“Vengeance is Mine!”
cried the Sun
to the Night.
And all the Day long,
he burned with great Spite.

“You wronged,
you defiled me,
you disrespected the plan!”

Cried the Sun
to the Night
as he scorched Man and Land.

Humbly, Night waited,
for Sun to burn out
and as he did,
she crept into his house.

Night blanketed everything;
she enveloped all,
Until the whole World
was under Nightfall.

“Time washes all things back into Black.”

Said Night
to the Sun
who had cast
his last Wrath.

He too now was Humble.
His Vengeance was done.
A small blackened Coal,
no longer the Sun.

Copyright 2012 by Layla Sola

Before the 1960s, when the world was different in a clean, forgetful way, before the rise of consumerism, and mass produced food held together with preservatives, there was a genuine interest in fat people. Fat people were not just members of society, they offered something interesting and different to spectate. So different, that the general public would pay very good money to set sights on a truly remarkable fat person. That’s why so many fat people, the truly lucky and remarkable ones, ended up with the circus. There was the 600 pound man, and the bearded lady, but the most remarkable of fat people were always the strongmen. The general public doesn’t know this, but there was so much money in being fat and strong, that fat people usually married each other, and procreated only with each other. This was strategic, for a big man and large woman could produce an abundantly fleshy child; one who would eat six times what other toddlers did, and could lift two children his own age by the age of three. But interest in strongmen has declined considerably. Whereas in earlier days there was good money to be earned putting on major productions of this sort under one’s own management, nowadays that is quite impossible. Those were different times.

Back then, the strongman captured the attention of everyone, children, their fathers, the mothers, all stood back, mouths agape, their pale white hands fluttering to their hearts, and watched the strongman saunter around the platform. He turned and paced, he squatted and bent, and then with a ferocious grunt like the abrasive sound of a boulder colliding with a lama, lifted the weight bar. Even with the superb impermeableness of an oak tree, he must lift the bar in stages, as in squat, lift, jerk and thrust upward, sending his massive body lurching back for half a second so that the audience gasped with horror from the trepidation of imagining the strongman collapsing on his back under the bar, the weight of both rattling the floorboards like a Tsunami of flesh and iron. Oh what a remarkable performance it was! But things changed so many decades ago.

Yes, people stopped going to the circus, that’s certainly true, but worse than that, people got fat. Not just people, but the nation got fat. They got fat together eating McDonald’s, and Supersized portions, and Monsanto milk. They got fat sitting on their butts, watching Donohue, and Oprah, and The Price is Right. It’s not like the old days, when being fat was an art; when people came to watch the performance of an enormous strongman deadlifting epic amounts of weight. Now only a few people come, not so much adults, but curious children, who must peek into every tent. But the parents do stop and stare, whisper and giggle. Sometimes they even raise their cups of beer in the air and shout, “When’s the baby due?” after they realize the strongman is actually a strongwoman. Indeed, a strongwoman is so much more valuable these days, than a strongman.

Nowadays, the value of large people is so grossly reduced, so vastly underappreciated, that a massive, unshakeable man, is as commonplace as yellow cigarette butts in the well of the street curb. In the age of weightlifting, a strongman is just plain common. A fat woman is common, and so even are strong women who douse their skin in oil and wear bikinis in weightlifting magazines. But, a large, unapologetically fat woman who can also lift 300 pounds, now that is something to see, something somewhat better than nothing.

Beside casual onlookers, there were also relays of permanent spotters, who watched over the strongwoman, and ensured she did not drop the massive 300 lb weight on herself. If she did, she would have to be rescued, and it could take several people to lift her onto a stretcher, so there were always at least three spotters for the strongwoman. When the strongwoman came into the tent, reactions were always the same. Silence- followed by whispers and snickers as she stretched her arms over her wide chest. She was a young woman, from the country where fresh dairy and meat and sweets were a reward for hard work that shaped muscles and calves like rocks for generations. An entire family of strong men and women can yield a great deal on a farm. But the times changed, industry invented machines, and the strongwoman wasn’t really needed on a farm anymore. The strongwoman wanted more, she wanted to be accepted by the world, but without the labor of her body and strength what would she be? What would she be if she were not a big, strong athlete who can kick everyone’s butt if she wishes to? And so she became that, a professional strongwoman, who could grunt and squat and kick everyone’s butt, but she still didn’t feel accepted. She didn’t go out of her trailer much on Saturday nights. Unlike the equestrians and acrobats, no one ever asked her out on dates. They rarely said it, but she sensed all the men were afraid of a woman everyone knew could so easily crush them.

If someone had asked the strongwoman why she had joined the circus; if they asked her why she wanted to be strong, it would take a lifetime to answer, and that was because every time she responded to the question she realized the real reason she wanted to be strong was something she would never tell anyone. She preferred they be intimidated than feel pity for her. She preferred to be appreciated for her talent, for her determination, and strength that pushed her to lift, more and more, than simply be a fat girl. Sometimes, the strongwoman felt she wanted to retire, but she didn’t know what then, if anything she would do.

In the tent, regardless of how many people were in the crowd shouting and whispering, it was just the strongwoman and the platform, alone, in a battle with the weight. The bigger you are, the more you can lift. It’s the golden rule of weightlifting, and every strongman and woman knows that. But the problem with this law of mass, when applied to spectacle of this nature, is that it demands more and more of the artist’s dedication. The strongwoman is compelled to become bigger, and stronger, and constantly more impressive with her weightlifting. The circus manager would say “When can you lift 350, so I can change the sign on the tent? Manachetz Circus has a 350 lb strongwoman. Do you want me to lose money to Manachetz?” But other laws of the universe say that eventually there must be a shrinking point. It’s quite unrealistic, for any person to get bigger and stronger than any other man or woman, and to stay that way. This demands that the strongwoman can never relax. She can never stop eating. She can never stop having stomachaches, or using the toilet three times each day or worse, when she eats too much meat and simply can’t use the toilet for days.

That’s when lifting is the worst; when the strongwoman is low in a deep squat; so low that a rubbery seal of fat balloons over her stability belt. This is not a seal as in a stamp, but quite literally the fin-limbed, slippery, blubber-bodied sea creature. It was as if the strongwoman carried a seal on her stomach, and every time she squat to lift the weight, it was forced back toward her guts. It collided with her intestines, her pancreas, her kidneys, and receded into her colon, that was stuffed with hot dogs, lasagna, coffee and pie. When this happened she was always afraid she would secrete excrement in her shorts from the hiccup of internal force following the thrust of the barbell toward the sky. It happens quite often in fact and it’s highly embarrassing, even for a huge woman with the power to pugilize three men at once. The strongwoman would hate if anyone knew she were anything but ladylike even for an instant. She took pride in her femininity. Her spandex powerlifting shorts were all lovely colors like yellow, lavender and pink . She wore sweet perfume, and lipstick, and she curled her hair, and wore white dresses on Sundays. She was a lady, and she considered it unforgivably rude to pass gas in public. Once she had even fought with a relative for six months because he had passed gas in a car without warning her.

