The Book of X

by Sarah Rose Etter

  I stare up at the red quarry in the afternoon light, wet faced, numb, chest empty.

  VISION

  After school, we wander The Acres.

  “I like it when you listen to me,” Jarred says.

  “I want to show you something,” I say. “Have you seen the Meat Quarry?”

  “No,” he says. “Where’s that?”

  “Just out this way,” I say.

  I guide him down the road until we reach the gate.

  I slide my key into the lock until it clicks. He follows me inside, his eyes flicking over the flesh walls.

  “What is this place?” he asks.

  “The Meat Quarry. My brother and father discovered it. It’s ours.”

  “What do you do down here?”

  “This is where we harvest the meat.”

  “Weird,” he says. “Smells like hell. ”

  “It’s my favorite place.”

  “Come here.”

  I walk to him, body more electric. He shoves his mouth against mine. It’s rough, the way he does it this time, his teeth against my lips and tongue, his hand on the side of my face, tender.

  “I really like you,” he says. “I think about you all the time.”

  “I like you too,” I say.

  He puts his mouth back on mine. I run my hands through his wild hair, over his chest beneath his worn t-shirt. He lets out a low moan and slides his hand up my skirt, past my underwear, his fingers on my bare skin.

  We slide to the ground. I can feel him hard against my leg. The heat between my legs grows, glows, turns white. He presses his mouth into my hair.

  I pull back and stare deep into his eyes. He keeps going, sliding my dress from my shoulder, then his mouth to my breast, his hands keep roving, running over my knot.

  “Can I touch you?” he asks.

  I nod and he does, gently, lightly sliding a finger into me. He puts his mouth back on mine and I keep my body close to him, close to his warmth.

  I hear the mouth of the zipper, and the same scent from the classroom comes back to me, the scent of his private skin, the pink of him, the sound of his hand against himself.

  “Is this OK?” he asks.

  I nod. He moves slowly, gently, staring deep into my eyes in the dimming lavender sunset against the red quarry swells as he sinks into me, my breath catching from the pain and pleasure of it, the early hint of love between us.

  THE NEXT MORNING BRINGS THE NUMB sun. The air is warm, summer heat preparing for the day. I cannot bring my body out of bed.

  “I’m sick,” I explain to my mother.

  “Poor thing,” she says, rubbing my forehead. “You look bloodless. Let me take care of you.”

  She piles the bedside table with soup, medicine, tissues, leftover cake. It all stays untouched. I am still covered in his terrible fingers, his teeth, his tongue, his saliva my new skin.

  I curl into myself, sleep when the ache gets too big to breathe.

  “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” MY mother asks. “You don’t harvest anymore.”

  “It’s boring. Who cares about meat? Who?” I snap.

  “Better you’re here cleaning anyway, where you belong.”

  My hands are full of lemons. I feel covered in ash.

  “CAN I SEE YOU AGAIN?” JARRED ASKS IN the hall at school, weeks later, weeks after not speaking, not making eye contact.

  His mouth keeps moving, but I cannot hear a sound. The world has gone blank. There is no blood left in me.

  I DREAM OF THE MEAT QUARRY, MY BODY pressed deep into the red again. I writhe in the meat and rip at the walls, harvesting faster than ever, screaming.

  PAIN NUMBS THE SKIN, THE COLORS, THE dazzle of the world. The moon no longer speaks to me. I become the pale void, an empty pink shell.

  PART II

  I RENT A SMALL APARTMENT FAR FROM The Acres, distant from the Meat Quarry, in the belly of the city. Each month, I send in the rent. The apartment is mine that way: I pay to keep my body there at night.

  Each morning, I read the jobs section of the newspaper, black print fingers streaking my face and the white walls of the apartment. The headlines read:

  LEGAL CLERK NEEDED

  ODD JOB EXPERT DESIRED

  POSITION VACANT

  CAREER OPPORTUNITY

  WANTED: PASSIONATE TYPIST

  LET ME TELL YOU HOW THE CITY FEELS to me: It is an orchestra of rusting metal, heaving trucks and sharp silver buildings, full of bodies, faces, color, electricity.

