishwasher. She buys makeup. Adam works as a landscaper. He wears a baseball cap. They have their neighbors over for barbeques. They take photographs of their sons on prom night. Eve develops heavy jowls and sharply plucked eyebrows. She dyes her hair dark brown, almost black. She learns how to laugh heartily, and prefers jellied fruit to raw fruit.
One evening, the sunset in the suburbs is uncharacteristically golden.
“Hey,” Adam says when Eve hands him a beer, “does this remind you of anything?”
“Honey,” she says, “that goddamn dryer isn’t—”
“Doesn’t this remind you of anything?”
“Sure, baby,” she says, “it reminds me of a nice sunset.” There’s nothing else it could remind her of, because she was born and raised in the suburbs, and this is all she’s ever known.
the droughts
drought #1
Our parents say Get ready, it’s time to go to the ruin. The what? The ruin. The ruin? The womb of civilization. The what?
Getting ready consists of rubbing our bodies with red mud. This mud dries on our skin and we look like aliens. Our parents lead us through a cactus graveyard. Cactus skeletons are sharp and black. We long for a living cactus. The sun dislikes the fact that we have protected our skin with dirt. It attempts to penetrate us, and sometimes it succeeds. The trail goes straight up among stunted and indifferent junipers. We are weary. Our parents are not. We try to take refuge in the smoky smell of sagebrush. We are thirsty. Water is not permitted. The earth is yellow, dry, red, dry, orange, dry, and dry. We wonder if the ancient peoples were more beloved than we. Our parents abandon the trail. Following them, we step over the bones of prairie dogs and swallows.
Our parents stop, and sigh. They have joyous expressions on their faces. We look around. Everything is the same. Dirt and sage. What is it? we say. What is it? we demand. The ruin, they say. Where? we say. Right there, they say. I don’t see anything, we say. Oh, they say, did we forget to mention that the ruin is imaginary? Imaginary! we say. They say: Don’t you love the tidy little houses? Don’t the girls look beautiful fetching water in their dresses made of feathers? Aren’t the young men beautiful too? Mom, we say. Dad. This is such a goddamn disappointment.
We pull out our forbidden water bottles. We drink, and wash ourselves until the dirt turns back to mud. We put on American sunblock and sunglasses. We tell our parents we’re leaving. They do not respond. They do not follow us.
Someday we will bring our children here. We will say Get ready, it’s time to go to the ruin. They will say The what? The what? We will come again; we will not be disappointed.
drought #2
“Isn’t it beautiful?” they say proudly, gazing out over the landscape. Politely, I nod, though it looks like a wasteland to me. I want to ask them, “How long has it been since it even rained here?” They say, “The horizon seems so far away. Isn’t that amazing!” Their enthusiasm is touching, childish. Imitating them, I put my hand to my heart in a gesture of awe. Unfortunately, though, I’m not awed by all these empty fields. I stare instead at a
single black tree cowering under the enormous sky. I’d like to sit beneath that tree and make it feel useful once again so it would produce extravagant leaves. “Gosh!” they say cheerily, to fill the silence. “Gosh!” I reply. The empty granaries are lined up tidily like the toys of a foolish, anxious child. I don’t tell them that these dry streambeds show up in my dreams; I fly unsteadily above white dust where water ought to run, imagining a trickle of dirty water, followed by a torrent, followed by fishes, brown speckled gold, green algae flowing like a girl’s hair, a boat made from a leaf, someone dozing, someone whispering Come here!
But moreover I see the ragtag armies of the future marching dangerously across these plains, chanting cruel songs in languages that bear no relation to the languages of this era. They’re always thirsty. They wear garments made from the pelts of animals that do not yet exist. They smear black blood on their skin to protect it from the evil sun. Their women lay eggs rather than gestating, and their offspring emerge slimy, weary, already starving. It’s enough to make one shiver.
Misunderstanding me, as usual, they smile when they note the shiver passing through me. Surely I am reacting to the sunbeams that have just cut through the clouds, glorious sunbeams now stretching across the plains, illuminating the fields. “Don’t those sunbeams look like they ’re made out of matter rather than light?” they say. “Maybe there really is something divine watching over this planet.”
drought #3
This must be the time of year when baby birds fail, for I have seen them plastered to the sidewalk. From a distance they look like brown crumpled leaves, and you wonder how autumn snuck into spring, but then, when you’re right on top of them, you see the agony of bent legs and soft bones and black fuzz and incomplete wings stuck to pavement. What oblivious passersby have stepped on the dead birds, pressing them flat? Have you ever done it, or have I?
