On Strings
by Amy Cawood
The door to the garage opens as I sit at the dining room table. The late afternoon sun lights up our small, galley kitchen and I sit across from the door you will open when you come home. Facing that door, I will be the first thing you see. I know exactly what smirk I will see on your face, the high-pitched tone of annoyance in your voice. Annoyed that we, yet again, got into another fight the night before and you are now having to face it. You hate having to “discuss things” as you call it. You just want to move on, let it be. But tonight, you will be mad by the lack of dinner preparations- and no, we aren’t going out to eat. We are going to discuss things in the way that I want to discuss them. It will end in an ultimatum, but not like you would expect most ultimatums to go. I learned that after you tried to take away all of my control, I still had control. I learned in those moments of not having dinner ready the moment you came home, not wearing your favorite gowns, or even talking to your own colleagues at your work events, that I could do spiteful things as such, and it would set you off. From the pulls of your taut strings around my legs and my arms, I could pull back.
You may read this and think gasp, spiteful?! By that I mean, as spiteful as you can get with a fractured shoulder, bruises down your neck, and bite marks along your collar bone. I learned how to take control of my strings. I would burn the chicken a little bit, forget your favorite yogurt at the grocery store, say something a little off key and worthy of too much exposure into what happens behind closed doors in front of your coworkers. In these spiteful things, I could almost feel the strings I was pulling back on start to loosen. The strings you held me on, tossing me around like a marionette. I listened. I followed. I stretched and I moved. I bent and I ached. Whatever you needed, I forced myself into that position to satisfy you. What I learned though; it was never my behavior. There was nothing I could ever do to stop this. It was always just you and your own fear. You were still a small, fragile child that was ready to strike anything that opposed you. Fear is what caused you to hit me, to give yourself power that you would never let others take away. When I learned it was fear, I learned that these little spiteful things set disruptions in your day. The days you held sacred as you feared anything going wrong, the tight strings you held me on notwithstanding their purpose. I was stronger than you, I did not fear you, and this spirit you cannot break. For I am woman. I am human.
I read once, in my many hours of mindless research, humans are persistence predators. The fastest human, Usain Bolt, can reach a top speed of around 27 miles per hour. A cheetah runs up to 70 miles per hour and their common prey, antelope, can only go to about 60 miles per hour. However, you sometimes see that an antelope outruns a cheetah- the fastest land animal. This is because a cheetah can only go so fast at quick bursts. An antelope can run for longer as it is more agile than the cheetah. Humans though, only the fastest one of our species running 27 miles per hour, have the best endurance. This has something to do with heat and oxygen regulation and our stride. While these animals can go at these fast speeds, they can only perform in quick bursts. Even the antelope must rest. A human will follow its prey, stalking it on two, long legs for miles as the prey would inevitably give into exhaustion. You are my prey, and I will follow you until your legs give in and your heart beats so heavily against your chest that the blood pulsating in your ears drowns out my footsteps following behind you. You will break against your fear because you never faced your fear. I will tear away from these strings you play me on, I will go great lengths to hunt you and I will not give up. Of all those fears you have that cause you to put my body against dressers and my head in walls, it is me you should fear.
You strut into the house with anger seething into every ugly pore cratering your face. I can smell the anger. It’s not sulfur and brimstone, it’s the smell of the color red. In its characteristics of pain and agony, I know that red is all you see. But I can smell it, smell you. Just like a predator stalking its prey. I am here, come for me. Like a cornered animal striking, we tussle. You push, I pull back. Words are exchanged and you are your own personal armor, the strings you have me on protect you. I always stay an arm’s length away for that’s all I can reach, or rather dare to reach. But I said I can feel them loosening. Your hands tighten around my throat, my body being tossed around as you push me to the floor. We tussle some more and when you think the finale has finished, I stand back up. I know this takes you by surprise. Your leash is too short! I should have stayed on the ground! But remember, I am the antelope. I am human. I stand taller.
The remainder of the night you are shaken. You don’t let it show, but I can smell you. You no longer smell like the color red, but I smell the color black. It smells deep, never-ending. I know that your brain is running wild of anxieties and fears. You are unsure. God, I must be the world’s best predator to be able to smell you. We lay in bed that night. Me on the left, you on the right. You think I am sleeping as you allow yourself to escape into that same pleasure. I am wide awake and waiting for the steady shaking of your body and rising of your chest that I know you are now asleep and vulnerable. With that, I reach my hand under my pillow and wrap my fingers around the cold steel of the knife’s serrated edge.
In one swift movement I pull the knife out, thrust a leg over, and straddle your body. My knife is shoved under your throat before your eyes even open. As they do, the color black is so putrid it smells like death. I smile and your fear fuels me. I think of the first date we had after our mutual friends set us up. The friends we no longer talk to. I think of the conversation we had and all the red flags I should have noticed. I think of the moment everything changed when you pushed me down a flight of stairs, how you cradled me afterward and promised it would never happen again. I think of the clothes I had to purchase to cover up the bruises, the excuses I had to make for you. The friends I had to cut off, and the family that eventually went too. The aches from bending into these positions as your marionette. I think of the future we talked about that will never happen, the blue dye on the test strip that told me I was pregnant. You do not struggle as I push the knife to your throat, as any movement will have you bleeding out in minutes. The ultimatum- move or die. I feel free, I feel control like I never have before. In those moments of thinking of our past, my future, the person I need you to be for our child, I feel a string break. When that string broke free, I feel my body go loose, like a breath of fresh air. Like a window was finally opened and I could smell spring. My body releases a little and I feel the knife that I held so tightly to your throat give way, I think I feel a rush of liquid too. The smell of black is sticking into my nose. This must be what endurance smells like.