  On the small squares of grass, there are small piles of dog shit. In each concrete corner, there is a small pool of urine. On the walls, there are electric scrawls of graffiti in a language I do not know.

  At night, the skyline shoots out pinpricks of light and I am in awe. In the morning, I get trash caught on my ankles, greased Styrofoam making its sound against my skin. Even that is beautiful.

  ON THE STREETS, I BLUR INTO THE population. I mix into the faces.

  Here, no one notices the knot unless they get too close. They don’t even realize there is a pool of sweat in the largest crevice, into which one might toss a very small pebble, causing ripples.

  “Got any change?” a man screams from a wheelchair.

  His mouth hangs open, a single tooth protruding from the red of his collapsing gums.

  “This world is pain!” screams a woman next to him.

  Her eyes are bloodshot, watery, weary.

  I slide a gold coin into each of their cups.

  “What the fuck you looking at?” screams the woman. “Get moving, bitch! This isn’t a movie!”

  I disappear quick, knot throbbing hard, into the smear of the city’s faces.

  ◆The first cities were built roughly 11,000 years ago

  ◆Agriculture, slaughter, and farming are believed to be a prerequisite for cities; consistent food supplies made it easier for people to live in one place

  ◆Cities reduced transport costs for goods by bringing large populations into one location

  MY APARTMENT IS UP A WIDE FLIGHT OF stairs. It is on the second floor, a small one bedroom with wide windows, dark wooden floors, white walls, a tiny kitchen. It is like the house at The Acres in this way.

  I don’t have much: My clothes and books, a few rocks which glisten in the sun.

  Outside, a constant chorus of noise: Breaking glass, trash trucks, arguments, a baby sobbing out all the tragedies of the world through its wailing.

  THE AD I CHOOSE FROM THE PAPER SAYS:

  WANTED: PASSIONATE TYPIST

  Can you type quickly and with passion? We want to add you to our vibrant, culturally dynamic office. We offer competitive salary, free water, and a positive workplace. To apply, please send a photograph from the neck up.

  “AND HOW WOULD YOU CONTRIBUTE TO the culture here in addition to typing up my daily notes?” the man in the suit asks.

  The bald sheen of his head shines through several slicked, thin hairs. His skin is covered in strange red freckles, a blotching which travels beneath collar and shirt sleeve. The dead skin of his face is caught on his eye glasses, which are smeared with the thin yellow grease of his fingers and cheeks.

  A stack of papers sits on his desk, many folders, an old mug of coffee. I picture myself typing up the notes every single day. Then, I picture my fingers in the brown sludge ringing his coffee mug, smearing it across my face like war paint.

  “I would smile pretty frequently,” I say, smiling. “I bring a positive energy to the workplace.”

  “Excellent,” he says. “We don’t appreciate frowning here.”

  “Absolutely,” I nod and smile.

  “And as for your... condition?” he asks. He uses his eyes to gesture to my knot. “Are you with child?”

  “Oh no, no. It’s just a knot. It won’t stop me from doing my job,” I explain. “It’s just how I look.”

  “Fantastic. We like to give people opportunities,” he explains. “I believe in rewarding a hard worker, no matter the ah... circumstances.”
>
  I shake his hand over the desk.

  IN THE GROCERY STORE, THE LIGHTS ARE dazzling, the heads of the vegetables wanting for eyes. I move among the foods like a gone woman, hypnotized. I pile the cart high and trance my way to the meat counter.

  “Hello,” says a man in a white coat.

  “Hello, I’ll have some meat.”

  “Well, yeah. What kind?”

  He gestures at the spread below the glass. The meats are strange and new: Coiled like organs, too pink, chopped to bits, too full of white rivers of fat. None of the meats make sense here.

  “I don’t... I don’t know.”

  “Lady, nobody here has this much time to kill.”

  My eyes finally land on the red meat I know, huge round hunks of it like from the earth. I imagine my father pulling this meat from the quarry, cleaning it, and selling it. I imagine the meat traveling here to meet me through a series of silver trains and black trucks.

