Womanized

by Nikki Crescent

  It was a cold November night when I finally decided enough was enough—and it was damn cold. It didn’t help that the air was humid and that cold pierced through the walls of my hut and my clothes and animal skin blankets. I had a book with me called COLD, written by some crazy Nordic guy. I’d read it a few times before. It described techniques on how to overcome the cold with nothing but willpower. The writer of the book supposedly climbed Mount Everest in just a part of underwear. I tried all of the techniques, but I just couldn’t get my body to stop shivering. And then I found myself wondering how I was going to survive January and February. How did I survive February when I first set out into those woods? Was it not a February morning when I left my parents’ home without even leaving a note? I suppose that was an unseasonably warm February, and the following March was even warmer. Honestly, it had been comfortably warm almost every day—until that painful November night.

  And the next morning wasn’t much better. I woke up shivering. It took me longer than usual to start a fire, but even the fire wasn’t able to warm my bones. “Just go back home,” I kept telling myself. But the images of the people who made me leave entered into my mind. Was the cold really so bad? At least the cold didn’t mock me for being small. At least the cold didn’t make fun of my higher-than-normal voice. At least the cold didn’t tell me that I was going to be a failure. There was nothing for me back in town—except for heat. They had lots of heat back in town.

  I was out of meat and I hadn’t seen an animal in days. I figured I would go out for a hunt—even just to get my legs moving and some blood flowing through my body. I took my bow and as many layers as my body could hold. I didn’t need much—just a little rabbit would last me a few days. But the woods were surprisingly desolate. Was this how things would be through the winter? Was this the way things were when I first showed up in the woods? I wouldn’t know—when I showed up, I had a couple months’ worth of food that I bought at the grocery store at the edge of town—mostly just beef jerky, rice, and vitamins; that was all my survival handbook told me that I would need, and it was right—until I ran out. But then I learned that I was a pretty good hunter. I made a bow that fired surprisingly straight, and it wasn’t hard to find bunnies that I could boil and eat. I turned their little pelts into coats and blankets and that’s when I really started to believe that I could spend the rest of my life out in the woods. And maybe I could have spent the rest of my life in those woods, if it weren’t for that damned cold.

  I searched through the woods for hours, but I couldn’t find a single rabbit. Do rabbits migrate for the winter? Do they hibernate like bears? No—I’m pretty sure I saw rabbits when I first showed up. So what do rabbits eat? I thought they ate grass—but there was no living grass anywhere to be seen…

  “Fuck this,” I mumbled to myself as my stomach grumbled. Maybe it was time to go back to town. Maybe it was time to reveal to everyone that I wasn’t dead.

  I kind of liked that they thought I was dead—the lack of pressure was pleasant. The only reason I knew that they thought I was dead was because I’d technically been back to town twice—once for a bag of rice, and the second time to see if anyone cared about me. I knew that there was a little Internet café on the edge of town, and I just wanted to see what would come up when I Google searched my name.

  “Missing, presumed dead,” said the official police report. Apparently there had been a short investigation. Though if there had been a substantial investigation, they probably would have found me. I was only an eight-hour hike away from town. On especially clear nights, I could see the glow of the city bleeding into the stars.

  My obituary was what made me turn around and head back into those woods. My mother wrote it, and it was clear that she didn’t want to be bothered with the homework. “Mark was a good boy and a smart young man. He will be missed by the family.” And that was all she wrote—as if she was paying per word and she had a budget of seventeen bucks. Only one person wrote, “RIP” on my Facebook page. I had a couple messages reading, “Are you really dead? LOL.” It was obvious that I wasn’t wanted. I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t cool enough or ambitious enough or physically gifted enough. So I was better off out in those woods… But apparently even the cold wanted me gone.