A strongwoman is not a hypocrite, she told herself, and yet, her options were to lose her job; her work, to which she committed every fiber of her body, or secretly pass gas as a substitute for allowing her colon to explode onto her shorts. And that’s why last year she had asked the circus manager to build a wider platform, one that would keep her a considerable distance from the audience, just in case she did soil herself. The circus manager did not want to spend the time or money to build the platform. “It will cost money and reduce the amount of space for the guests to stand in the tent!” he argued, but in the end, the platform was built, and the strongwoman was able to at least release gas without fear that the odor would be detected.

This particular day was very hot and the strongwoman began to itch in her spandex bodysuit from the layers of sweat that had dried between her fat rolls. Aunt Flow was also back in town with a vengeance and like every time she was leaking blood, she had cramps and shapeless, frequent stools. She stood on the platform focusing her mind on the end of spectacle. She wanted the lift over as soon as possible so she could lie down, but the tent leaders kept allowing people in. The strongwoman circled the platform, pumping her arms or jumping occasionally for the crowd as they settled into the corners of the tent. More and more they came, and the circus manager was glad to be packing the tent for a strongwoman which was one of the least attractive spectacles at any circus, for interest in fat people simply was not what it was in the old days, despite the gender reversal.

By the time the circus hands closed the tent curtain and began the music, the strongwoman was clenching her gut to muffle the sounds of distress that spoke to her from inside. “See the incredible and amazing strongman- no strongwoman! That’s right this amazing and incredible strongwoman will lift a three hundred and fifty pound barbell!” shouted the announcer to the crowd who guffawed and chuffed and said “Hmmmf!”

The strongwoman, just wanting it to be over, hurried to the barbell. She bent down and touched her chubby fingertips to the marks she’d etched on the bar to help her find the precise, symmetrical position to lift from. She clasped the bar tightly and lifted it off the ground halfway, arched her back up violently, and then landed in a deep squat. The seal of fat was angry and venomous, crying about the blood and the heat and the seafood gumbo the night before., so the seal bit the strongwoman. It bit her and punched her and just as she was executing the portion of the lift called, Jerk and Thrust, in the brief moment before the barbell passes the chest, when the entire tent is silent with anticipation, the seal slammed into her groin, into her guts, and her womb, and everything she’d been holding erupted from her violently like a volcano. And in the silence of tremendous anticipation, there was a sound that was long and loud and wet and foul. Everyone in the tent heard it, but no one knew what it was for three seconds, until a scent like rotten embryos percolated and a grim silence fell over the crowd. The strongwoman stood with the 350 pounds held stiffly above her head and watched the entire tent empty at once. When the circus manager entered the empty tent, he asked if she had dropped the barbell and why did he hear no applause, no cheers, no gasps of fear or delight? “No I did not drop the barbell,” she said quietly.

She knew it didn’t matter if she had dropped it. She had disgusted an entire town and now that the other circus employees were hearing it from the customers entering the other tents, they were coming to her tent and smelling the odor around the platform, and seeing the huge, wet stain on the back of her yellow spandex shorts. “It’s okay,” consoled the circus manager. “We’re leaving this town tonight. No one will know about it in the next town and don’t worry about the circus hands, most of them smell like shit all the time anyway.” He smiled. The strongwoman looked down at the circus manager in his top hat adorned with a green felt ribbon. She was a foot taller than he, and at least 150 lbs heavier, but he was remarkable to her, as if his powers were compact and hers were omnipresent. But how could a regular man like a great, big strongwoman? A woman so strong she has to eat and eat to support more and more iron. How much is enough when her stomach feels like week old fish and the horse trainer won’t even let her sit on one of the pretty Arabian stallions because he thinks she will injure the horse? The circus manager smiled at her again. “So I’ll see you at dinner?” The strongwoman wrinkled her nose. She really was quite pretty and especially cute when she wrinkled her nose. “Nah, I’m on a diet,” she said, “but come find me after, I’ll be visiting the horses.”

