I’ve been screaming for a long time

Can you hear me now?

A long time ago I was whispering,

Can you hear me now?

But the voice atop my skin was louder and grew louder still

And as I strove to pierce your ears, that voice outside me penetrated your lids

So now you had ideas, and I realized too late that I wasn’t whispering, yelling, pleading, begging, screaming

Or saying anything at all.  I had been hoping you could read my breath or the shadows underneath my eyes, or the wrinkles that weren’t there because I never smiled.

But you didn’t and then the contract was signed and I committed, from this duty I will never be acquitted. 

I am woman hear me weep.

 

In a starched brown suit and wine colored tie he entered the store in the wake of the bell above the door.  He allowed his eyes to wander, bored; he’d been here his whole life long. It was dimly lit and the shelves all lined with hands more delicate than his own.

Some of them, the newer looking, fleshier ones, the ones unlined and colored with fresh tones that imitated the morning sat still upon his entrance, relaxed in their places between the wooden slats that climbed toward the ceiling.  But those of them that had grown discolored with time, bruised by the watching and the wanting and the waiting in that dark warehouse with no clocks, strained to keep his eyes trained on them.  They stretched toward him, waving all fingers, empty.  The air in there was warm thick with the scent of woman; tangy musk and sweat and roses. The man breathed deeply.  Maybe today would be the day.  He pulled at the tie around his neck to loosen it.  He was not an exceptionally smart man; he was not especially talented or good-looking.  He was not particularly anything above average, not that any of that mattered. There were others like him roaming the rows upon rows. Their footsteps rang out across the cement floors, clear, crisp bullets of sound.  He paused to read the caption below five long red nails: “Selectively bred to fulfill your every desire.  Well trained in every manner of house keeping.  Childfree future scientifically guaranteed.” He checked his watch; he had been inside for a half of an hour.  He moved on, and, figuring he had a few minutes to spare he allowed his eyes to continue their leisurely path over each item gliding over long nails and short nails, over short and stubby fingers, over the boney and the graceful, the callused, the witty and the wise. No two were alike except for the fact that they were all ringless, left hands, but this was a given and this was why he had come in the first place.  Pleasantly surprised, he noticed he felt a little too warm, that his heart was beating faster he had thought he would have more time.  However, wishing to avoid distraction he removed his coat and laid it carefully over his own left arm for today had to be the day, he had to focus on his goal.  He was becoming irritable and he had, of late, found it difficult to sleep.  He was nearing his thirtieth year and he was the last of his friends who was left.  They had all already chosen, many of them long ago.  John Manning hadn’t even waited a day past the minimum of the seventeenth year.  So why he, why was it so difficult for him? It wasn’t as if the choice itself were even that significant, they were all the same in the end, weren’t they? And yet, as he walked by nails pointed and rounded, fingers chubby and thin with skins of all shades, dark to light—and yet.  He felt the feeling rising through his body; it began with his thighs and rolled itself up his spine.  He had to get out of there.  Today would not be the day.  He began to sweat, the cotton of his undershirt stuck to his back.  He was panting.  He began to walk faster and the women cried out, moaning and weeping. Arms stretched themselves beyond capacity as they rose from the wooden shelves to grab for him. The echoes of his footsteps quickened the pace of their dance across the walls.  Joints in fingers elegant and lean extended and bulged with effort to cling to him.  Nails were licking at the skin on the back of his neck; they scratched his goose-bumped skin in their efforts to find a grip that would hold.  From all sides they shot at him off the shelves as he dodged their desperate clutches.  They wanted to be saved.  They wanted to be picked as the one. They tore at his shirt and pants. He felt the hairs on his own arms stand up on end.  He dropped his coat and began to run faster still, the plastic bottoms of his new leather shoes pummeled the floor.  He was almost out.  The cries of the women became shrieks as he shuddered and burst through the doors and the tinkling of the bells was drowned by sighs.  They knew they had lost him.  The sun hit his eyes as he shut them, struggling to regain his breath and his control.  He would have to buy a new suit again.  There was no way he could get this new stain out and his coat wrinkled itself on the cool cement of the floor back inside.  He caught his breath unexpectedly and wasted no time turning away from the store. Down a dark ally where no one would see the embarrassing state of his clothing he began his walk home.