|
Abstractions on a World Called Shirley
by Kristine Ong Muslim
The
box was so small, enough to fit in the soft hollow curve of her
left palm, for the right one had dissolved a long time ago. It was
hard to believe that it could mean something. Shirley wished for
it to contain a gift. Perhaps, something special to compensate for
the shadow that she had to give up in order to get a room in the
Shelter.
She heard the gurgling of the giant mechanical worm outside the building. She tried to be afraid only to feel normal again, but she was too tired to even bother conjuring the right fear reflexes. There would be time for that later.
She glanced at the tongue-bed; it was damp and marred with pores from all the things it had lapped before. Although it looked safe because it was still asleep, its edges had ulcerations.
Easing carefully on the tongue-bed so as not to wake it prematurely, Shirley puzzled over the tiny box she had found on the shed two world-hours ago. It had no visible flaps. It was nearly weightless and very hard, a hardness that was neither metallic nor organic. And so smooth. Perhaps, it was not meant to be opened like all the other boxes before it.
They will get you someday, her brother, Arthur, had said to her when she opened the doorway and never looked back. That was the time Shirley had lost her right hand; the doorway had to take something.
The last words she heard before she disappeared with her dreams of escape were the screams of her little sister, Mischa: "Only five stitches, Shirley. Five stitches to close the mouth of the Apocalypse--"
Shirley missed them both. If she knew how to pray, then she would pray for them not to "go for it" like she did. It was the same everywhere. The landscape in and out of the doorway was already tainted end to end. Only the sky was left intact. It was still blue with fluffs of very real-looking white clouds in certain areas. Her mother said that They had forgotten to change it. Did it matter -- what was left unchanged? Shirley did not think so; she only hoped that she could still find a way to warn her siblings.
Outside, the giant mechanical worm was still making that peculiar sloshing sound. It was making its rounds for stray people, knowing that the carnivorous Shelter was impregnable and kept all its guests behind its membranous hinges.
Behind the door, the clock was ticking. The walls had little human arms that waved to and fro in a motion that was both mesmerizing and annoying. There were no piles of bones on the floor, which was a good sign. The room was not hungry yet. There would be time for that later.
Shirley, after twenty-five years of running, found out that she no longer cared and went to sleep.
______
|
 |
______
|
|