  That next night in my hut was even worse. The temperature dropped a few more degrees and that humidity was starting to make ice form between the branch slats of my wall. To make it worse, my body heat (what little of it that I had) was making that ice melt inside of my hut, so drops of icy condensation were dripping down on my body, wetting my blankets and seeping through to my body before freezing again against my skin. I had to get up every twenty minutes to jump around, so that my blood wouldn’t freeze as well. “This fucking sucks,” I said aloud as I scraped beads of ice off of my bare skin. And then I remembered that it was only November—it wasn’t even technically winter yet.

  So the next morning, I decided to pack up the few things that I had into the backpack that I arrived with, and I started hiking back towards town, leaving my little hut home behind.

  CHAPTER II

  That hike took twelve hours instead of eight. Maybe it was the patches of snow that I had to trudge through, or maybe it was the icy slopes that were usually easily navigated, or maybe it was just the cold in my bones making it difficult to extend my legs properly. For the first time in my life, I was actually happy to see my hometown materialize in the distance.

  I still stayed clear of roads and homes. I still didn’t want to be seen or recognized—even though I was almost positive that no one would recognize me. I was close to invisible back when I was living in town, so why would they suddenly recognize me now?

  I liked being dead. I liked to think that no one was thinking about me—thinking about how weird I was or thinking about how much of a disappointment I was. I was no longer a blip on their radars, and that freedom was nice. So was I really going to give it all up for a couple months of warmth?

  I looked down at my hands and saw that my fingers were an uncomfortable shade of purple. I needed some warmth—just enough so that I wouldn’t lose any pieces of my body. So I continued towards that town.

  I finally reached a highway; I walked along the side of it for an hour, and there wasn’t a single passing car in that hour. The sun was already down and people were probably already home. Maybe it was a weekend—it had been months since I knew which day of the week it was.

  I stopped to catch my breath when I reached the town’s first intersection: a four way stop just before the town’s first major suburb. I leaned against a light post and took another moment to make sure that I really wanted to go home and face my parents. Would they scorn me for running away? Would they be excited to see me? Or would they be disappointed to know that they still had a living disappointment to deal with?

  Before I started walking again, I noticed a piece of paper tacked to the light post. I looked at it and saw my face. ‘STILL MISSING’ the poster said. I ripped the poster down and stared at it in disbelief. Someone was looking for me? Who? It certainly wasn’t my parents, and I didn’t have any friends that would care enough to have posters printed. So who was behind this campaign?

  I found another poster on the next street corner—and then I found another on the next one as well. The posters were everywhere. When I passed that Internet café where I learned that I was presumed dead, I saw one of those posters taped to the window. Was there someone out that who actually cared about me? That seemed unlikely… Maybe it was just the local police doing their job for once. Maybe the posters were just protocol.

  I felt a light growing on my back. I turned around and saw a truck coming towards me from far down the road. My heart started pounding. If these posters were everywhere, then that meant that everyone knew my face. I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want the whole town learning that the missing boy was back. I already hated the little bit of attention that I got before I was the boy who wasted a stack of paper and a series of ink cartridg
es. I didn’t want to be known as the guy who wasted everyone’s time. I didn’t want people thinking that I only left because I wanted attention. I wanted to remain dead—so I dove behind a nearby bush.

  Then, that truck came to a slow stop. I watched it through the narrow slits between the bush branches. The driver of the truck rolled down his window and popped his head out. “Hello?” he called out. Did he see me? Did he recognize me from down the block? “Who’s there?”

  I carefully crawled backwards, towards the next bush. The truck driver stepped out from his vehicle. He started walking towards me. And that’s when I noticed that he wasn’t just driving a rusty old pickup—he was driving the sheriff’s truck, because he was the sheriff.

  He pulled out a flashlight and started scanning the area. I flatted myself down to the cold ground, as if I was hiding from a grazing rabbit. I felt his flashlight beam cross over my head. “Come out now if you’re there!” the sheriff called out.

