The Solace of Monsters Page 5

  I removed my left sock and studied the space where the top of my big toe had been. I was worried about cellular degeneration. I pondered the shape of Greg’s big toe. Father would fix it if I let him. It would mean acquiring more parts, more operations, just to maintain me. I knew Father wouldn’t be content until he could make a Mara as close to his Daughter as possible. I wasn’t that Mara. I also knew that I had to create my own memories; otherwise other people’s would overtake me. The outrageous mouse ran to the middle of my room, had the nerve to creep up to the sock near my foot. The mouse’s whiskers twitched as it smelled my sock. Then it gingerly put the sock in its mouth and ran underneath my bed.

  “Aren’t you afraid of me?” I laughed. “You should be,” I told the unruly mouse. “Recalcitrant,” I loudly gave the hidden mouse. “And what are you going to do with my sock?”

  What had happened to the others? Had any of them escaped? Were they all within me now? What was out there? Books described the complexity, the layers, but could the world, which encompassed everything, be worse than living with an affectionate murderer? I wanted to abandon my original sin. I wanted the world and I needed provisions.

  I stared at my perplexing mirror, although I had come to believe I finally understood it. I did, finally, resemble the Daughter although I was more angular, bumpy and slightly scarred. I could pass muster. I smiled and moved my head and saw dark hair, brown eyes, long eyelashes, Father’s animated eyebrows, the new mole. I was what Father had made.

  I rose, finished bending the bars on my window. The metal bent more easily, complaining more quietly and steadily, paint and chips of wood littered the sill. I whispered a song I didn’t know, that perhaps I had acquired through a memory. It was about the fate of a beautiful woman. It didn’t end well. My voice was raspy, too rough and uncertain. I was afraid. I sat and wrote to calm myself.

  The Story of Hearing

  An abandoned child lived alone among animals that had briefly climbed into themselves for the winter. The animals found her shivering behind a rock when they were following some ants one day. The girl had a good life among the animals, howling occasionally, imitating them, when food or a place to sleep couldn’t be found. She liked all the tiny lives around her. One day she found a book dropped in a field, and she remembered how to read. She wanted words for how she lived. She discovered “hibernation” and “unreliable.” The girl recited phrases from the rotting book, hoping something would happen.

  She said one sentence out loud, “A nervous wolf barks over unused bodies.”

  Something twisted inside the animals. They left the girl because she had become too different from them. All they saw in the book was marks on a page. When they were gone, the girl began to listen to silence, the trees, leaves rustling, a river splashing, flowers unfurling, bushes brushing against one another. “Tentative.” She danced, remembering human movement. She banged on some stones with a stick and began singing tunes that leaped into her head. The songs had places to go. And all the curious animals returned.

  I slipped my new story into one of my books. Then I sang to the mouse about places I had never been, Kentucky, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles. I closed my eyes and saw postcards stuck on a vanity mirror. They were from France, Italy, England, the pictures were cracked and peeling. I couldn’t read the names, addresses, or messages. They were surrounded by medals and ribbons. I opened my eyes. I stuck the top of my head outside my window and felt air from the world combing my hair. I shook my hair until it smelled of cut grass, roses growing up a trellis, new leaves, car exhaust, fading sunlight. I heard someone honk a car horn, a dog whine, a child’s loud protest in the far distance, beckoning. I shut the curtains.

  “What do you think?” I asked the now quiet mouse under my bed. “Should we make a break for it when it’s dark?”

  There wasn’t any answer.

  I leaped out the window in the middle of the night, under a full moon. I had left behind my books, stories, computer, clothes, Father, and the house, which was everything I knew. I scooped up that ornery mouse, placed it in the pocket of my shirt, my sock stuffed around it. I landed with a thud in the dirt and grass from the second story window. Another toe had bent and broken off in the jump. I could feel it roaming in my sock and shoe. I kicked my foot. I didn’t have time to inspect it. But losing body parts didn’t hurt much. It was as if my body was rejecting them. However, operations to fix the parts did. I was on the ground on my hands and knees, and the mouse grew frightened and hurled itself out of my pocket.