Copyright 2012 by Layla Sola

I’m on holiday with my grandmother and her sister Beverly. They want to see Europe; London, France, Germany. Today we’re in Italy. We just flew into Naples, or as the Neapolitans say, Napoli. The taxi driver takes us away from the quiet inertia of town life and into the city. My grandmother and aunt don’t like the neighborhood, but they are very nice to the hotel concierge.
“Oooh, la, la,” says my grandmother, even though we’re in Italy not France. I hate the hotel. I think it must look like the set of Donatella Versace’s home porno; a giant chandelier in every room, massive, gold post-bed, vanity with mirrors, and a big marble bathroom complete with Jacuzzi. Besides that, the concierge is too friendly and his wife follows you with her eyes everywhere.
Napoli is fast and dirty, it’s filled with hot-shots and hustlers, beggars and thieves. Men saunter errantly through the in the street as if expecting a car to pull over and hand out money. Motor scooters beat cement, cutting off anything that moves on roads and sidewalks. Neapolitans don’t wear helmets and they ride two, three to a scooter, the girls all in their chrome healed stilettos and denim. Men shout to me from the streets, “Brazilliana,” and stare beside tables with goods for sale. They sell everything from watches to electronics. One old man has a small table with a nice digital camera for sale.
“Oooh! A camera!” I say, lingering near the table.
“You have a camera,” says my grandmother.
“Yeah, but you don’t.”
“Sure I do. I got it at Wal-Mart.”
“It’s not a real a camera. It’s not a digital camera. What do you call a tourist with no camera?”
“Bear, we don’t have time for this crap. Come on.” She keeps walking. I turn to the man behind the makeshift table.
“How much?” I ask and smack my gum.
“Come on Bear!” I can hear my grandmother hiss from up ahead.
He looks me up and down suspiciously, holding dearly to his cane although he is seated on a chair large enough to hold him.
“Seventy Euro,” he snarls and I can see the opaque yellow of his teeth and the moisture in the corners of his mouth. His face, fleshy and red, is stubbed with spiky grey hair. I hate looking at his face, and my lip curls away from him instinctually.
“Let’s go!” shouts
Beverly. I run off from the man and the camera thinking that still, seventy Euros is a good deal for that camera.
At dinner, my aunt complains about the service and infantilizes the waiter, who smiles three times at me.
In the morning, we get up early and walk through the markets to the coast. Every fruit, fish, and shellfish is for sale. I smell watermelons and oysters and they have star fruit and starfish, and seahorses that are alive in shallow buckets like little bath toys.
“Come on! We don’t have all day!” my grandmother shouts from the front of the caravan and Beverly looks at me like I wet my pants.
“But they have seahorses!”
“Come now!” shouts Beverly.
Sullenly, I rise and run up ahead. At the coast, I see the real treasure of Napoli, the cerulean blues waves, the medieval fortress of brick with one tiny window facing out to sea. We stand in its morning shadow and wait.
“Who are we waiting for?” I ask and smack my gum. A dark blue motorbike pulls up in front of us. A short, fit, man with thick black hair and bronze skin steps off and smiles.
“Caio, I am Antonio, your tour guide.” I think he looks more Portuguese than Italian.
“Oh, that Antonio, he really is a cute little tour guide, isn’t he?” my grandmother coos as we speed across the Mediterranean.
“Oooh, it’s the famous Isle of Capri,” she gushes when we step off the ferry.
I look up the tiered mountain of thick, green foliage and feel the cool sea breeze lift my hair of my shoulders. Antonio calls everyone on the tour to follow him and we hop into a bus and are couriered to the top of the island. Sub-tropical, lush, candy flowers with petals of every color line the road. Antonio explains that down below in the sea, there are secret caves you can enter on glass bottom boats, but that’s another tour.
The bus lets us out at a flower canopy pavilion with restaurants and meticulously manicured paths lined with flowering shrubs. I close my eyes and take at deep breath of sweet air. We eat lunch under the shade of the fruit trees. In the souvenir shop, my grandmother buys postcards for everyone she works with at the post office in Michigan and Beverly tells her not to waste money on postcards in Capri when they are cheaper in town. I’m tired of their bickering so I wander off to stare at the sea.
“Your mother is a very kind woman. I can see that about her.” Antonio is standing beside me, smiling.
“She’s my grandmother,” I say and face him. “She never lets me have any fun,” I add, smacking my gum faster. His smile remains, soft and subtle as if his thoughts are outpacing the reactions of his face.
“Come.” He extends the crook of his elbow. “Let’s take a walk.”
We stroll the trails along the edge of the cliffs. Down at the bottom, there is large pile of jutted rocks that catch the spray from the sea crashing violently against the barrier.
“Let’s climb down there!” I duck under the slender, wood fence.
Antonio’s eyebrows fold into each other. “Are you sure? It can be dangerous. I don’t want your grandmother to be angry.”
“Aw, come on! Don’t be chicken!”
“Chicken?”
I laugh and skip down the path. The rocks are black and wet the closer I get to the water. I stretch limb by limb across the sharp corners until I reach the flat, welcoming surfaces. It’s scarier than I thought, but I don’t let Antonio know.
“Come on!” I call and scuttle to the bottom. I look out into the sea of aqua blue and imagine myself jumping into the water, swimming to the secret caves where people float on glass bottom boats.
“Take my picture please!” I say when he reaches me. I pass him the camera and teeter on the rock, posing with my hand on my hip and smiling like I own the island.
Click. Click. Click.
“Take another one!” I shout above the crash of the waves. I drape myself over the rock. “I’m a mermaid!” I flip my feet forward with my legs pressed tightly together like a fin. Antonio snaps the shutter.
Click. Click. Click. I roll my hips back and pose with my head propped in my palm.
“Beautiful,” he tells me. “Ok ready now?”
“Just a few more,” I say and jump to my feet. “Come here, I want to get a picture of us both with the sea in the background.”
I reach my arm out and pull him to me with an imaginary rope. He looks back over his shoulder at the road as if my grandmother were standing there.
“Ok,” he relents and shakes the ocean spray from his hair. My grandmother is right, I think, he is cute. He joins me on the rock and we press our bodies together like we’ve known each other for years.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
I’m snapping away like a fool, thinking about the story I will tell my friends back home, when a wide, white wave breaks against the rocks and over our heads. Suddenly, my feet are swimming and chaos of the sea is swirling around me. It’s a warm day, but the water is freezing. I kick frantically, blinded in all directions by seawater. My arm and shoulder scrape roughly against a rock, but when I reach for it, the water pulls me back from shore. My head is jammed down again by a second wave. There is water in my mouth, nose, ears, eyes, lungs. It’s probably in my brain, which is why I can’t think of what to do. I just feel terror exploding in my chest. The wave recedes and I’m pulled away from the rocks again. I try to take advantage of the decompression and swim for the surface, but something is tugging my collar in the other direction. My heart drops in panic, then my head is thrust above the water. Antonio is there with his fist gripping my shirt.
“Are you ok?” he shouts. I spit up water and salt and a few seahorses. “I told you it was dangerous! Hold my belt.” He puts my hand on his waist. “Don’t let go!” he orders and swims toward the rocks.
When we’re back on land, Antonio hugs me for a long time. “Oh we’re soaked! What am I gonna tell my grandmother?” I moan.
Antonio’s soft smile is inches from mine. “Tell her the truth.”
Now I push my eyebrows together. “The truth?”
“That you are crazy.”
“Too late. She knows.” Antonio smoothes the hair off my face and presses his lips to mine. My heart dips faster than when the wave had me.
“Come on, let’s go crazy girl,” he says and leads me to the road.
When we get back the pavilion my grandmother and Beverly are seated in the shade.
“There you both are! Antonio, I was beginning to think you ran off with my teenager!” my grandmother says and stirs the ice in her coke with a pink straw. “Where were you? Why are you both wet?”
I try not to mumble, “Well, it’s the funniest thing… I dropped my camera and it slid down the rock, so we went to fetch it.
“Oh my God!” cries my grandmother.
“But then, a giant wave came and pummeled us.”
“Oh my God!” she cries again. “It’s a wonder you didn’t get swept out to sea!”
“I almost did, but Antonio saved me.” I smile at Antonio. He smiles back and I remember our kiss.
“Uh huh,” says Beverly. “Where’s your camera?”
“Oh no! My camera!” I cry, suddenly realizing I’d lost it to the waves of the Mediterranean. My grandmother and aunt shake their heads.
“Really stupid, Bear,” my grandmother says.
Antonio gives me his email and tells me maybe someday he’ll visit me in America. The next day, we pack our things and head to the train station. I tug my bag along sullenly wishing I had the pictures of Antonio.
“Digital camera. Digital camera. Brand new digital camera,” says the dirty old man with the yellow teeth.
“Grandma! Let’s buy this camera! It’s even better than my old one and it’s only seventy Euros!”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough trouble with cameras for one week?”
“No! That has nothing to do with it! I need a camera! And it’s a good deal!”
“I don’t have seventy Euros,” she answers curtly.
My eyes shift to Beverly.
“I wouldn’t give it to you if I did have it,” she says before I speak. I sigh and pout as we pass the camera and while we are waiting in the station.
“You know what? I’m going to go buy that camera,” I announce.
“Bear no!” cries my grandmother.
“You haven’t got the money,” says Beverly.
“I have eighty-three Euros!”
Beverly rolls her eyes. “We don’t have time!” snaps my grandmother.
“Sure we do! I’ll be right back.”
I run out of the station before she can protest. When I reach the old man, I am happy no one has purchased the camera. It really is a good deal.
“Oh, you’re back,” he says.
“Let me see it.”
He looks me over distastefully and passes me the camera. I push all the buttons. I snap pictures of myself, and inspect the lens. “How much?”
“I tell you already.”
“Seventy euro?”
“Eighty,” he says without looking up from his sandwich.
“No! You said seventy!”
He throws his sandwich on the table and peers at me. “Cash only! You have cash?”
“Yes!” I flash a stack of paper money. His lips curl in reluctance as he closes the camera in the box. “Hurry up!” I tell him, worried that my train will leave without me. He shoos my concerns with his hands and reaches under the table for a plastic bag.
“Come on!” I urge again and glance back at the train station.
He gives me another hateful look and thrusts the bag at me. I take the bag and run fast; my American high school, track-star legs scissoring open and closed for the rugged streets of Napoli. I can feel the weight of my new camera beating the inside of the box as I run. Breathless, I throw myself into the seat beside Beverly grinning.
“Got it!” I sing. I greedily untie the bag and open the box to a clean, clear bottle of water. My mouth gapes and I stare at the water bottle in disbelief.
“You know what they call a tourist with no camera don’t cha?” Beverly says.
“Seventy Euros poorer?” answers my grandmother and they laugh halfway to Rome.

