Cu Sith
untitled
It is bitterly cold in the hallway and I am standing between the fire extinguisher and the security phone, pressed to the wall while students crowd out of the auditorium and onwards. I am chilly and struggle to occupy myself with lesser things so I can ignore the people breathing on me, so I don’t have to smell their sweat and perfume and bad habits.
It is a pose. I come to college and sit in class and look very intelligent but just wipe the drool off my face and dream of genie. And pass miraculously. And stand in hallways like James Dean in a woman’s body, just lacking the cigarette and bomber jacket. I am very good at posing, when I bother to try.
One gaunt guy passes by me, the stink of weed bitchslapping me in the face. His hair is cut short like with scissors and it sticks up off his scalp awkwardly. I am so enraptured with the back of his head I don’t see it until I feel it. A heavy, firm thing the size of a softball presses onto my foot, hard. My free foot slides back, my head jerks down. Aqua-green eyes glance up at mine apologetically, before the weight eases off, and it moves on. This hulking mass of thick black fur, waist-high, soundless, it seems more lazy and bored than vicious, but still the phantom cigarette tumbles from my lips and my mouth opens to speak but I can’t seem to think of what I was planning to say.
Gone, consumed by the crowd.
I continue to stare blindly after it. My foot aches, the spot just above the toes. I turn to the girl next to me, and she purposefully looks away. My curiosity overrules my embarrassment.
“Did you see that—”
That big fucking dog, I want to say. She stares at me, startled.
“That… dog?” She puckers her lip at this, confused, clearly confirming that yes, I must be crazy.
“I missed it.”
“Oh.”
I knew that. I flex my toes, smiling faintly. They are numb, though the top of my converse looks perfectly normal. Such green eyes, I think. Hide your women when you hear their cry—what was it? I feel as if I am on the verge of remembering something very important. Something bubbles up in my throat, and I cough, keeping my hand up a few seconds longer to hide my smile, which has become dark and wicked and spoils my excellent apathetic façade. Even after it leaves, still it twitches back, what I know must be an impish grin.
Halfway through class I find myself leaving for the restroom. It is empty when I get there, and I look up at the flickering fake suns and rotting cardboard panels of the ceiling and laugh, and something in me shrinks from it. It sounds like distant thunder, charming and threatening at once, and it works like a switch. I do not hear a voice but feel meanings, like I’ve plugged into something briefly.
Doyoulikeredthings? IlikeredthingsIlikedeadthingsIlikechickens, don’t you? IlikeREDchickensIlikeDEADchickens for breakfast. Cousin, IamsofullofJOYandhatefulLOVEandLOYALTYIcan’tstanditIknowyouknowwhatImean. That is what I am, doyoulikeredthings? Red things? I miss the earth, this plastic is foreign to me, the smells are exciting but they make my stomach unwell. Do you like chickens IlikechickensISTEALchickensSOMETIMESandthentheyshootwolves, why shoot wolves, cousin? TheyareEVERtheTHICKESTofus but so fun. If only humans could hear what we do when they sing. IlikewolvesbuttheySHOOTthemandSPLATTERtheirBRAINSontheEARTHand
TIEofftheirLIMBSontheSADDLESofHORSESandklipklopindifferentdirectionsand
TEARTHEMAPARTONTHESNOW. Humans sicken me, but we only exist because of them. I do not like red things… but I am happy. You be happy, too.
Later I will peel the sock off and outline the numb bit of my foot with a sharpie marker and it will be roughly paw-shaped. And laugh.
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