  “That one,” I say, gesturing.

  “How much?”

  “Two pounds.”

  “It’s your world, lady, I’m just living in it.”

  “Miss, you want to hurry up already?” calls a man from the line which has grown behind me.

  His eyes are on the back of my neck, I feel them like the points of knives.

  “It’s not like I don’t know my meats!” I exclaim to the large back of the meat man, to anyone who might be listening.

  SOPHIA CALLS AND HER VOICE MAKES ME homesick. She lives in an apartment too, in our hometown, back near The Acres.

  “It’s closer to the stores and the men,” she says. “I did meet someone new.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I met a man. He’s really wonderful,” she says.

  The word wonderful is a foreign land.

  “That’s great,” I say. “What is it like?”

  “It’s hard to describe it. It’s beautiful. I never thought I’d be so deeply understood and fully completed as a human as I am now with Doug. How’s the city?”

  “That’s great,” I say. “The city is just incredible.”

  The lie strains through my teeth.

  EACH MORNING, I YANK THE STRAY HAIRS from my face, brush my teeth, apply my makeup.

  Then I put on the costume for work: Black pants, white blouse, green cardigan, low-heeled black shoes.

  Before I leave, I put in my false heart, which sits in front of my regular heart. The false heart is made of thin red plastic and covers my real heart, quiets the beating, an extra protection.

  I walk slowly to the office. I have a short daydream about my body back home, in bed, in the warmth and sheets. The vision washes over me like a drug, what a pleasant pleasure just to imagine it.

  AT MY DESK, I TYPE THE BALD MAN’S notes. My fingers buzz across the keyboard, letters kicked up like the black wings of crushed bugs.

  “My god, you’re fast,” the boss says.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You’re like a goddamn automatic weapon,” he says. “What did you do this weekend?”

  I go clammy, a bit of sweat on the brow, in the palms, beneath the arms.

  “Nothing much,” I say.

  A deep silence stands between us, my mouth a closed shell I pry open.

  “...And you?” I tack on.

  “Oh, you know, took the old boat out, a few rounds of golf, a nice steak.”

  “That sounds lovely,” I say.

  He offers a wink through his greasy glasses, upon which I note the specific swirls of his fingerprints.

  “You keep typing that fast, that could be your life someday,” he says.

  I picture it: My mouth full of steak, the steak in my mouth, the steak between my teeth, strings of fat in the molars, my jaw aching from always chewing, chewing and swallowing until I’m so full that my throat sews itself shut.

  ◆Most workers spend 1,896 hours per year at the office

  ◆The average office worker spends 50 minutes per day looking for lost files

  ◆Stewardesses is one of the longest words typed with only the left hand

  ◆A typist’s fingers travel 12.6 miles on the average work day

  ON CERTAIN DAYS, WHAT HAPPENED IN the Meat Quarry rises up from my belly and seizes my heart.

  I can feel his hands on me.

  I can feel my body pressed into the red.

  Wasn’t that nice? You liked that, didn’t you?

  I shove those feelings back down into the knot.

  VISION

  On Wednesdays, Jarred meets me halfway between our offices, on the concrete. His eyes glint pleasant as metal. Joy rises up in my chest to see him, to slide my hand into his.

  “How was your day?” he asks.

  “I typed the president’s notes again,” I say. “How was your day?”

  “I worked on the computers,” he says. “The usual.”

  We wander the blocks, lazy-legged. The sun seems to be in our favor, washing over our arms, a false summer. The beast in my heart rests, calm, fangs in. A slow spool of silver thread unwinds in my bloodstream, a shiver of pleasure.

  At the restaurant, we order our favorite: Two burgers, fries. I watch his mouth split and bite into the meat, and it is as beautiful as a painting, as beautiful as an oil painting, as beautiful as anything I have ever seen.

  THE WOMEN IN THE CITY WEAR HIGH heels and sharp suits. Their bodies are lithe. It seems only skin is stretched over their bones, muscle removed.

  “What would you like today?” asks the woman in white inside the silver lunch truck. Her mouth is puckered, a glare to her eyes. I’ve taken too long again.