  “Oh,” I mumbled toward my escaping companion.

  That was when I looked into yellow eyes with a start. More of her came into view when she snatched the mouse from right in front of me. It was one version of Gloves. She had obviously also been losing body parts. Whether it was to cellular degeneration or fights or other predators I would never know. She had most of her gray fur, one ear, a partial tail. She had lost several toes.

  “Gloves,” I murmured sweetly at her.

  She looked into my eyes, the mouse in her mouth, and she trotted away with her prize.

  I reached out for her, called her again. But her body vanished into a thicket of trees under the luminescent moon. I wanted to go with her. Maybe we could scavenge and hunt together, learn each other’s language, help one another. I knew tonight was my only chance. If I didn’t leave immediately, Father would come after me. He probably wouldn’t call the police. It would be too risky. But there were detectives and people he could pay to locate me and bring me home. It depended on how much I truly meant to him. How valuable was I really? Maybe the next Mara would be better. He could correct his mistakes.

  I thought of Humbert Humbert, toward the end of Lolita, “This then is my story. It has bits of marrow sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. At this or that twist of it I feel my slippery self eluding me, gliding into deeper and darker waters than I care to probe.” He ended the book mentioning the refuge of art and the story being their only piece of immortality, he and Lolita, his pseudo-daughter. There was still much I didn’t understand about that book.

  I ran back toward the house although I was afraid. I limped slightly until I adjusted to the loss of another toe. Front door or window? I decided on the window. It was quieter. I bent those bars, removed my shirt and broke the glass, catching shards in my empty pants on the sill. I slowly tiptoed back through the living room until I found the car keys, $110, and some food from the refrigerator.

  I left Father a note which said, “I love you always and have failed you for the last time. Don’t look for me. Mara Six will be exuberant.”

  I could have stayed then, apologized. But I didn’t. I slipped back out that window stealthily, shook out my clothes, filled them again.

  Part II

  The Forest

  Chapter Four

  I pushed Father’s car until it was far enough away from the house, approaching the road that was invisible at the far edge of the forest that encapsulated our house. It was dark out, but I could see, finally, what was beyond us. A well-structured road cut like a ribbon right through all those trees. It would go somewhere. I sat for a moment on the white hood of Father’s car. I could smell grass, trees, warm air, Gloves nearby, the dead mouse, cigarette smoke, grease, and moonlight. Moonlight’s scent was cool and lightweight like a melon.

  I whispered a short conversation in the direction of some tree leaves. I had to leave soon. “Goodbye Gloves. Goodbye Father.”

  I listened to the breeze. An alarm sounded in the distance, then voices. I could feel every muscle in my body alert and waiting, ready.

  “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going.” I suddenly thought of Crime and Punishment and realized I hadn’t understood that book before.

  Then I received a memory of my arms and legs locked in chains, my red hair whipping my face. I was dressed in black leather. Some of my body par
ts were pierced with jewelry and scribbled with pictures. Something punctured my nose. I was screaming instructions, and I hurt. It was a funny feeling that I didn’t understand but I wasn’t scared or anxious. I was . . . interested.

  I pushed a little harder and the car rolled onto the road. I unlocked it and folded my height inside. I tried to remember the car manual I had once read out of boredom. When I inserted the key, the engine began. I liked the interior of the car, having only seen it from the exterior. It was roomy and Father’s odor still lingered along with a sharp, bitter, medical smell. Bushes kicked the side windows, trees sprouted into the rear window, and I uprooted some grass and dirt with the tires, then the car returned to its correct lane. Insects pummeled the windshield. Stars blinked and the moon changed its position. I went slowly at first, then sparse houses appeared, a few at a time, stunned with electric lights. Several cars passed me as my car jerked, but not many. I wanted to stop and study the passengers, my fellow world travelers. I had so many questions. I wanted to know so much. I wished I could have brought Gloves or that mouse along. Then I discovered the radio. I was ecstatic. I alternated between rock and roll, talking, and classical music.

