kimitak-e

[kimitak-e]

Mustard Mary

1.

the first thing Mustard Mary did when she was born was to bite her mother on the thigh with a full set of steak-knife teeth. the second thing she did was scream, at the top of her lungs, as if she herself was the one bitten. 

it was a mystery why Mary had shark’s teeth when both her parents were normal, but they did the best they could, and when she grew up they sent her to school.

on the first day of school, Mustard Mary ran up to another girl and bit her too, right on the shoulder. this time the girl was the one who screamed. then she clubbed Mary over the head.

“you can’t go around biting people,” said the girl. “biting is rude, and besides it really hurts.”

“what is ‘hurts’?” said Mary. 

“’hurts' is when something feels bad and you want to get away, but you can’t, because it’s your own body. like when you stub your toe, or fall and skin your knees.”

Mustard Mary stood very still, swaying back and forth. nobody had ever explained it like this to her before, and she felt ashamed at her own ignorance. she shrugged one shoulder stiffly. 

“when i bite somebody, i feel it on me where i put my teeth on them. is that also a ‘hurts’?”

“that’s exactly what it is.” the girl crossed her arms. “if it hurts you too, why do you do it?”

“i don’t know,” said Mustard Mary. 

but she thought about this exchange for many years after.

2.

Mary’s heart was pounding. she was naked in her boyfriend’s dorm room because they were going to have sex. she had filed down all of her shark’s teeth long ago, and she had learned to stop biting people too, because the girl from her old school told her it was rude. later, though, she had read on the internet that sometimes it was not rude to bite people, because it was sex. this time she would try something she had never done before.

“bite me,” she said, holding out her arm.

“what?” said her boyfriend.

“just this once. i want to try something out.” 

to her boyfriend, Mary looked like a holy crusader on a mission. it scared him because he couldn’t understand it, but it was hard not to do what she wanted because he loved her, even though it was plain she didn’t love him back. they had been together four months. 

“if you say so...” he replied, taking her arm carefully and putting it to his mouth. “like this?” he bit down.

“yes. but harder.”

he bit harder.

“harder.”

he bit harder.

“harder!”

this was too much. her boyfriend sat back and dropped her arm. “doesn’t that hurt?”

“of course it does.”

“then why do you want it?”

“let me see your arm.”

Mustard Mary put their naked forearms together, one with an ugly red welt, one unmarked.

“doesn’t it hurt you when you bite me?” asked Mary.

her boyfriend looked at her strangely. “what? like, emotionally? kind of, yeah.”

“no. i mean, physically. physically, don’t you feel hurt when you hurt other people.”

her boyfriend began to look at her even more strangely. “no. why would i feel that?”

“i don’t know,” said Mustard Mary. “but i think i have to go.”

3.

a few paddles out from shore, Mary pulled in the gillnet. she was Assistant Professor Mustard Mary now, shark researcher. she had let her teeth grow long again, and didn’t care what people said. she was not much like a shark, but in her mind, they were as close as anything to being like her. it was like love.

these days she liked the evening collection best, when the summer sun set the sea ablaze in a riot of passionate pinks and purples. there on the water you could be alone in your boat, and it would hold you in the centre of the sky, the past and future spanning out into nothingness all around you.

she knew she could leave the collection to her research students, but there was a skill demanded by the task that was satisfying to live up to. if there was a catch, you had to lift the line from the water quickly, without letting it scrape the side of the boat. then when the shark was in your hands -- juveniles only, no longer than a few feet -- you had to untangle it quickly, and ease it into the collection container before it could struggle.

today, though, the weight on the end of the line felt different: light and dragging, not at all lively. sometimes this happened when the net got caught on a bit of seaweed. Mary pulled it in anyway, and then sucked in a breath.

no seaweed this evening-- it was a shark: a stiff head with the eyes not just uncomprehending but unseeing, mouth set in an innocent grimace. the rest had gone missing behind the gills, save for a few bloodless rags of flesh. it was a little lemon shark. or what was left of one.

Mary held the carcass in her hands and inspected the damage. it looked like the body had been severed in one clean bite, without much struggle; eaten, most likely, by another shark. it was grisly, but she tossed the head back into the water without dwelling much longer. these things happened, after all.

to her surprise, a second, strong splash followed the plop. a gurgle came next, until a glossy head emerged from the water. 

the face she saw had eyes set wide apart, with black irises like a dog’s -- no whites at all -- and two flat nostrils that opened and closed in the air. a mop of long ragged hair drifted from its scalp in all directions, floating on the water. its skin was the colour of an old corpse, but its gaze was intelligent and alert.

