But now it’s already several years later and the above ending is already not the kind of ending that’s coming true. The future is less known, in fact, than ever, and I am aware that perhaps the Doctor has not been sitting there in silent judgement all this time. And perhaps there actually is no right position to be found while in midair, as well as no right way to begin. Simply to be in midair will suffice. Simply to begin.
Confrontation, Nos. 25-26, 1983
Verging on the Pertinent
I AM THE WOMAN of the year this year, or so it seems so far. It’s not easy, though, and I haven’t told them I’m older than I look and that I’m “experienced” if you know what I mean, have even had children. Somehow I sense that they would be deeply disappointed not to be able to think of me as virginal, perhaps they would even be enraged and dangerous if they knew I wasn’t as pure as they think I am.
I can’t speak their language (except what I manage out of my phrase book) and I don’t know how any of this happened or why, but from what I think I understand, their legends foretold the coming of a handsome stranger just such as I. I come from the suburbs of a large, midwestern city (rather like Detroit) and I appeared, as it were, out of the blue, descending from an Allegheny Airlines plane on a clear day in September-the month for beginnings all around the academic world. This is to be the case with me, it seems-unless instead, this is some sort of an ending.
My hair is orange-red and I believe fire is meaningful to them on many levels. I suppose my saucer-hat may well represent the world as they know it. Of course my right breast the sun and my left breast the moon or something of the sort. My hands, perhaps two white birds of peace, while the large mole on my cheek is certainly testimony to the basic earthiness, the all-too-human quality of my good looks.
I remember that their equivalent of four French horns blew for me that first day and my cigarettes were confiscated in the interest of my health.
The first words I learned in their language were: “Who, me?”
I knew well enough to be humble, flustered, tearful, shy, etc., and to smile with a trembling chin, but for some reason I wasn’t really that surprised at being chosen THE one out of so many others. I’ve always expected something of the sort would happen to me, been waiting for it, in fact; however, I was never quite sure whether it would come about because of my looks or my brains and, actually, I’m not sure which now. For all I know, I may merely be the millionth visitor to arrive here, or as seems more likely considering the place, the ten thousandth, or maybe they just picked an arbitrary number to celebrate. Their ways are so different. How would I know?
So far this year that I’ve been chosen, the traffic accidents are down by ten percent. Murder, on the other hand, while down in one village, is up in several others. The weather has been dry and unusually hot. Two people were discovered dead of unknown causes. I found the words for “Don’t blame me” in the phrase book, but I think they do anyway. Perhaps I’m not pronouncing them properly, and sometimes I think they interpret what I try to say any way they want to. (Rape is up drastically and I can’t help wondering if I do have something to do with that, considering my body, considering the way I move, and considering my long red hair.)
I would like to learn to say “But I am your leader” or “Take me to him,” except the words aren’t in my phrase book.
I would also like to make an announcement about myself. I really would. Confess my age and my shoe size. Confess my dyed hair, my long, phoney fingernails; confess my children and maybe say something about the psychology of people who come here, as I did, innocently as tourists: their needs, their expectations, their misunderstandings….
I have been trying to analyze the situation: Am I free to go, for instance, or not? Will I, by any chance, be forced to take part in strange ceremonies where I have to make love to an old goat, non-figuratively speaking? And what happens at the end of the year? Will I have to jump naked into some ice-cold lake with a lot of jewelry on?
I should mention that I have been on several centerfolds of several of their magazines, all with short biographies mentioning my interest in photography and gourmet cooking. None of it true.
And all this time I have been crossing and recrossing my legs, pointing my toes at desirable men, not knowing if that is permissible here or not. Once, as a bold invitation, I even held a teacup in my lap—without the saucer!
My credit cards have all been stamped VOID. I think it may be their way of keeping me from getting out of their country.
They’ve put me up in their very best hotel. Perhaps I am no longer to be considered of the middle class. At least I certainly hope not.
I have sent and received several letters to and from my husband. He wonders if any of this is really true, if I’m just pretending to be sort of held prisoner here as the woman of the year. He says why don’t I just walk out of there, but I’m not sure I can. I told him eunuchs stand at every doorway (they might be eunuchs) and I don’t know if they’re just symbolic or not. He wrote back that of course he’d rescue me in a minute himself if he thought anything were really wrong or if there were any real danger, but he wants me to learn to solve my own problems, to learn to be more objective and less emotional about my situation and, most of all, to stop exaggerating. He thinks it would be bad for my personal growth if he came to the rescue now. Actually he has always wanted me to be more independent of him, keep out of his way with the little domestic things that come up so often with children and refrigerators and so forth. This, he says, isn’t any different from my usual problems and most likely the whole thing’s my own fault anyway, or just some kind of misunderstanding. Most of the things I get myself into are and, besides, he’s busy.
I suppose he’s right, as usual. I may have led them on unconsciously: acting shy, demure, yes, but also wearing low-cut dresses decades too juvenile for me and perhaps, in some ways, just being myself is too much for any normal man to take. (I should mention that my breasts are quite large… extraordinarily large in fact.)