Copyright 2012 by Layla Merritt

By Brianna Moore
The Michigan Citizen
www.michigancitizen.com

Layla Merritt, an artist, writer and native Detroiter, is in the process of making a short film entitled “Black From Islam: African American Women Muslim Defectors.” Layla currently resides in New York City, however, her film caught local attention because one of the characters grew up in Detroit and is representative of the African American Islamic community that exists in the city.

The film focuses on African American Muslims and the beginnings of Islam in the African American community. It also touches on the oppression of women in Islam. “Black from Islam” is yet to be given a release date, but a veiwing of the film is soon to be expected here in Detroit.

Merritt, who obtained a BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is now two semesters from receiving her MFA in fiction writing. She has written at least two other films, is a resident live painter at Diva lounge in Soho, and is the founder of LJ Sola — a brand and company that houses both written intellectual property and commercial and fine art. Layla has traveled around the world and her art has been featured in Promethean Literary Review, in conjunction with the Spike Lee project and in various venues throughout New York City. The daughter of motorcycle artist Jane Merritt, Layla has recently won the first Mobrit Fine Art Award for her painting “Orange Moon in the Milky Way.” She has never been formally trained.

Layla’s inspiration for creating her upcoming film was pure interest.

“I was fascinated by the idea that African Americans who were the descendants of slaves [and] allowed nothing but the slavery-bonded dogma of Christianity, were converting to fundamental Islam and raising their kids culturally un-American, in the middle of American cities,” Layla said. “At 18, this thought blew my mind, and it became, then, a story I planned to uncover.”

Though she began filming in spring 2010, she had the concept for the film for several years and hopes it will interest and inform people.

“[I hope it will] have some influence on ending oppression against girls … Worldwide, girls are kept out of school, forced into sexual servitude, are made slaves to their husbands, etc.,” says Layla.

An interesting fact about Merritt is that she shares the same birthday with human rights activist Malcolm X, whom she also considers to be her hero.

“I respect the changes [Malcolm] went through — his passion, his intellect and his ability to transform,” she said.

Layla still has friends and family ties to the city. “I am tied to the city herself, even if I’ve left. If I can make it enough to give back in life, I will certainly save some for Detroit, my town,” she says.

Some of Merritt’s biggest challenges as an artist have been paying bills and still having energy and creativity to get the product ­— which is the talent — competitive with the world, she says. She encourages other artists and youth in Detroit to nurture their talent and go for what they truly want, not what someone else is or wants [them] to be.

“Create a five-year plan,” she urges. “Don’t be afraid. If someone doesn’t support your work, just be nice and keep moving. Eventually, you will meet people who will be supportive.” Layla says she lives by the motto, “I am my own hero,” and encourages others to do the same.

http://michigancitizen.com/black-from-islam-a-womans-perspective-p9997-73.htm

The Aardvark

It was Friday and the pale, morning light leaked between the cracks in the drapes. White light filled the corner of Jude’s eye and his groin flushed with red blood rushing nowhere inside him. Jude tasted a moist and mild pungency in the room and his nose hairs stood on end. That’s a sign that God is about to tell you something, his mother would say. His penis was hard. Use it or lose it, his father would say. Jude reached across the sheet for his girlfriend, Virginia. She was buried beneath a heap of heavy down, and Jude recalled the weight of her curves against him as he peeled back the comforter. Yet, rather than the honey smooth, viola-shaped crescent of her back, what he saw was round, wide and sparsely hirsute. Red soldiers marching into his penis retreated and raced for his brain in panic. It was as if his groin had imploded. Jude leapt from the bed in fright, tripped over a stool and skid on the floor with a thud.

“Jude?”

The voice sounded like Virginia’s. Yet, deeper, as if projected from a barrel rather than the narrow passage of a throat.

“Jude?”

Maybe she’ll go away. His breath a stagnant bubble inside his chest, Jude waited, listening for her movements. He could see under his bed, nothing but a suitcase and a thong. Contracted into a tiny ball of fabric, it looked more like one of the ties Virginia used to pull back her hair than the sharp V of red that was drawn across her hip bones last night. This is stupid, he thought, pushing himself onto his feet.

“What were you doing down there?” a short, congested snort tailed the question, and when Jude looked he gasped in horror, for it wasn’t Virginia sitting naked on the bed, but an aardvark.

The aardvark had a long shovel snout and tubular ears that perked up like bats on its elongated head. The neck was short and connected to a massive body with a strongly arched back and there were long, sharp claws attached to short, square limbs that were longer in the back than the front. The skin, a jaundice yellow-gray shade, was thick and fatty like a pig’s.

Oversized and awkward, it inclined toward him, the large, black eyes blinking slowly with concern.

Jude darted into the bathroom. He locked the door. He paced. He looked at his face in the mirror until he heard the aardvark climb out of his bed and waddle toward the bathroom. Jude held the air in his chest and listened to the incongruous sounds outside the door; a series of hollow clacks and heavy steps, the faint scratching of nails on wood, and the slothful sound of something long and weighty being dragged across the floor.

“Jude honey, is everything all right?” The voice was wrapped in willingness and concern, but the congested animal breathing terrified him.

“I don’t feel well.” He cleared his throat for her to hear. “I’ll work from home today. Go ahead, I’ll talk to you later.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone if you’re sick.”

“I’ll be fine, just go to work.”

“Okay, but I need to take a shower. Come out of the bathroom,” it snorted again. Jude was rigid, frozen, his toes gripping the cool linoleum titles. He scanned the four, barren walls for an escape. There was a ventilation shaft in the alcove of the shower. He tugged at the security bars, but he was trapped.

“Okay, first bring me an aspirin and water from the kitchen.”

He listened to the fading cadence of two sets of limbs drumming into the distance. He unlocked the door and peeked out just in time to see a long, cone-shaped tail disappear around the refrigerator. Jude sprinted across the hall to his office and locked himself inside.

“Girlfriend’s a pig. Girlfriend’s a pig. Girlfriend’s a pig. Girlfriend’s a pig. Girlfriend’s a pig. Girlfriend’s a pig. Girlfriend’s a pig.” His skin crawled as the clumsy waddle drew nearer.

“Jude?” the doorknob jiggled. “I have your aspirin.”

“I’m on the phone with my boss. This may take awhile. Go to work babe. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

He waited for the shower to stop running and the familiar click of the latch locking on the apartment door before he crept out of the study. The apartment was quiet and tidy, but for a lingering animal scent, a faint feral mélange of flesh, urine, dirt and sweat. The water and aspirin on the dining room table with a note.

