☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות
"O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
"O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
I watch the interest drain from his features, and I do not move. I am accustomed to disappointment – his is more like a recognition that I have already come to. We are not so similar at all, no matter what he is hoping to find in me. It satisfies me more than it pains me to hear the sound he makes in the back of his throat, to see the way that his expression twists; but mostly I feel gaping. Mostly, I feel like nothing. Like a half-filled basin. A statue. A bird watching a snake, or a snake watching a bird, if there is even any difference-
(It is a matter of species, I suppose.)
What is normal, Ruth? His question does not disguise his disdain. I do not even raise my brow, and I pay no mind to the way that his expression is turning into something that should probably be frightening.
“Do you know,” I say, “what we call normal, in the medical field?” A normal body. A normal mind. Normal organs, normal teeth, normal eyes, normal limbs – all enviable characteristics. (Extraordinary was just as likely to cause some other illness as it was to work to your benefit. Gigantism, for example.) “Unafflicted. That is what I mean by it.”
I ask my question, regardless of the look on his face, of his tone, of the curve of his lips. He can think what he will – at least it suggests enough of his nature to be useful.
That’s simple, he says, in a tone that is almost-dangerous – the tail end of a sneer, an unspoken question that asks, isn’t it obvious? It isn’t, for me. (Nothing ever is.) I eye him impassively, like I am looking at a specimen twitching under a microscope. Nobody. I can only assume that he means nobody in the metaphorical sense, not that he’d like to be dead, or unborn, and I-
I tilt my head at him slowly, like a mantis. I suppose that he thinks himself significant.
I don’t even know his name.
And then, like an afterthought, with a wry twist of his lips, he adds, Maybe your brother.
How foolish. No – it isn’t even foolish. It’s utterly stupid, and incomprehensible.
I can only assume that he means Adonai. What I can’t understand is why. Who would want to be so utterly sickened, brought to his knees, helpless? I wonder if he knows all the ways that the poison is eating away at my brother’s mind. I wonder if he knows about his paranoia – about his isolation. I wonder if he can possibly understand what it means to be sick in a way that is chronic, to have a condition that will follow you for your entire life. (That is the only thing that I share with my gold-skinned, fair-eyed brother.) I am not sure what kind of person would crave to be sickly, like that, and crave to be so abandoned, such a broken-winged, unloved bird-
(That is probably more of what my brother would like to be than what he ever has been, but that is beside the point entirely.)
And I wonder, very suddenly, if this man really cares if my brother lives or dies. Else, how could he see his situation as something – desirable? I can’t understand what it would mean to be someone else. Their internal lives are as incomprehensible to me as a spider’s, or a fly caught in its web. Regardless, I know that I would not want to be poisoned. I would not want to be helpless. I would not want to be the fly. I scan the man’s muscular features, the warlike curve of his horns, and I wonder, silently, at his cravings.
I wonder what he sees in Adonai, too. I have always loved Miriam best, but Adonai – before he was sick – was something of a bright light in our household. What I can say about him is that he has never quite looked at me like he loathes me, or like he’d rather I disappear. (Pilate has, on more than one occasion. He finds me embarrassing.) What I can say, a bit more than that, is that my brother has never quite looked at me at all. I wonder if he feels guilty about it. I can see him doing just that – sometimes I swear that he likes it.
(It wouldn’t matter if he does.)
I wonder what he would think of the Adonai I know. Surely, he must be a different person entirely; or in my head he is.
I stare at him, and I ask, without a hint of hesitation, “Why?”
Even if he tells me, I know that I won’t understand. Not really. I’ll understand in the way that I understand abstract mathematics.
My question stands, regardless.
@Vercingtorix || <3 || atwood, "fox/fire song"
(It is a matter of species, I suppose.)
What is normal, Ruth? His question does not disguise his disdain. I do not even raise my brow, and I pay no mind to the way that his expression is turning into something that should probably be frightening.
“Do you know,” I say, “what we call normal, in the medical field?” A normal body. A normal mind. Normal organs, normal teeth, normal eyes, normal limbs – all enviable characteristics. (Extraordinary was just as likely to cause some other illness as it was to work to your benefit. Gigantism, for example.) “Unafflicted. That is what I mean by it.”
I ask my question, regardless of the look on his face, of his tone, of the curve of his lips. He can think what he will – at least it suggests enough of his nature to be useful.
That’s simple, he says, in a tone that is almost-dangerous – the tail end of a sneer, an unspoken question that asks, isn’t it obvious? It isn’t, for me. (Nothing ever is.) I eye him impassively, like I am looking at a specimen twitching under a microscope. Nobody. I can only assume that he means nobody in the metaphorical sense, not that he’d like to be dead, or unborn, and I-
I tilt my head at him slowly, like a mantis. I suppose that he thinks himself significant.
I don’t even know his name.
And then, like an afterthought, with a wry twist of his lips, he adds, Maybe your brother.
How foolish. No – it isn’t even foolish. It’s utterly stupid, and incomprehensible.
I can only assume that he means Adonai. What I can’t understand is why. Who would want to be so utterly sickened, brought to his knees, helpless? I wonder if he knows all the ways that the poison is eating away at my brother’s mind. I wonder if he knows about his paranoia – about his isolation. I wonder if he can possibly understand what it means to be sick in a way that is chronic, to have a condition that will follow you for your entire life. (That is the only thing that I share with my gold-skinned, fair-eyed brother.) I am not sure what kind of person would crave to be sickly, like that, and crave to be so abandoned, such a broken-winged, unloved bird-
(That is probably more of what my brother would like to be than what he ever has been, but that is beside the point entirely.)
And I wonder, very suddenly, if this man really cares if my brother lives or dies. Else, how could he see his situation as something – desirable? I can’t understand what it would mean to be someone else. Their internal lives are as incomprehensible to me as a spider’s, or a fly caught in its web. Regardless, I know that I would not want to be poisoned. I would not want to be helpless. I would not want to be the fly. I scan the man’s muscular features, the warlike curve of his horns, and I wonder, silently, at his cravings.
I wonder what he sees in Adonai, too. I have always loved Miriam best, but Adonai – before he was sick – was something of a bright light in our household. What I can say about him is that he has never quite looked at me like he loathes me, or like he’d rather I disappear. (Pilate has, on more than one occasion. He finds me embarrassing.) What I can say, a bit more than that, is that my brother has never quite looked at me at all. I wonder if he feels guilty about it. I can see him doing just that – sometimes I swear that he likes it.
(It wouldn’t matter if he does.)
I wonder what he would think of the Adonai I know. Surely, he must be a different person entirely; or in my head he is.
I stare at him, and I ask, without a hint of hesitation, “Why?”
Even if he tells me, I know that I won’t understand. Not really. I’ll understand in the way that I understand abstract mathematics.
My question stands, regardless.
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HE FEEDS ME RED MEAT / HE WATCHES THE BLOOD POOL IN MY MOUTHlaughs at my red teeth❂please tag Ruth! contact is encouraged, short of violence