Already there have been several rehearsals for strange ceremonies where I am to appear suddenly on balconies or at the top of long, curving stairways wearing see-through gowns, and there has already been one sold-out celebration of myself as heroic womanhood, or at least that’s what it seemed like where I inadvertently took a very lascivious pose. I don’t blame myself for that. It may have been the music or perhaps the setting or the power of suggestion.
I have heard sudden, single cries of, “WONDERFUL!”in the middle of the night and woke up wondering if I’d dreamed them.
That’s what I’ve always wanted to be. But even Mother never said, “What a wonderful baby girl,” at least not that/knew of. Once, just once, my husband said, “You’re wonderful,” but he took it back the next day because of something I did. I forget what. (That was before we were married.) But sometimes I have seemed to myself to be just a little bit wonderful if looked at in a certain particular and perhaps peculiar (dim) light, and once, in a hospital, a kind anesthesiologist held my hand and stroked my face before putting me out. “Count down from wonderful,” I thought I heard him say.
Wonderful is nice, but I’d also like to be in some sort of policy-making situation, though I suppose you can’t have both. Anyway, I do keep making proclamations, many of them unquestionably for the betterment of the human condition and I do not mean my own. I have not been selfish about this, but so far I don’t seem to be able to make myself clear. I have pieced together phrases in their language out of my little book and I have said everything slowly, loud and emphatically, too, trying to get their attention, sometimes stamping my foot or banging on their equivalent of a table. They made it clear to me that I’m cute when I’m angry, and that’s nice and might even be a part of being wonderful, but all my talk seems to be glossolalia to them and I think they like it that way. I wish I could get through to them. Often it’s almost as if I were talking to my husband.
Sometimes I wonder, Are they laughing at me behind
my back?
Sometimes I try to melt their hearts with my smile.
Sometimes I still, and almost without thinking, point pencils at my crotch.
Sometimes I try to make clear that all women should have their breasts examined every few months, not just the ones built like me.
Now they are flying my best black bra from their flagpole. I like to think it means help, but I know that’s too much to hope for and quite unlikely. Perhaps it means danger. What does it mean, I wonder?
I seem to be raising basic questions of manhood with my body and my manner and especially with my breasts, though I never asked for ones quite as big as these are and told them so. They’ve made it clear to me that that’s no excuse and that I will have to supply, in some form or other, an answer to all men and before the end of their year, too. It’s clearly my responsibility though I don’t know why and I don’t know what to say or do about it, and especially, I don’t want to be misunderstood when I do do or say something. I suppose it’s a kind of sphinx riddle: “What question is it has for answer, woman?” kind of thing, and especially a woman built like me. Just to be one certainly doesn’t make me know the answer though they seem to .think it does. I suppose one should be grateful that they even thought of asking, though, of course, they don’t really want the answer to women, but rather to themselves as men in some sort of juxtaposition to women, or rather in opposition to them. The question is, Are these breasts and hips, this slender waist, for them or for me? I may never be able to answer their questions. I may just stand here pulling out my gray hairs and relying on tears.
When you have breasts this large I don’t suppose you can be choosy about the sort of life you lead. Actually, they do not loom so large in my own world as they seem to in others. I see them at an angle. They don’t impinge on my view to any great extent. I could forget about them for days at a time I’m sure, if people would let me. Sometimes I lean them against a table and am completely unaware of them. Sometimes I lean them against somebody’s shoulder and don’t even know I’m doing it.
In one of their ceremonies I know for a fact that they’re going to imitate my walk and wear cut-in-two coconuts on their chests or grapefruit under their shirts and talk a lot of crazy talk that’s supposed to be like me. I wonder if that’s supposed to be some kind of a lesson… if I’m supposed to learn from that? At any rate, I hope their antics mean I have some redeeming social qualities.
I have a fear that at the last minute of that last sacred ritual, the one where they will ask me that last important question about themselves… I have a fear that I may forget how wonderful I am and want to be, and that I may cry out in some unfeminine way. But I don’t want to shirk all that my body implies even if I don’t understand it. I must (mustn’t I?) take the consequences of myself as best I can, with courage and serenity. Being wonderful was never easy. I must try hard, though I can’t see how I can really be much of an example of the generative principle at my age in spite of other attributes I may have.
But I wonder if, on the other hand, I am to be, in that very last ceremony of all, the mysterious woman, all in black, who leads men to their doom, perhaps wearing a necklace of hands and hearts? Or is that wishful thinking?
“There… er she go… ooes….” But here I come now, hair piled up in that studied uncombed look, a stray curl or two carefully loose at my forehead . Their clapping sounds like waves. It fades and waxes. Are they laughing ceremonial laughter? Are they winking those ceremonial winks? There’s that age-old street-corner whistle! I, as I always did, walk by not looking but doing whatever gets the most applause. Is it the time now for some kind of an answer to myself? (If I do get that answer right, I’d like my reward in credit cards.)
I should have asked my husband a long time ago if he knows anything about this question, though I doubt if he does and he might not want to talk about it anyway.
I’m wondering, Am I going to have the right to be wrong and, if so, how many times? I hate to make mistakes, especially if men are watching, and they always are.