I hope you feel better soon sweetheart. Get some rest, and don’t work too hard. I’ll call and check on you later. xoxo V

Jude inspected the note. He recognized the elegant, cursive letters and slanted, vertical V that was Virginia’s signature on every letter she had ever given him. Jude promptly bolted the door, affixed the copper chain in place, and checked all the windows. He sat on the sofa in his underwear eating cold cuts and watching yesterday’s market highlights. Another regional bank had been seized, and Jude thought of underwriting bank stock, betting on their failure. His phone began to ring. It was Virginia. Pig! He thought violently, and all the images he knew of her soft smile, her dewy eyes, her fleshy curves mixed with what he had seen that morning. He shuddered and turned up the volume on the television.

In her message, Virginia said that she hoped he was feeling well, well enough to attend the gala she organized at the Museum. She reminded him that he was on the list and he would likely find her in the gallery. And also that if he could not make it, she would find time to call him.

She’s very nurturing, Jude thought and gazed at the art above his TV: A large, framed Dali print entitled, Reflections of Elephants. The painting had a secret. It depicted three majestic white swans on a black sea at the center of a desolate landscape. The swans’ necks were elongated and contorted. Their whiteness against the black pool was sublime. Yet, in the swans’ reflection, three Elephants, fierce, angry, and completely unexpected charged at the viewer.

‘If it were a snake it’d have bit you,’ his mother would have said. He couldn’t remember how long it took him to see the elephants the first time. The painting was a gift from Virginia. She was the assistant curator of the Surrealism gallery at the Museum of Modern Art. He remembered that he was upset that day and wanted to be alone. Virginia had showed up unexpectedly. She had the painting wrapped in brown paper and she obliged him to carry it up the stairs when the elevator was out. When Jude saw the painting he loved it, but it wasn’t until Virginia asked him what he saw that he began to search for a double meaning.

“I don’t see it.” He finally admitted. Her head was propped up on her fist and her long legs dangled over the side of the couch. She smiled like the Mona Lisa.

“Look in the water,” she whispered. And then the elephants raised their trunks and charged in furry out of the water. He had completely failed to see the Elephants, his vision eclipsed by the beauty of the illustrious swans.

Virginia had also outsmarted him, which he respected. She seemed to thrive off her wits and Jude thought that if he let down the baiting and the banter- even a day, she would become bored of him. Now she had outsmarted him and given him a gift unlike any other in one day.

They hung the painting over the TV and from then on, Jude wanted Virginia with him. She was a natural beauty and he found himself calling in sick to work just to stay home with her. Why she had appeared like a big, crazy-looking aardvark in his bed that morning was disturbing. Tonight, he would be at the Museum drinking champagne and talking Dali with some of the most influential people in New York. One conversation could bring him the investment he needed to work for himself. Jude decided to take the day off and get some real rest. He had a party to go to.

2

“Keep the change,” Jude told the taxi driver as he stepped onto 53rd Street dressed in a triple black suit and NYU cufflinks. He joined the line forming under the giant banner reading, Special Exhibit: Salvador Dali and the Paranoiac-Critical. His company was city politicians, wealthy art patrons, and Manhattan socialites wrapped in designer fabrics with plunging necklines. Virginia had done well to get this job.

“Name sir?” even the man with the list wore a tux.

“Jude Walter Burch.”

He was ushered into the main reception room where champagne and hors d’oeurves were being passed to guests on silver trays by tuxedo clad waiters. He sampled the duck pate and ordered a Johnny Walker Blue on the rocks. Jude leaned on the bar, listening to the robust hum of powerful conversation fill the capacious hollow of the geometric glass ceiling.

“Nice cufflinks.” She was a tall, slim brunette with a wide mouth. He thought her hips too small, but she had a full bust, and it was spilling out of her strapless red dress. She wore a thin necklace with her name spelled out in gold letters.

“Thank you, Tinsley,” he said, smooth as the scotch in his hand.

“It’s nice when a man understands alma loyalty.”

“Gotta show love.”

She opened her mouth wide. He could see the plates in her esophagus when she laughed.

“What are you drinking?”

“I’ll have what you’re having.”

“Johnny Walker Blue?” Are you sure?

“Why not? It’s good right? You drink it?”

“Well,” Jude looked into the glass and laughed at himself.

“I drink it because my initials are JWB, Jude Walter Burch.”

“Really? You’re named after alcohol?”

“Well you know, mummy and daddy figured that since I was conceived while they were drunk and born drunk, it was only fair.” Tinsley laughed and he laughed with her.

“Bartender, JWB on the rocks please.” Jude dropped a few bills in the jar.

“Wait, you’re Jude…”

“Walter Burch,” he finished and passed her the scotch. “Try it,” he ordered her. Tinsley fit her mouth over the lip of the glass.

“Not bad,” she agreed after. “You are Jude- Did Virginia invite you?”

“Uh, yes,” he said, wondering who Tinsley was and hoping she would not re-interpret his actions with suspicion to Virginia.

“I thought so. I work with Virginia, in the Surrealism gallery. It’s so funny,” she giggled “I never would have guessed she was your girlfriend if you hadn’t said your name.”

“What do yo-,”

Jude was interrupted by a tuxedo clad waiter.

“Miss, there may be a problem with the venison, please come.”

“Ugh! I can’t believe this! Just make the party work!” She turned to Jude. “I have to run. Enjoy the exhibit! We can catch up later.”

She departed with a wink and Jude wondered what she meant by she ‘wouldn’t have guessed Virginia was his girlfriend.’

The exhibition gallery was lit in soft, yellow hues, making the room feel inviting. Elaborate, bronze frames lined the walls. Jude studied the clocks soft as wet pancakes, the lush red rose, the centaurs, the butterflies, the caravans of crooked, stilt-legged elephants marching across a sparse horizon of blues, browns and creams. Each image was a fantasy and perhaps a nightmare. It rendered a submersion in the subconscious, the surreal, and the cadence of time ticking noiselessly into eternity. Jude moved through the exhibit, searching each painting for its shadow painting. This time he would be ready for Virginia.

Joachim Delsalvado, the museum curator, appeared beside him at Slave Market with the Apparition of the Invisible Bust of Voltaire, in which reverent nuns sanctified the destitute in the skeletal visage of the French atheist philosopher.

“Senor Delsalvado.” Jude extended his hand to the Spaniard, his thick, wavy hair was piled into a loose bun and secured with chopsticks. He had a masculine jaw and neck, with feminine features like a finely drawn lips and a thin nose. His face was clean, but for a strip of black tapered into a V on his chin.

“Jude, the boyfriend of Virginia, welcome.” The words rolled together like streaks of honey on a plate. The Mediterranean drawl, Virginia would have said.

“How do you like our little show?” Joachim pressed, stepping closer to Jude while keeping his real attention on activity across the room.

“It’s incredible! I’ve always been a huge fan of Dali, so it’s great to see so many pieces in one collection.” Joachim smiled and stroked the hair on his chin.

“Indeed, it is an honor. We were very fortunate to obtain such a concise collection of the paranoiac method, and I could not have done it so nicely, without Virginia,” he purred.

