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IN A DREAM
It was in the sink.
A three inch long piece, of what looked like, cooked fat, like a bit of gristle from a pork roast. It was an inch or so wide and had a dark hard looking dry end. This hunk of garbage had, I reminisced, the face of a grub, without sharp details. I knew that because my dad took me fishing, all the time, when I was a kid. I thought ,in my tomboy way, that they were kind of cute. It was a fantasy of mine that the fish were attracted to them due to this characteristic.
.
I stared at the little yuck for about a minute, wondering how it got in the sink. My mind raced trying to remember what I had eaten in the last few days that would explain the hunk of jelly-gray that sat in my, normally, spotless sink. Nothing I ate would explain its presence. Was it a bit of burrito that a friend threw in carelessly, a smidgen of jellied Mexican tortilla?
Then I did the oddest thing - I picked it up to see if it would move of its own accord. There was no 'squeam' in me. I was a just barely attractive, solidly built, one hundred and sixty pound -five foot seven- athletic, curvy woman, with a mildly curious attraction to other women and a yearning for men that never yearned for me. So the idea of picking up this little grotesque was not that difficult or traumatic. So I did. The underside was flat and had the appearance of the bottom of a slug, a creature that bass found irresistible. The sides flared out and had a rippled affect.
The decision, based on sound observation, was made- it was not, and had never been alive. It was disgusting and in to the garbage disposal it went, without further thought or delay. The switch to the garbage disposal was flipped and the thing was ground into tiny pieces to be flushed away. I did move back a bit, one could not be too careful, if it was, or had been, alive there might be germs now floating in the air. I ran to the bathroom and retrieved a can of disinfectant. Returning to the kitchen, I sprayed generously until I was satisfied that all was as it should be.
The clock my over-protective mother had given me chimed seven. A run was in order, I made a rule to never eat past seven, and the exercise would be just the ticket, since my appetite had left me anyway.
I did my usual three miles and returned home to shower and watch a little television. I undressed in my bedroom and went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror turning right and left. I wasn't that bad. There was almost no fat on me, less than ten percent, big boned, my Mom always said. I turned completely around and checked my bottom, my best feature in spite of my size. I wondered why something as ugly as a grub could attract fish and something as magnificent as my rump attracts no one. I then stared hard at my face letting the, over the mirror light, catch all the angles possible. I was not bad looking, I mean, I wasn't cover-girl pretty but I did have a quality. Maybe tomorrow, for a change, I'll put on some makeup.
I stepped into the shower and adjusted for temperature, when it was right, I allowed the wet warmth to run over me. I heard a noise in the living room, a bump, as if someone had knocked something over. This would not do. I climbed out of the shower, quietly tiptoed into my bedroom, and over to my bed. Picking up the Louisville slugger, that got me an award last summer for highest batting average in the town’s women's league, I proceeded to skull crunch a burglar. Whoever was in my apartment was not invited and the last thing he would see would be a naked goddess with a baseball bat.
No one was there. My apartment was empty and it was sad somehow. Even an intruder would have been company. I sighed in disappointment and returned to the shower. I don’t know what made me look down but there on the tiled floor, in front of the shower stall, was another bit of gruesome ick,. The idea that it was there was disquieting but almost nothing else. I squatted down to have a better look.
" Well, my little ort of roasted beast fat what brings you to my bath?"
I laughed out loud, even though a deeper part of me shivered at its gelatinous presence.
Then an extraordinary thing seemed to happen. The little gristle was lying in a small puddle of water, which disappeared as I watched. That was it too much. Water drinking goop was not on my plans for the night. I choose to ignore it. I was going to put on my pajamas and have a cookie, or four, milk, and watch a little Soccer, as was my custom on any other Thursday night. It wasn't pajamas I picked; it was a baby doll, a pink baby doll, full of lace and fluff. A ridiculous thing that a, long previous, boy-idiot friend thought was sexy. I put it on over my partially dried body and went to the living room to settle in for a little sports action.
The game was great, but that thing was in there infecting my bathroom. I hadn't watched ten minutes of the game, when I was up, and had that disgusting filth between my thumb and forefinger. It was down the disposal with a satisfying roar. I was feeling oddly exhilarated at its demise by disposal.