The doctor says women who feel a lack when they don’t menstruate are irrational. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do here, she says, make ourselves infertile for the time being. Right? She tells me that once, and only once, she knew a girl who lost her period and never got it back. I wonder if I am that girl. I never minded being reminded that there was a red world inside. And yet.
Springtime was born to strive; it strives against the exhaust of trucks, against gynecologists in air-conditioned rooms, against broken lawn chairs stranded in the city park. The sun rises red and violent across the still water of the lake where seven swans glide eerily. I have come upon yellow swamp irises growing in the park. I know a place where an enormous tree fell in lightning, its solar system of leaves crashing down.
When I was a little girl they told me half of my daughter already existed, in a sac inside of me, for girls are born with all the eggs they’ll ever have. I was told my daughter would wait there until the proper moment, and then would emerge. New science suggests this model is not accurate. Yet I think of my daughter, fidgeting, impatient, pimpled yet pretty, already a teenager but still inside of me, waiting, waiting. If only this planet could be trusted. If only these deserts would stop spreading. If only my daughter were here among us already, because I am no longer certain of anything.
drought #4
Buy This Sea SALT! Born From The Warm Waters Of The Mediterranean Sea, Each Crystal Contains The Energy Of The Sun. Our SALT Is Collected By Hand, Then Prepared In An Ancient And Secret Phoenician Tradition. This SALT Will Help You. A Man And Woman Sit At A Table, Nothing Between Them But A Small Bowl Of SALT. They’ve Just Eaten An Avocado With SALT, Or A Tomato With SALT. They Smile. He Reaches For Her And Knocks Over The SALT. They Each Take A Pinch And (Admiring The Large Crystals) Throw It Over Their Shoulders. No Bad Luck Descends On Them Ever! But You’re Still Wondering About The Aforementioned Secret Phoenician Tradition! What A Curious Little Monkey You Are, Dear SALT-Buyer! You’re Picturing A Black-Haired Woman In A White Dress, Stomping Around In An Enormous Wooden Vat of SALT. You Are So Imaginative! But That Is, Obviously, An Image Stolen From The Little You Know About The Making Of Wine. The Making Of SALT Does Not Involve The Legs Of Mediterranean Women. However, Rest Assured That Our Phoenician Tradition Is Even More Charming. Enough Said. Shake This Box Until The SALT Sounds Like Rain. (Yes, Standing Right There In The Aisle Of The Supermarket. You Really Must Do Things Like This More Often. Have A Bit Of Fun In Life.) In This Drought-Ridden Time, Humans Need To Hear The Sound Of Rain. Now You Can Keep That Sound In Your Very Own Kitchen! You’re Dancing, Aren’t You, To The Rhythm Of The SALT? You Still Have A Certain Youthful Enthusiasm. It’s Beautiful To Sea. Oops. “See,” Not “Sea.” But “Sea” Brings Us Back To Sea SALT. This SALT Will Save You. Sample One Crystal, Though If The Supermarket Gives You Trouble Don’t Blame Us. Isn’t It Satisfying, The Gem-Like Shape Of The Crystal In The Palm Of The Hand? And The SALTiness As You Crush It Between Your Molars. You Don’t Need To Say It. We Know You Feel Better Now Than You’ve Been Feeling. Buy This Sea SALT!
drought #5
At the baths, naked women attempt to wash away their unhappiness in six stages: dry sauna, wet sauna, hot pool, cold pool, high shower, low shower. “Cucumber salves inner wounds.” Always thirsty, they drink cucumber water in huge, vulgar gulps, and still they are thirsty. “Sea salt removes outer layers.” They grind sea salt into their skin. “Twig tea cleanses intestines.” As the hot liquid moves through them, they lie back, let their brains drain and become empty. My sister goes to the baths to transform herself. There are many legs here, some ugly, some lovely. The steam sauna is a beautiful and dangerous place. Mythological creatures stroll through the mist, transforming into old women with fat encircling their wrists, into young women with bones like jewelry. If only my sister were small enough that I could hold her in my palm. She’d sit cross-legged on my lifelines, telling jokes. The women instruct one another: “This is what you do with cucumbers.” “This is how you plunge into the cold pool.” “This is how you wash your innards.” “This is where you rub peppermint oil so your thoughts get cool, placid.” A confession: I’m terrified by something inside my sister’s refrigerator. I’ve seen a bowl of flawless fruit decay until it became a gray apocalypse. If my sister were three inches tall I’d take her away. I wouldn’t let her open that refrigerator ever again. In a large house as lovely as a dessert, my sister walks down the hallway, enters the kitchen. A metal bowl filled with beautiful plastic oranges. No spiderweb and no strand of hair would ever dare mar this house. She opens a glass door. Outside, two lounge chairs. Trees and sunlight all around her. My sister wears that same nervous, grinning expression she wore when she forgot her lines in the kindergarten play. What has happened to us? What has happened? I’ve heard rumors of a man who can cut houses cleanly in half with a chainsaw. Tomorrow, my sister will go to the baths.
