The Solace of Monsters Read online

  “What do you do?” He was watching the road.

  “I’m here with you and Berserk.”

  “No, I mean, what do you usually do with yourself all day long?”

  “I read mostly, in my living quarters. Or I had operations. But I don’t know what I’ll be doing now.” His profile resembled Greg’s a little. “Why? What do you do with yourself?”

  “I make log homes and I’m in a country western band called ‘Where Do We Go from Here?’” He smiled. “I’ll play you some of our music in a while. It’s just that Berserk sings along with the songs.”

  I suddenly remembered a tiny white bird that perched on my window sill and sang until there weren’t any more sad thoughts in my head. It shivered and flapped its wings and made me happy. Trees from the forest, spruce, pine, fir, juniper, filled up the rest of my window. I wasn’t sure whether this was my own memory or someone else’s.

  “Is this small talk?” I inquired as I lay my head back against the seat. I was relaxed although I had absolutely no idea where I was going, away from everything I knew.

  I missed my blue dress for a moment. The old was receding in the small strange car mirrors and the new was constantly surprising in the windshield. I saw fat people, children, animals roaming within fences, outdoor movie theatres, irregularly shaped lawns, factories, bowling alleys, churches, clothes stores, a black cat, furniture displayed in someone’s yard. It was all new to me. Everything was so alive, always moving and changing.

  “Yes,” he sputtered. “I guess this is small talk.”

  “Do you know any stories?”

  “Yes, but first I need to let Berserk out.”

  The dog knew what he was saying because she crawled into my lap, began whining, and poked her nose against the glass, leaving sprays of mucus on the side window. I petted her brown and white freckled fur, her floppy ears rising and falling, silky and smooth.

  “I know, I know, but this is I90 and it’s hard to stop,” Carl said to Berserk.

  “She likes you,” he said to me, which worried me since caring for another creature usually didn’t turn out well.

  “What do you think it would be like to have fur?”

  “Warm,” he said, parking the car in a jut by the side of the road. A sign up ahead said, Welcome to Idaho. He opened my door and Berserk ran quickly and deeply into the woods, which swallowed her up completely so there was no trace of her, except maybe her paw prints in the underbrush.

  “How far did you want to go?” He stood along the edge of the road near my door.

  “I don’t know yet.” I unfolded myself from the car. “But I’ll tell you when I’ve arrived.”

  “How will you know you’re there?” He was smoking a cigarette, the fumes wafting in every direction, unsure of their final destinations.

  Some of the smoke clothed me, coiling around me, and I coughed.

  “Sorry,” he said and turned away.

  Just then Berserk ran out from the woods and crossed in front of the car. I ran after her into the fast, oncoming traffic. She froze just as a car tried to halt right in front of her, braking loudly, skidding slowly. I grabbed the front bumper, raised the warm metal car, pushed it back slightly onto its back wheels and then I lifted it from underneath. My muscles tensed, my back arched, and I heard a cracking noise from somewhere in my hands. I tossed it backwards several feet quickly and without thinking. I hadn’t known before that I had that much strength. Father’s strange chemicals at their peak or adrenaline or both? Cars behind the first one tried to stop; some were successful and some weren’t. The collisions were noisy and continuous. I could see two children’s faces in the back seat inside the car I had thrown, a boy and a small girl. They were shocked, their arms thrown around one another. The driver, a man, was alarmed, his hands tightly clutching the useless steering wheel. The back of the bronze-colored car crumpled as it landed, the people inside were jostled but unharmed. Berserk was now stationary and shivering, staring at all the damage done so quickly. She looked at me, cried, and then ran back to Carl, who was shouting something and waving his hands at her from the side of the road. He kneeled to ruffle her fur and grab her.

  I had lost the top half of my left finger, which lay near my feet on the highway. I retrieved it and tossed the finger piece into my pocket. Carl was crying as he locked Berserk in the back of the car. I ran to them.