  I decided to write about myself: The Adventures of Mara Five. I had read books. I wished to record what I learned. “Precarious,” I gave myself. I thought further, “Persistent.”

  Had my father donated a part of himself to me at some time, a fingernail or strand of hair or an ear component? I could suddenly see myself through his eyes: a still incomplete, dark girl/woman with a kind enough heart, some intellectual skills, a patchwork body, tall, with too much strength, who launched herself into the unknown for no reason he could fathom. Father would say that death is a part of life but too much death had changed Father. I shivered from both fright and my own excitement. Father would want me to record what happened to me so that he could, maybe, prevent Mara Six from enacting the same mistakes. I had begun my own experiment without him.

  A sign pointed toward a Rest Area. I needed rest. I turned and parked near two stray cars under lamplights. There was a lit sign for Bathrooms nearby. I sensed trees like tangled veins twining all around me. I had a sweater decorated with flowers that I wrapped tightly around me. I didn’t have any other clothes besides the pants and shirt I’d been wearing when I left. The moon seemed large and round and made a noise that reminded me of someone being surprised in a cartoon, saying Oh. I addressed it through my windshield, “Accommodation.”

  An older woman, wearing a scarf, a yellow dress, and shoes with thick, rubber bottoms was walking a small, beige dog through a path near the bathrooms. I had never seen a living older woman or a dog before except in pictures. She saw me staring and waved at me. I waved back. It was my first interaction in the wide world. The dog barked so I twisted the dial of the radio and the speaker filling with jazz grew louder. The music made me think of Father frying eggs, my favorite, in the morning, while I recited the various constellations and their properties. I could feel the stars in their movements, swarming above my head, over the roof of the car.

  I retrieved the bag with my wilted, forlorn food, a soggy cheese sandwich, some drooping lettuce. I ate. The older woman and dog left in a large car that resembled a kitchen appliance. I was a conglomeration of bones, and skin, and body parts. I needed a plan, a purpose. I would prove myself. I would send Father postcards with descriptions of my adventures. The music was full of answers. I allowed it to travel through me as I lay down on the car seat, inhaling what was left of Father’s scent. I fell asleep.

  I awoke very early in the morning. The moon, that inevitable planet, was fading, and the sun rose over a landscape that resembled a body’s outline on a table. A red light began to spread through tree branches, a lung’s inflation behind ribs. The ground suggested muscles. Houses across the road, teeth. It was incredibly beautiful. I wasn’t lonely. I could turn on the radio whenever I wanted. I could do whatever I wanted.

  I needed to go to the bathroom. The rest area was almost completely empty. The bathroom was all steel and concrete. No one else was in there, so I washed up. When I splashed water on my healed face below the disgruntled mirror, I understood what my purpose was.

  I would become my own creation.

  I left the bathroom slightly dazed. It was up to me. A boy/man around my age stood outside smoking a cigarette, which smelled sweet and used up, and I thought of the color black. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore an animal skin jacket and a large, felt hat. A long, feather earring dangled from his left ear. I sat on the edge of the sidewalk, removed my shoe, surreptitiously pulled out my toe.

  “What state is this?” I asked him.

  He looked at me askance. “Montana.” He surveyed the parking lot. “Your license plate is from Montana,” he said gently. I hadn’t noticed the car plate. He pointed to his left. “That way is Seattle. That’s where I’m going.” He nodded at his car.

  “Do you have a needle and thread?” I wanted to try sewing my toe back on.

  “I can’t say that I do.” He inhaled, and curlicues of smoke coiled into the air from his mouth.

  I slipped my toe into my pants pocket so he wouldn’t notice it. I should have been more prepared. I could have planned a bit better. “Would you like to have my car?” I asked him.

  He stepped back further from me. “No. I came in my own car. Otherwise I wouldn’t be at a rest area. Why? Is there something wrong with it?” He vexed his eyebrows but he didn’t look like Father.