“hello,” said the mermaid. 

4.

“hello,” said Mustard Mary, too shocked to do anything else. when the mermaid spoke again, it revealed a wide mouth full of steak-knife teeth, which were fuzzy with algae.

“why are you in that thing? are you hurt?” the mermaid asked. it had a pleasant, sexless voice, neither high nor low. 

“no. i’m fine. i use this boat for research.” Mary hesitated, then said, “thanks for your concern.”

the mermaid’s head bobbed up and down in the water. “no need to be so formal. if you’re not hurt, you should come and join me for dinner-- it’s not every day you see a cousin.”

“cousin?” Mary said.

“well, sure. i’d know those teeth anywhere. we’re the same.”

“i don’t understand,” Mary said.

the mermaid gazed at her contemplatively, then rose an inch above the water as if to emphasize a point. “it’s not every day you meet another mermaid,” it said patiently. “like you.” 

Mustard Mary stared at the mermaid, wondering at the statement. Mary had dry skin, clothes, and a fresh haircut: all of the things that made a person a person, with the exception of her teeth. she had always thought they belonged on an animal, or shark, but perhaps through some unknown magic she had been switched in the womb, and her teeth were as natural as anything else on her-- the birthright of a mermaid’s child. 

other possibilities presented themselves to her in rapid succession: she was dreaming; she was dying; she was victim to some sort of televised hoax, with an actor in a wetsuit. still, the situation demanded some sort of response.

she gathered up her courage said:

“that’s the thing-- i don’t know if i’m a mermaid. all my life i’ve been different from other people. i've felt things they don’t feel and had compulsions they couldn’t dream of. my teeth are made for hurting others but my own flesh bears the scars. i have never heard the words ‘we’re the same’. do you think we truly could be kin? could i really live as a mermaid?”

Mustard Mary leaned out plaintively over the boat. the mermaid, ever-impassive, looked back at her with its solemn dog eyes. after a long, thoughtful silence, it answered:

“those are good questions, and i will try to answer them well. but to begin, we mermaids have never wanted for anything, speaking as we do from the heart. our teeth are for tearing kelp from the ocean bed, not for wounding others. it is a serious matter to use your mouth in this way; perhaps that is why you are so afflicted. the thing you should have been taught from birth is that the pain you deal always comes back to you, and i am troubled that you did not know. but make no doubt about it-- we are the same. and you can come live as a mermaid if you like.”

“so-- you didn’t eat the shark?” said Mary in a small voice.

“no.” the mermaid blinked one eye, then the other. “but if you come live as mermaid, you will see.”

“and how do mermaids live?”

“forever at the bottom of the sea, ponderous in sadness, rapturous in play, eternal in grief. and alone -- mostly alone -- swimming solitary through the world’s great oceans.”

“that is a lot,” said Mary, now less sure. “that’s a lot to take in.”

“it’s just the way we are. the choice is yours to make.”

“i don’t know. i don’t know what to do at all,” said Mary.

“that’s all right. but if ever you decide to live like us, come back to this spot and call me with your heart. we’re cousins.”

“we’re cousins,” Mary repeated, feeling her heart squeezed by the word.

the mermaid nodded. “absolutely. i’m going now, but remember what i said.”

Mustard Mary watched the ragged head sink underwater again, noticing how the light on the ocean seemed to sink with it, and how all at once the night had come folding in. once more she was alone -- though not alone like a mermaid -- adrift in a boat a few paddles out from shore. the lights from the research centre winked out from atop the sand banks, and beyond that the city rose up, close and boisterous. people lived out their lives there, and below the sea they were living them too. 

somehow, everyone got by.

“what to do?” Mustard Mary asked herself.

overhead, a bright, full, moon was rising overhead.

[kimitak-e]

How Each God Found Her Face

long ago, when the world was new, Day and Night were one. since there was no telling one from the other, the two lay together in a silver dish, which rested in a pantry high out of reach. all the gods were happy, because they never knew anticipation or fatigue. nobody woke and nobody slept.

then one day a black ant appeared. it was small, shiny, and had never had to think about anything in its life. unseen by the gods, it climbed through the door and up the counter, along the wall, and straight into the pantry with the silver dish, which contained Day and Night. touching the dish with its feelers, the ant ducked its head in for a drink. but, being unlucky as well as stupid, it soon lost its footing and drowned.

the dead ant floated in the dish for twenty days and twenty nights, undiscovered. as its body decomposed, it began to curdle the contents of the dish, until Day rose to the top in a watery film, and Night sank in a murky sediment.

