Picnics
TORY HUFF
TORY HUFF
The blanket was laid on the ground like patchwork on the trousers of the meadow. As if you could lift up the edges of the quilt and underneath you’d find a rip, revealing the skin of the Earth. On top of the blanket, were two lovers. One lover loved the other much more, and the other lover didn’t love her back at all.
From above, they looked like lint.
From where she was sitting, he looked like God.
From where he was sitting, she looked like meat.
He felt like a god, and gods do what they please, so he snaked his fingers up her leg. He felt the prickly beginnings of her leg hair, not minding, for every prickle inched closer to his meal. And there were goosebumps too. Goosebumps rising and filling with fear. His fingers reached the hem of her skirt and entered her home uninvited.
She stopped him then, and she asked her god, “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” he said. And so his fingers continued.
But even his fingers were too much. She grasped his hand and tried to pull it away. But he had strong hands; his hands were the kind of hands that could build cities and then bring them back to the dirt they were created from. A girl cannot stop hands like his from taking what they want.
She began to crawl backwards, her palms digging into the quilted earth. He stalks after her like a predator, all shoulder blades and hungry eyes. She reaches the edge of the quilt and drops off, falling into the dirt.
This is the part where she starts praying to a new god.
____________________
From above, she looks like a corpse.
She lies there, a pile of wrinkled clothes and dirty skin, not moving or speaking or thinking. He stands, with his back to her, pulling up his pants.
While his back is turned the earth rises up and rumbles in her ear, Hurt him back, hurt him back.
And the sky bends down and whispers, Don’t fuss over him, be better.
This is life’s dilemma: to be hard or to be forgiving. Is one’s heart made of stone or clouds, and how is a bruised girl laying the dirt supposed to know?
A girl must choose for herself.
And so she opens her mouth, and with the coarseness of the ground beneath her she says, “When I was suffering the sky did nothing to help, at least the earth gave me somewhere to rest.” She stands and takes the earth by the hand and turns toward her former god. With a fist full of stone, she raises her hand and breaks and breaks and breaks until he is lying on the ground, not moving or speaking or thinking.
And the earth says, Well done.
From above, they looked like lint.
From where she was sitting, he looked like God.
From where he was sitting, she looked like meat.
He felt like a god, and gods do what they please, so he snaked his fingers up her leg. He felt the prickly beginnings of her leg hair, not minding, for every prickle inched closer to his meal. And there were goosebumps too. Goosebumps rising and filling with fear. His fingers reached the hem of her skirt and entered her home uninvited.
She stopped him then, and she asked her god, “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” he said. And so his fingers continued.
But even his fingers were too much. She grasped his hand and tried to pull it away. But he had strong hands; his hands were the kind of hands that could build cities and then bring them back to the dirt they were created from. A girl cannot stop hands like his from taking what they want.
She began to crawl backwards, her palms digging into the quilted earth. He stalks after her like a predator, all shoulder blades and hungry eyes. She reaches the edge of the quilt and drops off, falling into the dirt.
This is the part where she starts praying to a new god.
____________________
From above, she looks like a corpse.
She lies there, a pile of wrinkled clothes and dirty skin, not moving or speaking or thinking. He stands, with his back to her, pulling up his pants.
While his back is turned the earth rises up and rumbles in her ear, Hurt him back, hurt him back.
And the sky bends down and whispers, Don’t fuss over him, be better.
This is life’s dilemma: to be hard or to be forgiving. Is one’s heart made of stone or clouds, and how is a bruised girl laying the dirt supposed to know?
A girl must choose for herself.
And so she opens her mouth, and with the coarseness of the ground beneath her she says, “When I was suffering the sky did nothing to help, at least the earth gave me somewhere to rest.” She stands and takes the earth by the hand and turns toward her former god. With a fist full of stone, she raises her hand and breaks and breaks and breaks until he is lying on the ground, not moving or speaking or thinking.
And the earth says, Well done.