Predator
What is the purpose of daydreams? Mine can be as real as any nocturnal dream; only I have not the refuge of sleep to excuse my perversions.
I watch him and I slip into a daydream. I want him to feel my eyes on him, like a predator. I want to devastate him, for no reason at all.
The animal chases her prey until she can run no longer. After a half an hour she exhausts her conquest. She pounces, turning in mid air at 50 mph. She could do 70. This time the bushbuck has one less breath than she does.
Iundress him, peeling the skin off his shoulders. When he was mine I could not handlehis emotion, so now he lets me probe his flesh instead.
The sinewy neck of theantelope catches in her claw. They tumble to the ground together, the weight ofthe bushbuck nearly crushing her emaciated frame. She grips it by the throat,and with her back paws she tears away at the meat of the beast.
Helets me jab around his organs, wide-awake, adoring my cold fingers as theydredge through his guts. He never knew I could be this twisted. I excavate hisinsides looking for the source of love.
She manages to drag the deadthing to a nearby tree. Unlike the leopard, the cheetah is too weak to carryher kill up into the tree for sanctuary. She must eat on the ground, quickly,under the Spartan shade of the acacia.
His heart only serves himself, palpitating to keep his anxiety running. His stomach simply tells him what to consume, whether it’s breakfast or me. It can starve but he’d still care for me.
The acacia tree is a skeletal husk, most likely hollowed out by termites. With two horizontal boughs it reaches east and south, grasping at the endless sky in a prayer for rain.
I want to chew, chew, on the strained ribbons of his neck. His oesophagus, the one thing that still makes me falter. His voice is the sound of black water breaking on ancient stone, with every rumble he erodes at my pitiless shore.
It isn’t long before the hyenascome combing through the dead grass. There’s nothing in the flatland toobstruct their view. The smell of blood draws them near, salivating with thescent of iron and sweat.
Icould mount his head. The mind that holds all futures at once, that weary mind,that idiotic mind that believed I was worthy of devotion. I suddenly feel sickand want to sew him back up and turn away. I try to suck the blood off myhands, but the taste does not satisfy me. I should dissect myself and find the homeof these vile impulses.
The pack laughs and taunts herwith the keen eyes of hunger. The hounds do not hesitate, circling the cat likea greaser gang. Cheetahs do not threaten them, not even a little. She backsaway from the carcass; mugged of another meal. No matter how skilled a huntershe is, she cannot hold onto a kill.
Thesource of his love still evades me, it doesn’t seem to live in any organ I canfind. I force myself from my daydream, the waking nightmare of my desires. Iwatch him, and I see how strong he is. I want him to see how the other girlslay themselves at his feet and wait for his attention in vain. They flock to himand die, like flamingos in a salt lake.
2018