out of the curdled heavens, two new gods were born: Loudly and Dumbly. Loudly emerged first from the Day, with the mouth of an ant but no eyes. Dumbly emerged second from the Night, with the eyes of an ant but no mouth.

holding hands, they left the pantry together to explore the world. now that Day and Night were no longer joined, strange plants bloomed under the sun, and creatures found sleep beneath the stars. Loudly and Dumbly had many adventures together in this world, and it would take me far too long tell them all.

but if i had to tell just one tale, it would be the story of how Each God Found Her Face.

it goes something like this:

~~

Loudly and Dumbly were walking through a hedge maze one day, for it was rumoured that in the heart of the maze was a glass of magic milk that would grant the drinker her heart’s desire. since Dumbly had no mouth, she was happy to let Loudly have all of the milk, and anyways magical objects were in abundance those days. holding hands and swinging their arms, the two gods wandered through the maze.

it was then that a bug flew by Dumbly’s nose. bugs, as you know, are the portent of all unlucky things, and this bug happened to make Dumbly sneeze. in that moment she let go of Loudly’s hand, and before she could stop her, Loudly had walked away. in a few paces both were lost.

“Dum, my dear, where are you?” said the unseeing Loudly, once she had realized her mistake.

here i am, the silent Dumbly tried to say, but because she had no mouth the words could not come out. she began to jump up and down.

“if you could just give a little shout, then i could find you very easily,” Loudly went on, feeling the walls.

that’s rich, thought Dumbly, who began to feel self-conscious that she could not shout like Loudly. instead she stamped the ground and rustled the leaves of the hedge, all the while thinking that if Loudly had bothered to look around, then they wouldn’t be in this predicament.

“is that you, Dum, or some monster out to trip me in this maze?” said Loudly, who grew agitated when she did not know the way. “if would be much simpler if you said where you were, instead of making me guess.”

why would it be a monster, thought Dumbly. it’s plain to see there is nobody here but us.

(whenever they became separated -- which was more often than you’d think -- Dumbly and Loudly would quarrel like this until they could manage to hold hands again.)

travelling along the maze, each god tried her best to find the other until -- there! -- they came to face each other across a beautiful clearing in the maze. in this clearing the foxglove and honeysuckle grew in bunches along the ground, the air was sweet with the trill of birdsong, and a smell of sugar and cinnamon filled the air. in the centre of it all, a glass of milk sat atop a small wooden table.

Dumbly was the only one who saw the milk, and when she did she began to clap and leap with joy. hearing her rejoice, Loudly began to hurry across the clearing. 

“Dum? Dumbly, are you there?” she called. but by then Dumbly had stopped leaping, and was looking on in horror instead: Loudly would only have to take one more step, before, there in the magic clearing, she would knock over the glass of milk.

which is exactly what she did.

“oh!” said Loudly. in a flash the glass lay in pieces on the ground, the milk splattered all over her feet.

oh, thought Dumbly, who stared. great, big tears began to well in her eyes. 

there was a moment of dull shock. between the two of them, the whole journey felt wasted.

“that’s it for the milk, isn’t it,” Loudly said, still blind as she tried to shake the milk off her foot. “it’s a shame. if i had known this was here, none of this would have happened.”

that made Dumbly pause, for she had been thinking the same thing. but as she looked closer, she saw something she had never noticed before.

(dear listener-- before i continue, let me just say: if you think what the good Dumbly saw was obvious, you must remember that the world was still new, and back then it was enough for gods to hold hands to feel complete.)

Dumbly looked and she looked, and all at once it dawned on her: Loudly had no eyes! it wasn’t that she wouldn’t see-- it was because she couldn’t!

this was so funny she began to laugh. as the laughter shook her it began to bubble out of her in different ways -- ways she had never known before -- until the laughter was a sound instead of a shaking. soon, the face beneath her eyes had split open into a brand new mouth.

“Dum!” Loudly cried. “is that you?”

“Loudly!” Dumbly laughed, wiping away her tears. “watch out for the broken glass!”

this was new for Loudly. “how do you ‘watch’?” she asked, darting her blind ant head around. “and how do you know where there is broken glass?” in her confusion she began to search, and as she searched she began to suspect that there was something more to the world than sound and touch and tasting. just how was it so easy for Dumbly to get around anyway, when it was so hard for herself? she searched and she searched, until blinking, Loudly opened her new eyes in the beautiful, magic clearing.

then each god beheld the other in their dazzled eyes, and laughed in delight with their opened mouths.

and that is the story of How Each God Found Her Face.