  The sheriff knew me, and we weren’t on great terms. He was probably happy that I was dead, and I wanted to keep him happy. Back in high school, a kid named Devin used to call me names like ‘Sissy Boy’ and ‘Slut Boy’, because I had long hair at the time, which apparently looked girlish to him. He would shove me and say things like, “What’s wrong, Slut Boy? On your period again?” One day, I snapped and I slammed his face against a wall, breaking his nose. There was blood everywhere. The school called the sheriff in, and that’s when I learned that Devin’s father was the sheriff.

  Now, Devin’s father was headed back to his truck. I heard him mumble, “Damn deer,” before he got back into his ride and drove off. I waited until his truck was long gone before I peeled myself up off of that cold ground. Until that moment, I’d forgotten all about Devin and his father. I forgot that Devin’s dad put me in cuffs and brought me to the station to book me, even though he wouldn’t have done that I had broken the nose of another kid. I forgot that he ‘flubbed’ my age on his paperwork, listing me as an adult, so that I would have a permanent record. I forgot that my dad slapped me around the house when he found out about the whole incident. And I’d forgotten about the name ‘Slut Boy’. Devin made the name up, but he wasn’t the only kid who used it.

  It was a summer morning and I was out riding my bike alone when Devin and his friends jumped me. They pulled me off of my bike and dragged me into a wooded park. I screamed, but no one came to help me. They ripped off my clothes and they dressed me up in a little dress, with only a pair of panties underneath. They used superglue to glue a wig to my head and then they took off with my clothes and my bike, leaving me to walk home—and I was over an hour walk away from my house. I tried pulling that wig off, but the glue had already set. I had to cut my hair off that night. And I’ll never forget those humiliating catcalls that I got when I was walking down the street. People actually thought that I was a chick. Devin and his friends posted pictures of me in the dress on the Internet. My dad found out about the pictures because of a friend at work—not that it mattered. He’d already caught me in the dress after I got home that day. He didn’t believe me when I told him the story. He actually thought that I put the wig and dress on myself and went out as if it was something I just really wanted to do. He didn’t talk to me for weeks.

  “Slut Boy,” I said aloud as I walked back up to the road. That name sent shivers down my spine. And is that what I wanted to go back to? Did I really want to be Slut Boy again? I missed my whole senior year of high school. Would they make me take it as a nineteen year old? Would the new high school seniors be just as cruel?

  I looked out at the glowing town. I was only ten minutes away from my house—my parents’ house. I wondered if my dad was home. I wondered if he would still look at me with the same disappointed glare when I walked through that door.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go back to that life. I lasted nine months in the wilderness for a reason: not because I was good at surviving, but because I really despised society. I wasn’t ready to return yet. I wasn’t ready to rise from the dead. So I turned around. I started hiking back out towards my hut in the woods. But I knew I wasn’t going to make the twelve-hour journey that night, after having already hiked twelve hours. So I started looking for somewhere I could spend the night.

  I spotted a farmhouse on the edge of the town, just before the beginning of the woods. The windows were all dark and there was a large chicken coop right next to the house’s furnace exhaust. I snuck across the large plot of land and then I crawled into that coop. There were no chickens inside, but there was plenty of chicken poop. At least it was warm—warmer than my hut in the woods, anyway. I snuggled right up against the wall, but I couldn’t sleep. My head was suddenly filled with all of those old, horrible memories. I kept hearing the name ‘Slut Boy’ pinging around in my head.

  My stomach grumbled. I reached into my bag, but I had no food—not even a little scrap of beef jerky. I tried to ignore the hunger pains, but they were worse than usual, probably because of the twelve-hour hike that I’d just completed. I couldn’t walk another twelve hours with a stomach this empty. I would die before I reached my hut—then I would actually be dead. Animals would probably eat my body, and my death would forever be a mystery. And maybe that was for the best. Maybe I was better off dead. I was basically dead now, living away from the world, contributing nothing, and completely unknown.