But I may have it all backwards. (If my husband were here he’d say it wasn’t the first time.) As far as I know, I might be the one that gets to ask for explanations. That’s not unreasonable, actually, because the sphinx was a woman. It might be the men that are the ones that have to come up with a quick answer. I should take several deep breaths and try to appear inscrutable (as I suppose I am to them anyway). I will be kind. I’ll extend the time limit. I’ll even let them make a few mistakes and I may accept any halfway-decent reply they can come up with. (I always have.) But then my moods change fast. I may not.
That is, if I do get to be the one out in their desert asking the questions.
13th Moon, Vol. vii, Nos. 1-2, 1984
There Is No God But Bog
THIS LITTLE design represents the hundred thousand eyes of Bog:
or a row of snakes or water and small boats. This the hair of Bog, or a rainbow, also a house until we changed our houses to this:
This next,the busy fingers of Bog or two large combs stuck together:
Sometimes a river. The color of Bog’s eyes is all color, therefore white. His body is no color, therefore black. He comes from outer space.
If one little man should try to make himself understood by Bog he should wonder, Does anybody notice one ant more than another? Robert ate for four for seven years and grew enormous in order to be understood by Bog. Howard formed words out of trees (some a thousand years old) and set fire to them in order to be understood by Bog. Edgar, at age twelve, castrated himself with his mother’s paring knife and learned to sing the sweetest songs in hopes that Bog would hear him. John jumped out of a building, hoping to be understood by Bog on the way down, if only for a few seconds.
One thousand eyes are as one eye and this is a one-eyed man or Bog’s box: It is the media center for being understood by Bog. It frequently breaks down and the link to the airways is severed, so that if seven virgins sing, the sound is not heard beyond the immediate vicinity.
How innocent Bog looks seen through the wrong end of a telescope thus: How he does fool us with sailboats on a sparkling sea; with house plants; with smooth, round stones; and, now and then, a waterfall!
He made the ozone. He set it about the earth as a protection for us. It took years of preparation. He could let it stay there if he really wanted to.
Pray for the ozone.
If Bog wanted to play the banjo, he could do it just like that, without a single lesson.
We don’t need him quite so much now that we found out about vitamin C.
“Make me laugh or cry,” he says, and we do, and then we say “Make us laugh or cry,” and he does. But then, when he says, “One, two, three, you’re dead,” we are suddenly full of self-doubt.
Here is a diagram of the ups, the downs, and the level places of the three main cycles (menstrual, biorhythm, and barometer) for one month (or whatever passes for a month). It is also lips about to smile, or a spider, or an N within an M:
This is Bog, sideways (we are not in his image):
Top to
infinity
He is sometimes found in full regalia, dancing on the head of a pin.
He is a self-made god. He took the initiative, and of his own accord, decided: Let there be one great big explosion, and there was, and he saw that it was good.
Pray that, in the twinkling of an eye, one quarter of the world’s population should be turned into trees. Also, and in another twinkling, there should be three more abortion clinics right here in New York City. Let it be that two thousand women who have missed their periods, and who tremble at the very thought, should sigh with relief less than two weeks from right now. Let there be about half as many houses around the cities as now, and let my house disappear and me also, if need be; and let me become a ponderosa pine of about the same age as I am now and let me stand in the corner of this very plot overlooking the garden. And let some of these new trees be from men who would have committed t
he murder of good men and let the good men come and stand in their shade. And others should be of those people who want to die anyway so that this will give them a good and pain-free sort of life. And some will be of the mothers who are cruel to their children. It is better to be a tree; But, assuming that one quarter of the world’s population can’t be all bad, then some will have to be good people of small means and little education.
And while you’re at it, give us not this day so much daily bread, but give some of it to the Africans so that they may live and that we may go about the land lean and willowy as we were meant to do. Let the traffic be up to the speed limit every day of our lives, though not above it. Let three thousand more blacks suddenly get top jobs in management. Let not the sewage pollute the seas nor industrial waste take over our lands. And that day when the boiling rain falls and the sidewalks rise up under our feet , when buildings topple and the air explodes in our lungs; the jaw hangs unhinged, the eardrums burst, the eyes pop out and we are caught, innocently, in some huge blast—then hold our blown-up hands in thine just once before we are completely zapped.
One little nobody with small breasts and two or three children…. How can he even be equipped to understand her and her little problems of what she might consider right or wrong? Even though his big, white, red-rimmed eyes are everywhere, transparent as the see-through air, not everybody is worthy of notice. And some say god makes only monumental decisions—those, for instance, that involve the slow movement of the different political divisions of land away from the single great land mass, Pangaea (which he thought of first, but has, it seems, rejected). It’s Pangaea (which he thought of first, but has, it seems, rejected). It’s slow work, but in this age of rapid,transportation and communication this separation is even more desirable than it might have been before, if only for a few more seconds of privacy. And so some oceans shrink while others take up the slack. Land masses slip sideways by ‘inches every year. With that and with the planet’s wobble, we are dizzy almost all the time and roll as we walk and feel queasy when we look up into the sky.
The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1 Page 46
