She Feeds Peanuts to Elephants
by 
Sarah
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Posted: 02 June 2003 Word Count: 420 |
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She Feeds Peanuts to Elephants
The mother lies sweating in bed, cloudbusting the water marks on the ceiling. She can draw a million images out of the constant, bile-brown marks. Her one aid is the sunlight that creeps across the ceiling, sweeping the hours out the door (if the father remembers to open the curtains). But even light on the ceiling becomes a daily pattern. Can’t stop the planet from spinning, no matter how hard you try. She sees ice-cream cones; she sails a ketch across the sea (sometimes it’s a paper boat); she choreographs whole circus acts – all out of the invariable stains. But she can change what cannot be changed. She’s bitten her nails to the quick.
She killed Annika.
What they know:
An apres-curfew knock on the door. Ignored. Annika rang the doorbell three times, slowly, like calling hello, before giving up.
“We told her,” the mother said to the father, sitting up on her elbows in bed. “If she’s late again – it’s the only way she’ll learn.”
A telephone call to a friend from a phone booth in the 7-11 parking lot.
A yellow Camero.
Three weeks later it was her in that lake. Pieces of her! Set in pieces of concrete! Annika packaged like, like beef!
What they don’t know:
Annika missed her curfew again because Leslie was supposed to drive her home but left with some guy instead. So Annika stumbled, half full of vodka – quick, small steps, past trees that waved her by with heavy bows – and she was home an hour late. Her parents, true to their threat, locked her out and so she meandered, cried, threw a private pity party. She called Leslie from the phone booth in the 7-11 parking lot. Leslie said she’d pick her up in half an hour.
It wasn’t a yellow Camero at all. It was a white Datsun.
They were a sunshine couple. Blonde and young and slim and white teeth and all. His hair flopped attractively over his forehead. Annika climbed in behind the woman, who smiled seductively and leaned forward, pulling her seat with her, because they said they would take her to a party.
There was a black basement. Mouthfuls of skin and hair. Cold steel. Sedatives. Heavy metal music. Vomit. A saw.
And now the mother lies here, and daydreams she’s feeding peanuts to elephants. There’s a cup of warm water on the floor where she hangs her hand. She sweats, and unlocks doors. And unlocks doors.
The mother lies sweating in bed, cloudbusting the water marks on the ceiling. She can draw a million images out of the constant, bile-brown marks. Her one aid is the sunlight that creeps across the ceiling, sweeping the hours out the door (if the father remembers to open the curtains). But even light on the ceiling becomes a daily pattern. Can’t stop the planet from spinning, no matter how hard you try. She sees ice-cream cones; she sails a ketch across the sea (sometimes it’s a paper boat); she choreographs whole circus acts – all out of the invariable stains. But she can change what cannot be changed. She’s bitten her nails to the quick.
She killed Annika.
What they know:
An apres-curfew knock on the door. Ignored. Annika rang the doorbell three times, slowly, like calling hello, before giving up.
“We told her,” the mother said to the father, sitting up on her elbows in bed. “If she’s late again – it’s the only way she’ll learn.”
A telephone call to a friend from a phone booth in the 7-11 parking lot.
A yellow Camero.
Three weeks later it was her in that lake. Pieces of her! Set in pieces of concrete! Annika packaged like, like beef!
What they don’t know:
Annika missed her curfew again because Leslie was supposed to drive her home but left with some guy instead. So Annika stumbled, half full of vodka – quick, small steps, past trees that waved her by with heavy bows – and she was home an hour late. Her parents, true to their threat, locked her out and so she meandered, cried, threw a private pity party. She called Leslie from the phone booth in the 7-11 parking lot. Leslie said she’d pick her up in half an hour.
It wasn’t a yellow Camero at all. It was a white Datsun.
They were a sunshine couple. Blonde and young and slim and white teeth and all. His hair flopped attractively over his forehead. Annika climbed in behind the woman, who smiled seductively and leaned forward, pulling her seat with her, because they said they would take her to a party.
There was a black basement. Mouthfuls of skin and hair. Cold steel. Sedatives. Heavy metal music. Vomit. A saw.
And now the mother lies here, and daydreams she’s feeding peanuts to elephants. There’s a cup of warm water on the floor where she hangs her hand. She sweats, and unlocks doors. And unlocks doors.
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