  “No,” I laughed. I wondered if the police would come. Or if Father would even call them when he discovered I was missing.

  The man was still smoking his cigarette. A brown wispy earring dripped from his left ear. “Are you from around here?”

  “Yes, I think so.” A few more cars entered the parking area. “Have you been to many places?” I suddenly thought about eating a country, tasting it. It would be dust, spices, language, a food that was sharp like cheese.

  Then I had a memory of a large storm brewing overhead. Dark clouds filled up the sky, which smelled of sulphur, rain, and a rancid soup. I was a woman scientist in a foreign country. I ran underground to some kind of enormous laboratory. I recognized microscopes, test tubes, glass bottles, slides, droppers, sheaves of paper with different numbers and letters, various instruments, and machines, more machines than I’d seen before. But there weren’t any body parts, only jars filled with red, green, blue liquids. Masks, a breathing apparatus, thick body suits were strewn on the floor. I barked to someone I couldn’t see, telling them to do something quickly. Then the storm began to batter the outside entrance, the windows. I thought about being somewhere else, another country, and then the memory stopped abruptly.

  The man had been talking; “. . . so that’s where I’ve been.” He seemed lonely, like me.

  I hoped my body would sort itself out, become what it would, but I was beginning to worry about my mind and all those unsorted memories. “Profound.”

  “Thank you,” the man said, appropriately. He sat down next to me on the cement edge, his cigarette a smudge under his foot. Trees undulated, leaves winked in the light; as the sun grew higher more cars were arriving. “What’s your name?”

  “Mara.”

  “Mine’s Carl.” He extended his hand. I shook it a little too vigorously. He waved his arm in the air, surveyed the parking lot. “I better be going, Mara. It’s getting late.”

  “Can I go with you, Carl?” I hastily put my shoes back on and stood, brushing off my clothes.

  “Um,” he looked up at me. “You’re a tall one.”

  “I can help with the driving.” I sensed his hesitancy.

  “I have a dog.” He rubbed his arm.

  “I’ve never met a dog.” He looked at me strangely. I believed our conversation was going well. I gathered my food and threw the clanging car keys onto the hood of Father’s old white Ford.

&
nbsp; “Her name is Berserk.”

  “Ha, ha. Good name.” My abrading laugh seemed to bother him.

  “Now why are you leaving your car?” He appeared concerned. He fiddled with his earring.

  “It’s from another life. I need to fill myself up with new experiences.”

  “Like what?”

  We were walking to his car, an old Dodge Omni with peeling blue paint. I wondered how my new body parts could be integrated so well when I had already lost two toes, regeneration hand in hand with degeneration. Maybe it was Father’s adhesive concoction. The dog was bigger than Gloves and jumped from seat to seat, barking, when it saw us. It had longer fur and was clumsier, not using its toes. “Music unfurls inside of me. It’s like talking to someone deep within me. Only the person’s also tickling my skin to get out.”

  He opened the car door. “Step in,” he said, frowning.

  A whirlwind of fur greeted me, leaping, licking my hand. No creature had been so happy to see me before, except maybe Father, if I was looking particularly good that day. I smiled at the excitable creature. I compacted myself into the passenger seat.

  “She’s a good girl.” Carl slid into the driver’s seat, petting his dog. “Friendly.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “None that I know of. Do you?”

  I laughed at that. It was a harsh noise. “I don’t think I can.”

  “You’re amenable.”

  “Thanks for the word.” But I thought: ambiguous.

  He began driving as houses, trees, other cars, and people flew by us. Berserk settled down in the back seat. I had a chance to study the dog, which alternated between being restless and comfortable. She would lie down, then stand and circle the same spot and ease into it again. She had light blue eyes and white and brownish long silky-looking fur. I didn’t want to touch her, afraid I might hurt her. As we moved further and further away from Father and my whole life, I felt a longing for what I used to be, embedded deep inside of me. Childcloud. A return to someone who didn’t exist anymore, like a ghost who remained immobile, haunting only one house.