  “What did she have?”

  I point to the city woman standing a few feet away. She’s pencilthin, an arrow, long hair highlighted to perfection. My loose clothes blow around on me. I am a linen line in the wind.

  “A fucking salad, come on.”

  “I’ll have a salad.”

  I watch her while I eat, lettuce in my mouth, between the teeth. I watch the way her clothes tuck around her wired body, her eyes on the horizon, looking into a future I cannot see.

  THERE IS NOTHING TO IT, THE MOTIONS, I go through them each day.

  I build a new life out of minutes filled with small actions, my distraction techniques:

  WASHING HAIR

  SHAVING BODY

  STARING THROUGH WINDOW

  EATING

  MASTURBATING

  SLEEPING

  I repeat and I repeat and I repeat. I inch toward death.

  EACH NIGHT AT HOME, I WASH OFF THE mask. Then, I place the false heart in a small black box on the dresser.

  After, I make a simple dinner: Chicken, starch, vegetable. The meat tastes gray in my mouth.

  The silence of the apartment swells. Later, in bed, my mind churns, my organs grind against each other, a swarm of bees thrum through my veins until I slide my hand between my legs, until the sweet pink rush before I sleep.

  SOPHIA CALLS.

  “We’re in love,” she says.

  I picture love: They must be next to each other in bed. They must be feeding each other small cakes. They are definitely fucking constantly. They must be warm.

  Outside, the city starts a cold rain. I curl into bed alone.

  MY DREAMS ESCALATE IN THEIR strangeness. I dream of the Meat Quarry with a broken gate.

  I wander in deep, until I find my family, sitting on the ground, mouths covered in red, filled with meat, teeth pink, roaring with laughter, tears streaming from their eyes.

  “There you are!” my father booms. “We’ve been waiting!”

  In the dream, I can sense Jarred at the periphery of the quarry, the long black shadow of his danger.

  I wake sandy-mouthed, dehydrated, safe, alone.

  EACH FRIDAY, THE BOSS CARRIES A SMALL black velvet pouch. This is called PAY DAY and it is marked on the calendar with a single exclamation point.

  “Good job again this week,” he says. “Here’s what makes the world go
’round, am I right?”

  He gives me a wink.

  “The world goes ’round,” I say.

  The pouch settles on my desk with a thud. I can hear the weight of it. I open it slowly, pour the golden coins into my hand.

  I count the coins, one by one, into my palm where they glint briefly in the sun. Soon enough the coins are gone, out into the open mouths of debt and food.

  ON WEEKENDS, I FALL BACK INTO OLD routines. Mid-day, I realize I am washing the white walls of my apartment with lemons.

  Then I shower, wash the triangle of hair between my legs, scrub my body with fine-grit salts until my skin screams.

  Later in the grocery store, I speak like a pro at the meat counter:

  “I’ll have a steak, please.”

  Then I put the steak in the cart. I push the cart to the checkout lane and pay for it.

  At home: Marinate, temperature check, make the flesh good and cooked, then devour the territory.

  VISION

  I don’t ask for much at home. It is silent there. I light three candles, then I stare at the walls while the hours pass.

  On the walls, I keep a calendar. Here, I monitor my emotional states. Today, for instance, I write down EVACUATED because I don’t feel myself in my body. Instead, I feel like a glistening container waiting to be filled with an event or a love. Each morning in the mirror, I chant the phrase, “I am someone waiting for something to happen.”

  Sometimes, I play a record. Sometimes, I read a book.

  Within the pages of the book are photographs of craters in the earth taken from space. Often, the craters look like scars on the human skin of land. When a crater hits earth, debris is released which can pollute the air, or even block the sun. It is important to learn one fact each day to keep the mind sharp.

  Always, I am standing outside of myself while I watch my other self complete these tasks. I report back with updates: We are eating chicken. We are sharpening our minds. We are expanding our skill sets. One day, someone will happen upon us and love us genuinely and truly for these motions.

  BEFORE BED, MY PHONE RINGS, THEN MY mother’s voice.

  “How are you? How is the big city treating you?”