drought #6
The last farmer in the world hears things to which we are deaf. Hears snowflakes hitting cow dung. Hears the moist, taut sound of chickens laying eggs. Hears the bones of small mammals snapping in the forest. Hears blades of grass slumping in drought. Hears his own innards going about their business. Hears his brain moving toward thoughts like a large, slow piece of machinery. Hears cells dividing in the womb of a horse, and hears the filly plopping into life some months later. Hears pollen hitting his eye and hears himself blinking.
He also hears his invisible wife rolling the piecrust, sprinkling flour, rolling the piecrust, sprinkling flour. Hears the joint between her femur and her pelvis popping when they do what they do at bedtime. Hears cells dividing in her womb, hears his invisible sons and daughters being put together bit by bit until they have lungs, eyelids, ears. When they sleep, he hears the noises made by the monsters in their dreams. When they go to school, he hears their brains learning numbers, a sound like many faucets dripping irregularly. At night, he lies awake, listening to his invisible family digest cornbread, butter, green beans, milk, bacon, blueberry pie. It is a symphony, and he grins. Someday he’ll learn the word symphony.
As the farmhouse is d
emolished, certain items can be seen in the wreckage. A table. A chair. A cup. The windows splinter first, then the shingles, the walls, the floorboards. The kitchen goes, the living room, the mudroom. The upstairs bedrooms cave in. A mattress. A lampshade. A coffee can. A milk bottle. A pink slipper. A fork. You wonder why the farmer left these objects behind? You wonder why he is not here to watch it happen?
Already the last farmer in the world lives alone on the eighteenth floor of a skyscraper. The yellow taxicabs in the streets below bring to mind crickets. He wants to know how anyone can sleep what with the uproar of water and sewage moving through the pipes.
drought #7
used to be snow here, everything white and firm and ice; then mud came peeking through, and, mesmerized by the novelty, we surrounded it, exclaiming So this must be spring! for we’d only read about spring; aware of how humans are supposed to feel about spring, we waited eagerly for something green to appear, but instead the mud spread; we retreated to our homes, shamefully longing for snow; later, we noticed our floorboards becoming unstable beneath our feet, and rushing outside we saw that all the houses were sinking into the mud—but sinking very gradually, and our lives continue rather normally, with only minor inconveniences: we yank our mailboxes up from the mud every morning, trade our delicate snow-boots for mail-order galoshes, hurry after our babies whenever they sneak outside (we find them floundering and gurgling, delighted, sinking, mud wedged between their rolls of fat); meanwhile, the wrought-iron lampposts lining our streets (pet project of the Beautification Committee) become unmoored and crash down, their frosted glass globes shattering, leaving shards in the mud; the playground sinks quicker than anything, but the monkey bars remain, now only an inch high, and our resourceful children create games that involve hopping across the metal bars; the graveyard disappears; in the library the books are slimy with mud; and then comes one particularly discouraging moment: a Flexible Flyer sled, capable of making sleek sounds upon fresh snow, appears in a sinking public trashcan, its runners thick with mud, as dead as a sled can be; we try to go forth, we do!; leading their daughters down the aisle, wishing desperately to distract them from the mud on their lacy trains, fathers whisper Seeing a bride is like seeing a unicorn; grooms carry brides over reinforced thresholds, but even adding extra concrete to the foundation can’t prevent the inevitable; still, newlyweds lie in bed and drink coffee and paint walls, pretending they’re starting a stable life together. Eventually, though, it becomes impossible to ignore the fact that everything shall vanish, and we recall that there
And Yet They Were Happy Page 12