  “Those poor people. There were about twelve cars involved. All the others passed by slowly, gawking at everything. Everyone looks okay though,” Carl said surveying the scene his head rotating. He turned toward me. “Thank you, thank you so much for saving her life,” he said. “She means everything to me. She must have been running from something. How did you do that?” He looked me up and down, “What are you?”

  I smiled. I had saved an animal, for once. My heart was agitated and pumping loudly, blood seemed to course through me in waves. I was drenched in sweat and oddly excited and exhausted. Upset people began swarming out of their cars and coming toward us. I scanned the accident and I could see that no one was hurt, just their cars. There were too many people hurrying toward me with clenched and hurling fists or hands on their cheeks or in their hair, and they frightened me. They were shouting questions and statements in my direction, “What the hell happened?” “All this for a damned dog!” “Who are you?” “How did you do that?”

  “Resonance,” I gave Carl before grabbing my food sack from the back of his car, and quickly petting Berserk, who licked my hand. I rushed deep into the woods the terrified dog had just abandoned.

  I returned to isolation, in the forest, but this time it was my choice. The wide, wide world was confusing. I couldn’t imagine walking down streets full of people, some staring at me, or trying to sit in a tiny chair in a restaurant or inside of someone’s house, and having only part of me fitting in it. I would have to stoop for doorways (Father had adjusted ours for a Mara a long time ago), eat miniature food, cram myself into subways or taxis or buses. And I would be afraid of harming someone with the accidental swat of my hand since people and objects were so close in a city. I didn’t want to live in a tiny box of an apartment stacked upon a hive of other similar ones. It wouldn’t have worked. That was my personal hypothesis.

  I brushed past trees, bushes, hurrying. I stomped on grass, hard earth, flattened moss, ferns, and the timidly unfurling flowers. I could hear a crowd following me. After a short time it thinned out.

  A woman said, “I don’t know where she went. And what would we do if we caught up with her anyway?”

  A man’s voice answered, “I don’t know but I sure want more information than that stupid guy with his dog could give us. Mara. It’s probably a fake name. I can’t believe she did all that.”

  An older man said, “Yeah, she’s responsible. Wrecking those cars has consequences.”

  “She was amazing,” a tired, young woman uttered. “But fuck it. Who knows where she went out here. And it’ll be getting dark soon.”

  Then, after some time, I couldn’t hear any voices or footsteps anymore. I was in a valley, and evening stained the sky. An ethereal outline of the moon appeared. I wanted peace. I wanted time and experiences to ponder.

  I gathered wood, rubbed logs together easily, made a nice fire. I ate what was left of some apples and lettuce, broccoli, potatoes. I wasn’t cold. I checked my skin, but there weren’t any scratches, abrasions, or cuts. The skin near my newest right hand was a bit frayed and overworked. I would try to rest it, so it wouldn’t come undone. My heart was still racing. All the rest of my inner circuitry seemed to be humming along just fine. Nothing else had broken. I missed that dog, Berserk, and Gloves too. I could hear a howling around me and the crackle of sticks underneath delicate, careful paws. A flurry of birds quieted with the oncoming night. There was the sharp cry of a surprised rodent, rustling leaves in a breeze, grass flapping onto grass. I could hear water moving i
n the distance and a synchronic hum to the air that contained all the noises. Although the animals tried to be silent, tried to creep up on their prey, tiny noises revealed them. The fire imitated bones cracking and sputtering at intervals. The symphony of sounds, beyond, out in the forest, was my new house.

  Odors were masked by the smoldering of the fire, except for the darkening, damp earth underneath where I lay. Cinders rose in the air and flew off. Sparks crackled and broke apart. In the darkness I stayed in the circle of light. I could feel the forest stretching in every direction, and I felt free and luxurious.

  “Unencumbered,” I gave to the blazing light. I spread out on the ground. Far, far away was the tiniest buzz of traffic. I could hear a rush of water in the distance that nearly covered it up. I thought that every time I filled my heart with a person or animal something broke it. Bad things happened.