  My stomach made a loud gurgle. “Shit,” I muttered. I was starting to feel light headed. What if I didn’t make it through the night? What if they found my dead body crammed in that chicken coop? The thought was embarrassing. Was there even anyone home? All of the lights were still off and there were no cars in the driveway. Maybe I could sneak in and steal some leftovers from the fridge. Maybe there was a box of crackers that would get me through the long hike that I had ahead of me.

  I carefully slipped out from the coop and I started to walk around the house. I peeked into windows, to see if anyone was inside. But the place appeared to be desolate—possibly even abandoned. I found an open bathroom window near the back of the house.

  No normal person would have been able to fit through that window, but I was no normal person. I was naturally short and thin, and my recent lack of nourishment left me even thinner, so I was able to slip through that small opening. I closed the window and felt the first heat that I’d felt in weeks. I took a deep breath and smiled. I forgot what it was like to be inside of a house. What a strange feeling to forget!

  I carefully opened the door and slipped into the dark living room. All of the surfaces were covered in dust. Even the floor had a thin coating of dust on it. I went into the kitchen and looked through the fridge. The smell in the fridge was overpowering: mouldy vegetables and old milk. I closed the fridge door quickly and winced away. Maybe this house really was abandoned. Though someone was still paying the electricity bill, because the heat was on and that fridge was running.

  I found a bag of chips in the cupboard. I ate the whole bag quickly, getting crumbs everywhere as I shoved large handfuls into my mouth. Then, I did a check through the house to make sure I really was alone—and that there wasn’t some dead old lady on a bed upstairs.

  The house really was empty. I had the whole place to myself. I ran a hot shower and then I stood under the warm water for nearly an hour. I watched as black water ran off my body and swirled down the drain: months of wilderness, washed away in minutes. Then I found the house’s laundry machine. I stuffed my clothes inside and poured a triple dose of detergent in. While I was waiting for the wash to finish, I ate another bag of chips. I decided to clean out the fridge as well. I figured it was the least I could do for the homeowner—whoever that was and wherever they were.

  The house belonged to a family. A mother and a father, two young boys, and two teenaged girls. There were family portraits everywhere. But what happened to them? Why did they abandon their beautiful farmhouse?

  I took the vacuum and cleaned up as much dust as I could. It really was the least
I could do.

  Then, for the night, I didn’t sleep on one of the beds. Instead, I slept on the couch in the basement. The beds would have been more comfortable, but the couch was already infinitely more comfortable than what I was used to. And I was worried that if I fell asleep on one of those big, comfortable beds, I would have slept for days. Also, there was a window in the basement that I knew I could crawl through in case the family decided to return home that night. I could be gone before they even knew that someone had been there.

  But even on that couch, I ended up sleeping in—until three in the afternoon. When I finally woke up, the sun was already starting to tease the wooded horizon. It was too late to start my trek towards my hut, unless I wanted to hike through the cold darkness. So I spent another day at the house. I did a bit of cleaning and then I cooked myself a can of beans and some rice.

  I watched television for the first time in nine months. I watched the local news for a bit. I was surprised to see that people were still fighting over the same boring issues, as if the last nine months didn’t happen at all. I watched the cooking channel for a while, and was surprised to see re-runs of episodes that I’d already seen before. I even watched a hockey game, and was strangely surprised to recognize all of the same player names. Maybe a nine-month absence wasn’t as long as I thought it was.

  I spent the next day in that house, and then the next, and the day after that. I checked the weather and saw that it was only supposed to get colder. Even the news was issuing warnings: “Meteorologists are anticipating the coldest December and January on record. Be prepared and bundle up! A good pair of boots is key!” Each day was colder than the one before it. I was starting to toy with the idea of spending the entire winter in that farmhouse. If no one else was using it, what was the harm in me using it? I only had two other options: return to my freezing hut in the woods, or return to my parents’ house in the city. The thought of both options made my skin crawl. Meanwhile, the TV in that farmhouse got six hundred channels, making my decision easy.