1
Objects are humans too, their population mottled around the world, their gender just as confusing as the French language, I never understood why each word had a gender. My teacher had been offended when I questioned, not because of my question but because she could not find an immediate answer. That was an immediate form of pride. My house was a she, sometimes a he when brutal. I think he wanted to swallow me, like the earth had swallowed the neighbour. It ate her up I swear, but no one seems to believe me. My house wanted to do the same, the walls grew so high, and so tall I felt I was in one of my sickening dreams. They were looking down at me in a most disturbing manner. Or I was looking up at them as if my eyes were falling down, deeper into my sockets. My sockets were an abyss perhaps that is where my soul was. But it bit deeper like vinegar sliding down your throat. Each time I walked with mother my attention tugged at her dress and she would ignore it like a strand caught on a fence.
We lived in a white house actually residing in Palapye the BPC compound; it looked as if it was part of those environmentalists who paid painfully too much attention to the safety of the world. They were devoted to it more than religion. The white was screaming that they painted it too white, too pure when itself it was not. It had seen too much to be depicted innocent. Now it was forced to reflect. Maybe red would have been better.
“Why don’t you always wear dresses, you have such a nice body?” mum was writhing the clothes onto the washing line as if they did a terrible deed, as if she was boxing their ears. They complied obediently letting the wind touch them a little, paint them a little with seduction.
“If the air can get under them easily so can unwanted males.” Mom wriggled her noise, confused for a flitting second, then irritation flooded harshly across her face.
“Why would you think such a terrible thing?” apparently from her tone a seventeen year old should not know the dangers of the world. You weren’t supposed to speak about them. The forest stood at the edge of our house like a fog at the bay, or the bay to the land, so close yet afraid. it was a sort of reaction action between it and the house, the house loomed from its dark grisly trees leaning away like the tower of Pisa.
“Because it happens,” I wanted to say mum but the word choked me, actually strangled me in a threatening manner to not give it to her. I looked at the forest ready to catch it, it looked as if it were about to fall on us, for a moment I panicked. “Wearing pants with a difficult zip that disobeyed to a stranger who knew them not gives the wearer more time to do damage and run.” She glared at me as if her eyes would shoot out at me. “While dresses help that stranger, they are too innocent and naive because they think it is okay to trust the stranger.”
“You’re thinking Milla it is too odd for such a girl, sometimes I just don’t understand you.”
“It is the modern world,” the word strangled me again when I tried to say, so I obeyed. “Youngsters do the opposite of your culture, they actually question their elders, and they compete with them with their opinions.” I was free with my thoughts to any person like a guest, offering a glass of what I had, I didn’t care if they liked it or not, they could leave and taste what they wanted. Mum shook her head as if her neck was mechanic. The clothes thanked my for lessening her aggravation.
“Your father found a pretty dress that called out your name in his dream. The next day he went out and bought it.” you can now see where I got the madness from.
“Well it is going to be disappointed to realize that I am not the person it was thinking off.”
“Milla would just being considerate for once hurt you? Just for once be excited about a gift your father picked out for you.” Mum was always trying to teach these things to me, the morality of doing stuff just to please people, I think that disease was terminal for her that is why I did not want to catch it, I didn’t want to become sick like her. Instead I rolled my eyes but they seemed to spin twisting my nerves together. Damn it how was I going to un-knit them. They wove themselves together and connived to make me sleepy. I yawned when the wind licked at me greedily. It was taking too much of my substance.
“Maybe.” I was sitting on an upside down bucket waiting for her to go into the house. She looked back at the forest as if it called her name.
“We really should put lights there. That thing is just too rude, all the time.” I helped her into the house and she began chopping away at the vegetables, killing them. I heard them crying in sizzle in the frying pan, but their scent of death was mesmerizing.