A comedy was in order, so back to the living room, absently wiping the trace of wetness from my fingers, on the nighty I was wearing. I slipped in a tape of my favorite comedienne Paula Poundstein, and settled in my chair, hugging my bare legs. Not one chuckle issued from me, not one thing she was saying was funny. I just stared at the screen, as if my side of the world couldn't get the jokes, only the other side could get them, and in a way laugh at me for not getting it. I was furious at being left out. Who was she to exclude me? Angrily, I picked up a vase my aunt had given me and threw it at the television. It of course exploded in a flash and a burst of tiny glass shards. I wasn't hurt, but I did wonder at what would have possessed me to wreck my brand new black screen 36-inch television. My eyes caught another abomination amongst the wreckage. Another of the little beasties was lying on the carpet, right in front of my chair. What in the world were these persistent hunks of flotsam? This time, I refused its passive taunts. It came to me in a lucid flash. The fatty chunks of cellular ick needed me to pick them up and send them to a grinding doom. Not this time. I turned and went to bed, ignoring the whole business as an effect of over dieting. In the morning I would call in sick and see my Doctor.
It became clear, as I lay in the comforting dark, that I had been over compensating, seeking that media driven image of perfect femininity was destroying me. I must endeavor to allow myself to be who I am, right after I get up and grind that little monster gristle into pulp. I went into the living room and turned on the light. It was not where it was. It could not escape me. The kitchen was its obvious destination, or I wasn't the Woman's Champion pole-vaulter of Mar Vista high School, unchallenged since 1989. As I believed, it was there on the kitchen counter, inches from the sink, looking at me with whatever it uses for eyes. I grasped it and squeezed the ooze from its despicable little body. I dropped it into the disposer and ground it into paste. I could rest now, feeling complete at having been tested. I had endured and succeeded. I went back to bed, turned off the light, and turned on the radio to my favorite late night show. George was talking about shadow people. I thought to call him about the invasion of the gristle creatures and then thought better of it.
I awoke in terror. My arms and legs would not move, I was frozen, and for the first time, in my life, helpless and vulnerable. I opened my eyes and tried to scream; there above me, fading in and out of my vision, was a black, misty, monstrous spider, half as big as my room. Its legs straddled both sides of my king-size bed. I looked right into its eight shiny obsidian eyes, as the rest of its massive body faded from dark black shadow into light gray mist and back again. It knew me. My 'knowing' came up from some where in my stomach and swirled up into my consciousness. The damned little bits of gunk were pieces of the spider, only bits could come through, when I touched them its essence came into me, preparing me for this moment. I tried to scream again, but stopped- there was no use. I was chosen, because I could see them. Had I been any other woman I would have ignored their little greasy presence, going about my day with oblivious grace, glee, or depression, as it is with the medicated modern women. My self-proficiency and even minded-ness was my weakness and my strength.
She, the spider from hell, or another dimension, or wherever, smiled on me with pride. She, of course, could not smile, but I felt it. She promised me, we would conquer all and be sisters. It sounded good, but then I wasn't in a position to make rational choices. She became hideously sharp and clear. I should have been wetting myself in fear, but she was strangely beautiful. In fact, her gleaming ebony countenance overwhelmed me. She spoke in my mind.
"What you see is a dream. I cannot sustain my size and mass in your world. I have won everything in my world and now must conquer yours. We will do that together.
Now here was a 'Twilight Zone' moment.
It wasn't a request; she turned to a black smoke and flowed into my mouth and nostrils. I tried to cough, but couldn't. I passed out with a wonderful image of a red hourglass in my mind.
***
It took a year to reshape our body. Patience was our first of many virtues. We were still tall, but now we had curves that would haunt any man's dreams for the rest of their ridiculous lives. It was getting close to time and we were preparing, as we sat under a tree in a glorious park, pretending to read. A book we had already read ' A Crack in the Cosmic Egg'. The irony gave us pleasure, a keen sense of humor being another of our many virtues. When we ruled this world that would be important.
A spider webbed its way down and landed on our arm. It was a beautiful thing, full of love and admiration. It bowed elegantly. We acknowledged its reverence to us and granted it a long and fruitful life.
We were blond now and were wearing a tank top and short shorts. He was sitting on a park bench reading the wall street journal. He had already taken several covert peeks over the top of his paper. We had hunted for three months for just the right one. He was hugely rich, unethical, arrogant ,and egocentric. He took stupid, greedy, beautiful women as he pleased and we would have him and his fortune. The wedding will be next year and we will go to Alaska for our honeymoon. It will be so much fun. We will eat him there.
End.
(c) ken lehnig 2002
www.klstoryteller.com
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Why is doing what you love the hardest thing to do? Is it because failing what you thought defined you would be too devastating a thing from which to recover? If so, we stay where mere accident has left us.
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