“She loves her work,” said Jude on cue.

“Yes, have you found her? She is there, near Reflections of Elephants.” He nodded toward the far end of the gallery.

“Thank you,” Jude said, but Joachim was already gone. He was greeting the Mayor and his daughter.

Jude spotted the elephants painting and meandered toward the coterie of black suits and bejeweled ladies gazing and gesturing toward the dark canvas. He heard Virginia’s familiar voice and as he broke through the barrier of warm bodies smelling of Chanel and Yves St. Laurent, he felt his legs wobble and give into near collapse, when he descried the aardvark center to the crowd. A man caught Jude by the arm and helped steady him.

“Are you all right kid?”

Jude’s cheeks flushed scarlet and every face turned to observe the commotion, including the aardvark, who rushed to his side.

“Jude! Are you okay?” She nudged him with her snout. The coarse, wiry hairs tickled his cheek and Jude felt the duck pate rise in his throat and his legs begin to quiver again. “I think I need to sit down,” he said and feebly stumbled to an ottoman in the center of the gallery.

Jude leered at Virginia as he loosened the collar on his shirt. Just yesterday, he had possessed a beautiful, articulate woman; a swan among geese. But now he was confronted by a massive, repellent creature with a slithering protractile tongue and black, cavernous nostrils that flared widely with each heated breath. He looked away in disgust, sweat raining on his face, as a tiny, brown gentleman approached and announced that he was a doctor.

“What happened?” The doctor squat on the floor and gazed into Jude’s pink face.

“He collapsed just now! But even this morning he was acting strangely,” she said.

“He was acting strangely?”

“He said he didn’t feel well….he didn’t go to work. He ran away from me.”

The doctor felt Jude’s forehead, neck and wrists as Jude sat limply on the ottoman, his eyes pushing back in his head.

“Please bring some water and a towel or napkins,” the doctor ordered and Virginia lumbered away. “Young man, tell me, how do you feel?” He dabbed Jude’s head with a handkerchief.

“Doctor, do you see it? Do you she her?” desperation clung to his voice.

“See what? Who should I see?”

“Virginia! Don’t leave me with her!” Jude rolled back on the ottoman, faint with fatigue.

“Here’s the water doctor, and the napkins,” said Virginia. The doctor took the glass of water, his eyes locking with hers a moment. He held the cup to Jude’s lips as he drank.

“Just a few more sips,” coaxed the doctor until the glass was empty and Jude lay back, the perspiration beginning to dry on his face.

“Take him home. Give him a couple ibuprofen and put him to bed….and let him sleep alone tonight,” the doctor added.

“What’s wrong with him doctor?”

“Not sure. Either way, schedule him an appointment with a physician immediately.”

“Thank you for your help doctor.”

The doctor helped Jude to his feet, but when Virginia touched him, he reeled back and shouted:

“Get off! Don’t fucking touch me!”

The motor humming behind the conversation stalled, and every eye was parked on Jude. He pushed himself past Virginia, and the doctor and all the disapproving faces, even past Tinsley who winked at him while the plates of her esophagus expanded and contracted like the rings of a slinky.

3

The taxi plowed between the rows of regal, turn-of-the-century apartment buildings lining West End Avenue. Jude let the evening air cool his cheek and gazed out the window so that he needn’t look at the aardvark. He couldn’t look. When the car stopped, Jude fell out into the night air like a drunk. The smell of salt flavored the air, the sapid overflow of the Atlantic into the Hudson. Frank, the evening doorman was not at his post, and Jude felt a sobering acceptance of isolation; he was all alone- with the Aardvark. Inside, she took to arranging his bed, his tea and medicine, while Jude sank into the sofa, deadpan and reticent.

“Your bed is ready,” her tone was dense as the metal burner lit under the tea kettle. “The doctor said you should sleep.”

Jude gazed at the elephants poster. It had always seemed to him, that the white swans were elegant, regal, sublime, and that the elephants were dark, and atrocious in their beastliness. But now, he saw the swans differently, their elongated necks no longer appeared delicate and refined, but twisted and grotesque. Now it was the elephants who appeared majestic, as if their murky existence beneath the water’s surface had merely been to dissemble their power over the attenuated swans.

Jude went to his bedroom. Several minutes later, she placed a cup of hot tea and the aspirin on the nightstand beside him. The orange scent of the tea mixed with her earthy, mammalian odor and he thought she smelled more tolerable than she had smelled all night. Suddenly the party came back to him, and he realized that he had violently cursed at a woman in front of the mayor of New York.

“I’m sorry!”

She turned under the doorway. Her snout sagged into a frown. And her eyes, huge and black with deep corners and long lashes like Virginia, were heavy and wet.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“Why would you do that? Why would you humiliate me in front of my boss and all our patrons? I could get fired!”

“You won’t. I’ll explain to Joachim,” he told her calmly.

“Explain it to me!” she shouted.

“We had a fight, just a fight. It won’t happen again.”

“A fight? We’ve never even had a fight. Is this how all our fights will be?” She turned her back and peered at him over her shoulder. Virginia’s pouting had once been so adorable. Now it irritated him. Jude sighed.

”It won’t happen again. I’m just not well. You saw I almost passed out.”

“And you were sweating so much!” she agreed.

“My vision is a little messed up too.”

He reached for her, the distance of his arm span a conciliatory bridge for her to cross.

”Ginny, lay with me please.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to leave upset.”

“Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t feel right if you left upset.”

“You’re asking me to do you favors now?”

Jude’s lips burned into a hard line under the heated gaze of eyes black like dry fire. Virginia was so stubborn. She would make everything worse if she could.

“I don’t want to leave upset! Now come over here! I’ll give you a massage.”

The rim of her snout turned up as she rounded the corner of the bed and climbed up. She backed her hips up to his groin and he curled against her back. She was soft and warm. He could feel the slow beating of her heart deep within the inflated buoyancy of her belly, which was turgid and round like a buoy he could cling to. His palms slid over the breasts, which were fleshy and ripe with long, pink nipples that were tender and firm like grapes. An improvement, since Virginia’s seemed to droop no matter how hard he bit them.

“A titty massage isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” she said, the words quaking over the garrulous rattle of fluids in her chest.

He moved his fingers o the soft flesh on her neck and gently pressed.

“Everything will be ok babe,” he whispered and turned off the lamp.

4

Jude walked to work in the morning admiring the organized fervor of the Financial District. He reveled in the nostalgia of Wall Street and the principles it stood for as he walked the same narrow passages millionaires and billionaires had strode for centuries. In Jude’s mind, the mere symbolic acquaintance made him closer to being one of them.

“Thirty-second floor thanks,” Jude requested when he squeezed into the elevator at Eighteen John Street. It smelled of dandruff shampoo and European cologne in all different flavors in heavy AM doses. Traders. Not a skirt in sight. He glanced at the paper again. A small regional bank was having difficulty re-mortgaging its debts and was being liquidated. The doors opened, and Clare, the receptionist, was standing on a chair, watering a plant in the lobby. The boss Serge’s wife had insisted on real plants rather than fake ones. She said plants increase oxygen in the air you breathe, leading to greater performance. Serge believed her, and a plant was placed at every trading station. For some reason, Jude had a cactus.