  I sensed a light somewhere, but it was motionless, harmless, and distant. I would explore in the morning. I fell asleep, more comfortable among trees than people. The trees were less complicated. I didn’t need to explain myself or keep Father’s secrets. I didn’t need to worry about etiquette or about being misunderstood. I liked people; it just hadn’t worked out in their favor so far.

  I fell asleep, dreamed I was surrounded by cats and dogs. I petted them, nuzzled their fur with my nose. They told me stories about their lives and their owners, how they were allowed to do only this or that, restricted. How they were scolded for actions they were compelled to do, by their very nature. They complained, “What did they think I would do when they brought me here?” I liked their musty odor, honesty, grace, lack of manners. I lay myself down among them, allowed their furry hind legs, tails, paws, and heads to cover me like a big, warm, patchwork blanket. As they individually awoke, they each took a piece of me softly between their teeth and left. Finally there was nothing left of me.

  I awoke with a start, the sun blinking behind trees. My fire was out, a tiny spark flashed at the center. I was certain that my dream had not been someone else’s. Then I heard dogs and people. Police were arriving with flashlights, although sunlight was beginning to seep in everywhere.

  They spoke to one another and to a person somewhere else through devices on their clothing. “We’re pretty far into the woods and we’re losing her footprints. I don’t know if it’s worth pursuing. She’s got to come out sometime. According to the eyewitnesses, you can’t miss her. I say we give up the search.”

  Another man’s voice said, “There’s an abandoned fire further on. I’ll check it out. After that I say we move on to another case. She didn’t harm anyone anyway.”

  “Roger that.”

  I stomped on the fire with the men’s shoes Father had bought me. I grabbed two cans out of my food sack and tucked them into my sweater pockets. I ran as quickly and quietly as I could. I stopped when I reached a river that was muttering. I was panting and the noise covered up the sound from my lungs. I climbed a large tree, brushing the thin branches and leaves aside so I could sit between some of the larger limbs and watch the men. Two disturbed birds flew off. Then some bright lights roamed around my head and a woman was laughing. It wasn’t really a memory. More like an aftereffect or ripples from one. I held on tight to the tree. The tree walked, with me high and hidden in its leaves. It swayed, but didn’t knock me loose. Colors swirled around me.

  Two men stood over my old fire. They poked it with a stick, lifted my old food bag, searching through it.

  “I see her shoe prints going off that way into the deep forest.” One man pointed and walked to the pile of freshly squashed bushes. “But then I lose her tracks. We could search around that way.” He pointed towards the tree where I was still unseen.

  “Naw, I don’t want to hassle with the whole thing. Nobody’s filed anything against her. People are just curious . . . and riled up. Insurance companies will handle the whole thing. It’s all property damage. Let’s go get some breakfast.”

  “Roger that.” They left.

  I sighed with relief and rubbed my eyes, full of a heat that emanated out of my closed lids. When I opened them the tree and I were back where we had started, near the river. I felt for my detached body parts and threw my dry toe and fingertip into the river. A fish surfaced and nibbled the top of a fingernail before the toe and finger sank, disappearing into the moving water. I had waited too long to reattach them. I knew that much from Father, who would have been concerned about my senses becoming jumbled and my loss of body parts, who would have wanted to examine me for problems and malfunctions. And, maybe, he could have fixed me. Maybe I was simply stressed, or aging, in the way my own kind did. I couldn’t stand any more operations. I would rather fall apart.

  “Dissembling,” I whispered to my invisible extremities, to the rushing river that wore down or took apart everything in its path.

  Chapter Five

  And then I spotted it from the treetop, a small roughly log-hewn church. The door facing me slammed shut. Smoke began writhing from a chimney on the roof, near a simple wooden cross. I hadn’t seen who had gone inside. Large evergreens weaved around the edges of the structure, obscuring the church. I had seen pictures of gold trimmed, elaborate churches whose famous spires reached high into the sky, but never one thrown together like this one. Something bubbled from my nose. When I wiped it with my hand, patches of blood spread onto my fingers. I wiped it again and it was already dry. I crept down from my tree. I crawled to one of the plain, small windows and peered inside, wondering if I would see God or one of His creators.

