Stories: All-New Tales

-What’s wrong?

-Nothing, he said.–I got up to see the shuttle.

-Great.

She was asleep already.

-It was amazing, he said, addressing her back.–Amazing.

He kissed her neck.

He actually slept. It was Friday night, Saturday morning.

The bed was empty when he woke. It was a long time since that had happened, since she’d been awake before him. He felt good—he felt great. He’d flossed and brushed before he’d got back into bed, no trace of the hen between his teeth. He’d gargled quietly till his eyes watered. No bad taste, and no guilt. He shouldn’t have done what he’d done, but a more important consideration quickly smothered any guilt. It was the thought he’d fallen asleep with, clutching it like a teddy bear, just after he’d kissed his wife’s neck.

Necks.

It was as simple as that.

The blood was a red herring, so to speak, sent to distract him—by his psyche or whatever, his conscience—to stop him from seeing the much healthier obvious. It was necks he’d been craving, not blood. He didn’t want to drink blood and he was no more anaemic than a cow’s leg. The simple, dirty truth was, he wanted to bite necks. It was one of those midlife things. And that was grand, it was fine, because he was in the middle of his life, give or take a few years.

Sex.

Simple.

He wanted to have sex with everything living. Not literally. He wanted to have sex with most things. Some things—most women. He was a normal man, slipping into middle age. His days were numbered. He knew this, but he didn’t think it. A year was 365 days. Ten years was 3,650. Thirty years gave him 14,600. You have 14,600 days to live. That’s fine, thanks. As he lay on the bed, he felt happy. The urge was gone, because he understood. His mind was fine, but something in him had been running amok. His biology, or something like that. Not long ago, only a few generations back, he’d have been dead already or at least drooling and toothless. Middle age and the autumn years were modern concepts. His brain understood them, but his biology—his manhood—didn’t. He only had a few years of riding left—that was what biology thought. More to the point, a few years of reproducing. And maybe the vasectomy had made things worse, or more drastic, sent messages haywire—he didn’t know.

The human mind was a funny thing. He’d been dying for a ride, so he bit the head off a neighbour’s chicken.

He went downstairs.

-A fox got one of Barbara’s hens last night, said Vera.

-Well, that was kind of inevitable, wasn’t it?

-That’s a bit heartless.

-It’s what foxes do, he said.–When?

-What?

-Did the fox strike?

-Last night, she said. —Did you hear anything when you were looking at the shuttle?

-Not a thing, he said. —Just the astronauts chatting.

She smiled. You’re such a messer.

-About what?

-Oh, just about how much they love Ireland. How’s Barbara?

-In bits.

-Did she say she felt violated?

-She did, actually, but you’re such a cynical bastard.

She was laughing. And he knew: he was home and dry.

It was later now, night again, and he kissed her neck. He bit her neck. They were a pair of kids for half an hour, and still giddy half an hour after that.

-Well, she said. —I’m ready for afters.

Her hand went exploring.

-Back in a minute, he said.

He went downstairs, went to the fridge—two mackerel on a plate. He looked in the freezer, pulled out a likely bag. A couple of pork chops. He put the bag under the hot tap, till the plastic loosened. Then he tore away the plastic and went at one of the chops. But it was too hard, too cold. He gave it thirty seconds in the microwave and hoped—and dreaded—that the ding would bring her downstairs. He stood at the kitchen window and nibbled at the edges of the chop and hoped—and dreaded—that she’d come in and see his reflection—the blind was up—before she saw him, that he’d turn and reveal himself, some kind of vampire having a snack, and she’d somehow find it sexy or at least reasonable, and forgive him, and put her hands through his hair, like she did, and maybe even join him in the chop, and he’d bring her over the wall so they could get Barbara’s last two hens, one each.

He binned the rest of the chop, shook the bin so it would disappear under the other rubbish.

He’d wait for the right moment. The visuals were important; there was a huge difference between being caught devouring raw steak and licking a frozen pork chop, or inviting your life partner to do the same. There was no hurry, no mad rush. No madness at all; he was normal.

