Listen to me. Listen very carefully. You’re trapped. Right now, you’re trapped. You’re stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe. You’re walking around in your life, like your own little isolation bubble, following their footprints, thinking: This is it. This is me. This is MY SELF. This is how it goes. This is how it works. These are the rules. But here is the secret. You are free. You’re not one of those fools. There is no bubble except the one they put you in. But it’s made of soap, of air—of nothing at all. Only, you’re taught that it’s indestructible—no way of getting through that barrier. And you can pop it with your little finger. You could pop it with your breath. You could blow on it, and it would fizzle away.
You are free.
You can do what you want.
When you want.
How you want.
On your time.
You can destroy yourself, kill yourself— And then get up and walk away.
You are free. No but. No or. No either.
You are an indestructible machine.
You are magnificent.
You can steal; you can cheat.
And you can lie. Be a liar.
I am.
“If there was meat in the house, don’t you think we’d have eaten it?” I yell. “Don’t you think I’d have given it to Nori, instead of letting it rot?”
Gowan folds his arms. “Silla, what are you talking about?”
“Meat! This house reeks of rotting meat!”
He frowns. “This again?”
“Can’t you smell that?” I retch, turning away. “It’s disgusting! If there is meat in this house, I’m sure as hell going to find it.”
I feel a tiny pressure on my hand—fingers encircling my wrist. She has no words, so I probably missed her sign—Silla?—and so I thought it was Gowan. I spin, rage beating through my veins in a pulsing, virulent rhythm of aggression, and I slap her.
She is so small.
I remember when she was born, this tiny, wrinkly thing in my mother’s arms. Squirming, and so… silent.
“I will protect you,” I’d told her.
I was ten.
I was the biggest.
I was Big Sister.
I will protect you.
My mouth is open and my eyes are open and my palm is open. Stinging.
Nori has staggered, but she looks up at me, cupping her cheek, and she laughs, like this is a joke. A game.
My heart cracks
breaks
falls out of me.
Because that tiny, mute laugh is one of disbelief, forgiveness, alarm, shock and then her eyes change, widen, fill up with water she is crying
and I wish there was sound so that I could hear what I have done, but she is still trying to smile at me like, It’s okay, Silla, it’s okay, like I’m the one who is hurting, and I am staring at my hand and it is still burning and I hit Nori. [YOU ARE THE BIGGEST.]
I hit my little sister. [YOU ARE BIG SISTER.]
Do you love anything? Anything at all? I love my sister. [HAHAHAHA!]
I will protect you. [LIAR.]
Gowan is as mute as Nori but I see something in his face that I recognize.
Rage.
I spin, nearly falling, and run away, leaving Nori and Gowan behind me. Leaving their shock and their goddamn silences and their eyes looking at me all the time and seeing me. Too deep. Too hard.
I am shaking.
What have I done?
Who am I?
The smell hits me again as I race past the hole.
Meat.
Meat.
Somehow, I let meat go to rot in this house while Nori gobbles up worm-infested fruit and wasp husks and tries to ignore the roaring in her stomach.
Meat.
Jesus, God.
How did I let precious food rot away to feed this damn house instead of us? How did I… hit my Nori?
“What’s happening to me?” I whisper, but there is nothing except the creaking of Cath’s pacing above me, and the creaking of the house around me, and the creaking of my heart inside me.
This house.
It’s watching every mistake I make with glee.
“You’re not going to win,” I tell it, as though we are in some dangerous competition and it can actually hear me. “You hear that, you little bitch? I’m going to beat you.”
But I’m beating myself all alone. I don’t need any help.
I search for the smell all day.
Nori and Gowan are nowhere to be seen, and I’m glad. I can’t face them. [HIT HER HARDER.] I can’t look into his eyes and see judgment [YOU DON’T GIVE A DAMN] like that. I don’t [DO] want to hurt them. I will never [ALWAYS] hurt them. [LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE.]
“I will never hurt them,” I whisper, hurrying on.
I end up in the basement, contemplating the wine racks.
And my palm, hot on her little cheek.
I don’t want to think about what is happening to me. I don’t want to think about what’s happening to us. I don’t want to think about the mold on our skin, our clothes, the walls. The rotting fruit and the maggots in the walls.
I don’t want to have those intrusive thoughts
Rot
breaking into my mind
Decay
all the time
Stench