“Return of the Judei!” Andy was in Jude’s chair reading his Economist. Andy was a mid-level trader who had made some bad investments of late.

“How was your weekend bro?” Andy gave up the chair, but took the magazine with him.

“Ugh, you don’t want to know.”

“Uh ok.” Andy sat on the edge of the desk beside the cactus. “You know that FrontierTram deal?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Jude settled at his station with is coffee.

“It folded Friday. I took an 80K hit.”

“Oooh shit. I’m sorry bro.”

“Yeah thanks.”

They hung their heads in a moment of silence for the departed funds.

“It’s a rough market out there,” consoled Jude. Andy agreed.

Maybe there’s a shark in the water, his mother would say. The shark is you, his father would say.

“Well today, I’m shorting bank stock and if I’m up at noon, I quit!” Jude declared.

5

“Another margarita please!” It was 4pm on Friday and Jude was getting hammered. Virginia had become unbearable. There were so many things he’d never noticed about her like how hairy she was or how big her stomach was. Her love, once intoxicating as and delicious as a flute of French champagne, had become an acidic cocktail of attachment and complaisance. She always needed him, he could never give her enough, and yet, she doted upon him, waited for his instructions, looked to him for guidance. There were times when she failed to do simple things for herself, like getting a manicure or repairing her computer, but there she was, greeting him at the end of each day with an offering; her time, her cooking, her body. He wondered if her love for him was stronger than it was for herself. When she slept, she fought ghosts and demons in nightmares that she couldn’t recall. She laughed blithely when he told her of her restlessness, but her slumber was so disturbed that he feared for her, wondering what malignant turmoil raged in her subconscious. Her body jerked, her limbs flailed, her unconscious mania forcing her suddenly upright in bed like a stiff board. He often held her just to settle her fits. She slept peacefully when their forms were bonded together, his arms shielding her in a protective embrace. She was like a disabled child; genuine and innocent, yet burdensome. He wanted her to be happy, but he had begun to feel that she relied on him for her happiness. He had to break up with the aardvark.

Jude’s iPhone snapped him out of his reverie.

“Where are you?” It was Virginia.

“At Seville having a margarita. Come up here,” he told her.

Several minutes later, Virginia, the aardvark, arrived at the restaurant. Jude reddened with embarrassment as she struggled to squeeze into the space beside him. He ordered two more margaritas and prepared his speech in his head. But when he finally had the words on his lips ready to walk across the table to her, he saw her black eyes leaking water all over her cheeks and snout.

“What!? What is it?” Jude hated crying women. He had seen his mother cry enough for all the women on earth.

“I got fired!” she cried and the sobs came hard. Jude slid across the bench to where and threw his arms around her broad shoulders. He pushed her face into his chest to muffle her weeping.

“Shhh. Shhhh. Tell me what happened,” he said, even though his screams were echoing off museum marble and he knew what had happened.

“Joachim wasn’t in his office when we usually have our meeting. Instead Tinsley Shepard showed up.”

“Tinsley?”

He remembered the slim brunette from the party laughing as he rushed out after the incident.

“Yes, Tinsley, whom I hate, asked to see me in the admin office and told me they decided to let me go. I called Joachim but he wouldn’t even answer his phone!” she shrieked.

“Shhhh. Don’t worry babe. Everything will work out I promise.”

Jude brushed his fingers against the thick rolls of fat on her neck. Virginia forced a smile, revealing sparse, stained, columnar teeth that reminded him of rotting wood. She wiped her tears and finished her Margarita.

“I’m gonna go to Central Park. I wanna take a walk,” she said.

“Okay. Do you need me to come with you?”

She smiled, like the Mona Lisa, but her black eyes, so big and wet, and inviting, made her smile look desperate and pathetic.

“No, I have to clear my head,” she told him.

“I’ll check up on you later,” he said before she left.

”Waiter! Margarita please.”

He needed more tequila and lime to help forget the day’s losses, and Virginia’s crying. Jude sauntered toward the Men’s Room. Jude rationalized as he stood at the urinal. There must be plenty of reasons why she got fired. What I did probably had very little to do with it. Suddenly, he realized a woman with hair so thick and fluffy it nearly hid her face was slowly entering the restroom.

“Uh Miss I think you got-“

“Oh!” she exclaimed, heat pressing into her cheeks until they were the color of her lip gloss. She turned her back and went outside. Jude zipped his trousers and dipped his hands under the faucet. When he exited the bathroom, the woman was still there. She smiled, revealing a row of square, white teeth.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she gushed. “The line for the ladies room is a mile long and I have to go so badly!” She hopped from side to side in her red pumps. Her skirt was tiny and her hair was so thick and long he couldn’t tell if she was wearing a shirt.

“Well the lock is broken, but if you want to go, I’ll stand here and man the door for you so you won’t be disturbed,” he offered.

“Would you? You’re amazing! I’ll just be a sec!” She said, but it was awhile before she returned.

“Thank you so much. You saved me from an embarrassing accident!” she said.

“No worries.”

A small smile was drawn on her face as she twisted a lock of hair in her long, white fingers.

“Well at least let me buy you a drink for your chivalry,” she said, and traced her tongue over the plump, rose lips.

“I won’t let you buy me a drink, but I’d be happy to have a drink with you. What’s your name?”

“Olivia Jones,” she pushed a clump of hair from in front of her eyes and extended her hand.

“I’m Jude, Jude Walter Burch.”

6

Jude slowed the small sedan to a stop on a brownstone-lined street and pressed his palm against the horn. After several minutes, Virginia lumbered out, her large posterior awkwardly following her short front limbs down the porch steps. He shook his head as he watched her laborious descent. She has so much to learn. Virginia entered the car and kissed Jude on the mouth, her tongue spreading a sheath of sticky saliva over his lips.

“I’m so excited!” she squealed as he wiped her fluids from his mouth. “A trip to the wilderness is all I really wanted before the end of summer. Thank you.” Her black eyes twinkled.

“I’m glad I can make you happy babe,” Jude replied with a tight, acidic smile.

“Where are you taking us?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said as the car crossed the Bridge.

It felt good to be out of the city with fresh mountain air blowing over his face. Jude listened to the radio and enjoyed the freedom of the open road. After a few hours, they arrived at a small cabin beside a quiet lake. Virginia inspected the property, circling the cabin several times, digging holes with her claws and burrowing herself in the dirt.

“It feels so good to get out of the city!” she declared when she returned to find him sitting at a picnic table beside the water.

“It seems like you’re at home,” he said, his eyes skipping over clumps of dirt spotting her tubby body.

“Yes, I always feel comfortable in nature, as if it’s where I belong.”

“Indeed,” Jude smirked.

“Do you know how to swim?” Virginia asked, looking at the rowboat docked at the shore.

“Yes, but not very well, besides, I think it’s too cold today for swimming.”

“Perhaps,” she said coyly, “but we can go for a ride in the boat.”

