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Tea for the Technopeasantry
23/4/07 21:47All over the web it's Pixel-Stained Technopeasantry Day! Huzzah!
In honor of the occasion, I'm posting my one and only short-short. Enjoy.
Climacteric
Hair on my pillow again this morning. Hair in the comb and in the shower drain. God, I hate middle age. I look in the mirror and all I see is the thickening of my body, the gray that shows around my jaw before I shave. Pam says I’m still sexy, but that’s twenty years of marriage speaking. Twenty years of dealing with my moods and the blood and locking me up when the moon is full. Pam puts up with a lot and she loves me. I should be happy.
My eyebrows are getting bushy. I hate that it matters to me. I’d always planned on aging as gracefully as my dad did. When age and the change hit him he retired, relaxed, learned to play the guitar. No complaints.; I think the change was a relief to him. Of course, I always enjoyed being a wolf; I think he was ashamed. I know he never looked at a woman after he met mom, and I can’t see him entering a room and relishing his power. I’ve been faithful to Pam, but I still loved that rush. Every month as the moon grew fuller it always seemed to me that I became more myself. Even changing felt good to me because I felt like I was coming home, back to the mystery of the hunt and the taste of blood blossoming on my tongue.
Pam just smiles when I talk this way. Says I’m becoming a poet in my old age. So I don’t talk to her about it any more. She can’t understand what I’ve lost. To her it’s a good thing. I should be relieved, like my dad was, not to be in thrall to the moon. She kissed me tonight and went off to her book club, freed from the responsibility to keep watch over her husband.
I haven’t changed in almost a year. I think it’s safe to say I won’t again. When the moon begins to fill, I still feel it, like an itch in my bones or someone calling my name almost out of hearing; My joints ache and my voice drops an octave. The wolf isn’t gone completely, but it has retreated so far into me that it’s like an echo. It’s hard to stay in on nights like this. I want to prowl, and why shouldn’t I?
I dress sharp. I will go downtown to a hotel and see whose heads turn when I walk into the bar. I’m not old yet, some of the scent of power still lingers. I don’t have fangs or claws any more, but the taste for blood lingers too. At the bar there will be a girl with fresh skin and a warm spicy scent, who will flush when I look at her, and let me buy her a drink. I slide my Swiss Army knife into my pocket, where it lies against my thigh. Pam says I’m still sexy. Let’s test that theory.
©2007 Madeleine Robins
In honor of the occasion, I'm posting my one and only short-short. Enjoy.
Climacteric
Hair on my pillow again this morning. Hair in the comb and in the shower drain. God, I hate middle age. I look in the mirror and all I see is the thickening of my body, the gray that shows around my jaw before I shave. Pam says I’m still sexy, but that’s twenty years of marriage speaking. Twenty years of dealing with my moods and the blood and locking me up when the moon is full. Pam puts up with a lot and she loves me. I should be happy.
My eyebrows are getting bushy. I hate that it matters to me. I’d always planned on aging as gracefully as my dad did. When age and the change hit him he retired, relaxed, learned to play the guitar. No complaints.; I think the change was a relief to him. Of course, I always enjoyed being a wolf; I think he was ashamed. I know he never looked at a woman after he met mom, and I can’t see him entering a room and relishing his power. I’ve been faithful to Pam, but I still loved that rush. Every month as the moon grew fuller it always seemed to me that I became more myself. Even changing felt good to me because I felt like I was coming home, back to the mystery of the hunt and the taste of blood blossoming on my tongue.
Pam just smiles when I talk this way. Says I’m becoming a poet in my old age. So I don’t talk to her about it any more. She can’t understand what I’ve lost. To her it’s a good thing. I should be relieved, like my dad was, not to be in thrall to the moon. She kissed me tonight and went off to her book club, freed from the responsibility to keep watch over her husband.
I haven’t changed in almost a year. I think it’s safe to say I won’t again. When the moon begins to fill, I still feel it, like an itch in my bones or someone calling my name almost out of hearing; My joints ache and my voice drops an octave. The wolf isn’t gone completely, but it has retreated so far into me that it’s like an echo. It’s hard to stay in on nights like this. I want to prowl, and why shouldn’t I?
I dress sharp. I will go downtown to a hotel and see whose heads turn when I walk into the bar. I’m not old yet, some of the scent of power still lingers. I don’t have fangs or claws any more, but the taste for blood lingers too. At the bar there will be a girl with fresh skin and a warm spicy scent, who will flush when I look at her, and let me buy her a drink. I slide my Swiss Army knife into my pocket, where it lies against my thigh. Pam says I’m still sexy. Let’s test that theory.
©2007 Madeleine Robins