He went back upstairs.

She was waiting for him. But not in the bed, or on the bed. She was standing far away from the bed.

-What’s this? she asked.

She turned on the light.

She was holding a head on the palm of her open hand. A small head.

-A chicken’s head, he said.

-Where did you get it?

-I found it.

He was a clown, an eejit; he’d hidden it under his socks.

-It’s Barbara’s, she said.–Isn’t it?

-Barbara’s head would be a bit bigger, he said.

It didn’t work; she didn’t smile.

-Did the fox drop it in the garden? she asked.

She was giving him an escape route, offering him a reasonable story. But it was the wrong one. He’d found a chicken’s head and hidden it? He wasn’t going to admit to the lie. It was sad, perverse.

-No, he said.

-Well, she said, and looked away.–What happened?

-I bit it off, he said.

She looked at him again. For quite a while.

-What was that like?

-Great, he said.–Great.

FOSSIL-FIGURES

Joyce Carol Oates

1.

INSIDE THE GREAT BELLY where the beat beat beat of the great heart pumped life blindly. Where there should have been one, there were two: the demon brother, the larger, ravenous with hunger, and the other, the smaller brother, and in the liquidy darkness a pulse between them, a beat that quivered and shuddered, now strong, now lapsing, now strong again, as the demon brother grew even larger, took the nourishment as it pulsed into the womb, the heat, the blood, the mineral strength, kicked and shuddered with life so the mother, whose face was not known, whose existence could only be surmised, winced in pain, tried to laugh but went deathly pale, trying to smile gripping a railing Ah! My baby. Must be a boy. For in her ignorance the mother did not yet know that inside her belly there was not one but two. Flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood and yet not one but two. And yet not two equally, for the demon brother was the larger of the two, with but a single wish to suck suck suck into his being the life of the other, the smaller brother, all of the nourishment of the liquidy-dark womb, to suck into himself the smaller brother about whom he was hunched as if embracing him, belly to curving spine and the forehead of the demon brother pressed against the soft bone of the back of the head of the smaller brother. The demon brother had no speech but was purely appetite Why there be this other here—this thing! Why this, when there is me! There is me, me, me, there is only me. The demon brother did not yet feed by mouth, had not yet sharp teeth to tear, chew, devour and so could not swallow up the smaller brother into his gut, and so the smaller brother survived inside the swollen belly where the beat beat beat of the great heart pumped life blindly and in ignorance until the very hour of the birth, when the demon brother forced his way out of the womb headfirst, a diver, a plunger, eager for oxygen, thrusting, squawling, struggling to declare himself, drew his first breath in a shudder of astonishment and began to bawl loudly, hungrily, kicking his small legs, flailing his small arms, a furious purple-flushed face, half-shut glaring eyes, strands of startlingly dark and coarse hair on the flushed infant scalp A boy! Nine-pound boy! A beautiful—perfect—boy! Swathed in mother’s oily blood, glistening like pent-up fire, a sharp scream and frenzied kicking as the umbilical cord attached to his navel was deftly severed. And what shock then—was it possible?—there was yet another baby inside the mother, but this was not a perfect baby, a runt, cloaked in oily blood, a tiny aged man with a wizened face expelled from the mother after fourteen grunting minutes in a final spasm of waning contractions Another! There is another boy yet so tiny, malnourished, five pounds nine ounces, most of this weight in the head, bulbous blue-veined head, purple-flushed skin, the skull forceps dented at the left temple, eyelids stuck together with bloody pus, tiny fists weakly flailing, tiny legs weakly kicking, tiny lungs weakly drawing breath inside the tiny rib cage Oh but the poor thing won’t live—will he? Tiny caved-in chest, something twisted about the tiny spine, and only faintly, as if at a distance, came the choked bleating cries. In contempt the demon brother laughed. From his place at the mother’s breast suck suck sucking the mother’s rich milk yet the demon brother laughed in contempt and anger for Why there be this other here, why this, why “brother,” why “twin,” when there is me. Only be one of me.