“In that thing? There’s no motor on that boat!”

“Of course not silly! It’s a rowboat!”

“Here we go,” Jude grumbled. He didn’t want to row a boat. He didn’t even want to be at the park, but Virginia had pleaded relentlessly for a camping excursion until Jude agreed to a short trip upstate over Labor Day.

They climbed into the boat and Jude began to row. He found the oars difficult to maneuver, and the boat turned from side to side on the calm lake water without gliding away from the shore. Virginia snickered at his clumsy attempts to manage the rowboat. Jude leered at her, annoyed by her jubilance.

“My little prep-school boy. Let me try.”

\She managed the boat with ease, locking her claws into the wooden oars and pushing them through the water each time her meaty frame leaned back against the stern. Soon they were all alone in the serene tranquility of the crystal-blue water.

“Do you want me to take over?” he offered after some time had elapsed.

“No, I like it. Besides, this doesn’t seem like the kind of task for a prep-school boy.”

“Prep-school boys know how to do this kind of stuff. I’m a city boy,” he corrected.

“Okay then, my little city boy.”

Later in the afternoon, the sun became intense. Jude pulled in the oars into the boat and they lay floating peacefully in the shade of a small alcove of trees reaching over the water’s edge. When daylight began to fade, Virginia steered the boat toward the dock.

“Anchor the boat,” she told him as the shore drew nearer.

“What?” Jude stood up.

“Take that thing lying in the bottom of the boat and toss it in the water near the dock!”

The anchor was dark green like the lake algae. Jude picked it off the deck. It was heavy, but Jude stood with it, watching Virginia below him. Is killing animals a crime?

“Throw it in the water! What are you waiting for?”

Jude lifted the anchor high.

He let it fall.

Splash.

After the boat was secure, it was time to eat. Virginia had packed homemade lasagna, but she barely ate, choosing instead to circle the trees with her snout in the dirt. Jude went inside so that he wouldn’t have to watch. When she was done, she joined him in the cabin, curling herself into the fetal position on the bed beside him, and resting her head on his chest.

“Are you happy?”

Her voice was so delicate for an aardvark, he thought, and very submissive. Jude counted the rings in the wood of the rustic cabin ceiling.

“Yes,” he replied finally.

She didn’t speak.

“Why do you ask?”

“Mmmm it’s okay to check once in awhile right?”

“I’m just trying to pinpoint your insecurity,” said Jude.

Virginia’s body stiffened. She buried her face in the nook of his chest. His arms guided her onto her hind legs until her wide, round bottom was on top of his lap. Her breathing quickened. He slid his palm over her throat, entering her behind, where he couldn’t see her face tighten and contort as he slowly wedged himself inside her.

7

Jude stumbled into his apartment in the pre-dawn hours, drunk from scotch and champagne.

“Oh my God! Tonight was so fun! You and your friends sure know how to have a good time!” declared Olivia, her arm draped over Jude’s shoulder as her ankles teetered in her red pumps.

“Absolutely babe. I’m all about good times!” Jude agreed.

There was a bottle champagne in the refrigerator and he uncorked it with a loud pop. It spilled over the rim and Olivia squealed as Jude pressed the tip to her lips, letting the bubbly liquid spill down her chin. He licked the champagne off her lips. They tasted like Jolly Ranchers. She giggled and her laughter took to the air like a flock of birds all clapping their wings at once.

“What’s that?” She pointed at the elephants on the wall.

“It’s a copy of a painting by Salvador Dali. It’s called Reflections of Elephants,”

“Oooh. Are you an art critic?” Olivia cooed.

“No, but I know a few things,” he answered, trying not to sound pretentious.

“Okay, tell me about this painting then Senor Artsy.”

“Well, this is Dali’s paranoiac-critical method, in which subconscious paranoia is triggered with the shadow image of elephants in the reflection of the conventionally aesthetic swans.”

“Oh my God! I didn’t even see the elephants!”

“That’s because you, dear, are a beautiful swan, and could never reflect beastliness,” he said closing in on her. She stumbled, and began to wedge her foot out of her pump.

“Leave those on,” Jude whispered and pushed Olivia’s face against the wall then descended to his knees.

8

Thereafter, Jude separated himself completely from Virginia and soon after, the aardvark retreated permanently from his mind. Jude awoke and stretched his limbs, yawning off the remnants of the previous evening. He and his girlfriend had celebrated her birthday downtown. Jude stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom to freshen up. He could hear the sound of the television in the living room as he dressed. Olivia must be watching her Saturday morning cartoons. Jude slipped on his sneakers and grabbed his keys.

“Olivia? Olivia I’m going downstairs to grab coffee. You want the usual?” Jude stepped into the sunlit living room, where Bugs Bunny danced across the TV screen in a hat top and cane, but Olivia was not stretched across the sofa as he had expected. She wasn’t in the kitchen.

Olivia’s buoyant, aerial laughter skipped in the air above his head. Jude’s eyes ascended to a large, four limbed creature with shaggy brown and white fur, thick as a sheep dog’s, pressed against the wall and moving toward the ceiling very slowly. It had three, long ivory claws on each foot, and a small brown face, with deep set eyes, a small, round nose, and appeared to wear a perpetual smile. Jude backed away from the creature, his mouth agape.

“Yup, strawberry yogurt,” it said, taking another slow inch up the wall.

Jude ran. He dashed out of the building, crashing head-on into the bread baker at the Patisserie downstairs. The baker cursed him in French, but Jude didn’t stop. He ran until his lungs felt like a furnace from the cold. He hadn’t run a mile without stopping since college.

Jude collapsed on a bench near the Museum of Natural History. Olivia’s voice; sloth, Oliva’s hair; sloth, Olivia; sloth.

“This can’t be happening, not again!” he moaned.

Jude began to walk along the museum fence. The enclosed palatial structure sat on a wide lawn, withered yellow from frost, and sparsely littered with proud, monarchial Elm trees. He watched people playing with their dogs behind the iron fence and tried to forget what waited for him at home. Turning, Jude caught sight of a tall, sculpted body trotting toward him. A gust of wind blew, lifting her thick mane in the air and spreading it over her face like a cloth. Cute, Jude thought as she shook the hairs off her coat. It was Virginia!

Beautiful as ever, her chestnut complexion shone in the winter sun. Her eyes were big and black with deep corners and long lashes. Suddenly, he wanted to confess, to sit with her, to hold her in his arms until he had her passive and breathless like he had so many times before. Maybe, he thought.

“Virginia you look fantastic!” he said, then realized her eyes would absorb his crooked brow, dirty, unshaven face, and sloppy sweats. He smelled like a nest.

Virginia’s heels suddenly clacked against the cement and she leapt into the air.

“Rat! Eeeeew! Rat!” she squealed.

Jude braced himself to protect her, but the rat had disappeared; so had Virginia. She was galloping down Columbus Avenue like she was leading a stampede. He watched her, recalling that Virginia had always had been rather theatrical and he disliked that. Strawberry yogurt, he remembered and scurried home.

US Library of Congress Copyright 2010 by Layla Sola

WGA 2010