  The interior was dark and small, with pews for about twenty people, a wood stove, and a platform, a podium, and a cross all made of wood. I concentrated on movement and finally noticed a woman with dark hair covered by a scarf bent over, washing the floor. She wore a large brown apron over a skirt, and a long sleeved blouse. Her arms repeated wide circular motions. I tiptoed to the second window on the side of the church to get a better view of her, but when I looked again, she was gone, her bucket and rag waiting on the floor. My head shifted, searching for her. Suddenly she popped up in front of me, on the other side of the cramped window, a doughy face with lines, flaring eyebrows, wide eyes the color of a summer sky.

  “Boo,” she said through the thin glass. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Mara.” Our lips moved like fish under water. I suddenly thought of To Kill a Mockingbird. My senses jumbled as I whispered the name of the book. I saw her face again, huge and close to mine. “If I’m Boo then who’s Scout?” I asked. Her features disassembled, poured over me. Light tangled around us, bounced away from the glass, into my eyes. Stones fled and reappeared as birds all around me. Clouds were interrupting my thoughts. I licked sunlight from my lips and tasted warmth and a sweetness that resembled sugar.

  “Did you say you’re scouting? I haven’t seen any mockingbirds and I sure haven’t killed any.” Her lips were moving and the church rattled. The building spilled too much light and the trees scattered.

  I almost asked her where Father was. Atticus? What had he done lately to make people angry, besides me and the other Maras? What was it about fathers? The cobwebs in my mind broke, flew away, and I wove myself back together. I was standing in front of the window of the church, a woman speaking to me. It was hard for us to understand one another through the glass.

  “What are you doing out here? What do you want?” Her hands gestured, a wet rag flailed in one of them. She looked cross.

  “Is God inside?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” she said mysteriously.

  “What does it depend on?”

  She smiled, disappeared from my sight. She reappeared at the door, left it open. She studied me.

  “You’re not one of those back-to-nature druggie hikers?” She shielded her eyes, evaluating my height and width.

  I shook my head. Although I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, I wasn’t a hiker.

&nb
sp; “Are you a Survivalist?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t think so. I wasn’t really sure what I was.

  “Are you carrying any weapons?” She was staring at my pants.

  “No, I don’t have any.” I scooped out my pants pockets. “I have two cans of food.” I showed them to her.

  “You look big-boned, tall. You’d probably be pretty if you got cleaned up. Like my daughter. She loves these woods. She could play out here all day long. Are you from around here?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Are you running away from something?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what it is yet.” She looked around, breathed deeply. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “I always wanted a mother but Father and I couldn’t afford one.”

  She laughed. “You’re a funny one.” She shook her head. “Kids today.”

  “I’m not a Childcloud anymore.”

  “That’s what they all say.” She peered at me closely. “That’s an odd way to put it.” She brushed her dirty hands. “Well, you can come inside while I work. Then I could probably find a little food or something for you. We don’t get many visitors here.”

  She motioned for me to follow her inside the church. I stooped to pass underneath the doorway but found the inside roomier than it had appeared from outside. It had high ceilings so I could stand tall and stretch out my arms. The large room inside was simple, wooden, and clean. Quilts with stories decorated the walls and seats.

  The woman knelt again, dipping her rag into the soapy water. She scrubbed the floor in front of the podium tiredly. “My name’s Theresa. My husband used to lead the services here, when he wasn’t out hunting or fishing. That was before a bear got him. I get paid to keep it clean in here. I also take in wash to help make ends meet.” She liked to talk to the rhythm of her cleaning. She stood and her knees creaked. “My little girl, Kat, short for Katrina, she’s ten now and can hardly remember her father. She’s growing up to be a wild little thing.” She laughed. “I guess I was pretty wild too, a long time ago, but there isn’t much of a town left out here anymore. All the kids want to move to the city.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m going on and on. Can I get you some water or some crackers and cheese to eat?”