Liberator
Jody Sperling
Her hair is like a wire brush and her lips are a plum. She’s translucent, and you can see the veins in her skin networking around her arms and shoulders, down her chest until they disappear beneath her shirt. The veins reemerge beyond her shorts and race to her feet, bluer as they descend. She’s oblivious to the people around her, intent on her book, Souls of Black Folk.
Every so often, she furrows her brow with a look of anguish. After a time, she sets the book down and reaches her hands to her neck, massaging out the flecks of cramp and tension. She tugs and presses with languid dancing fingers, but gives up with a sigh.
Someone comes through the door nearby; a blast of humidity assaults her and she recoils. She seems to welcome the disruption though, smiling at the door as its seal pinches closed. The book envelops her again, and the words from its pages begin to leap up and crawl on her.
She becomes a page.
By finger’s breath she turns the pages as words continue to slither up her hands. The text is small, quick, undecipherable, black and ominous, contrasting her tissue paper skin. The words must be light on their feet because she doesn’t slam the book shut or seem to notice the migration.
The first sentence arrives at her eyes and disappears beneath her lids. Consonant clusters and vowels follow, headed to her brain. If anyone opens the door again the words will scatter and she’ll be stuck with half an idea embedded in her mind.
Her skin, now veiled, black as oppression, has no white space left. Letters have tangled in her hair so it’s kinked and woven at her skull. They’ve flooded through her eyes and turned them tawny. Only the rim of her lips remain pink, though now, swollen with grammar. Her once visible veins are covered over by the flow of syntax and punctuation. Several jagged strips appear like scars over her back, entire paragraphs dammed in the flow.
She turns the final page, closes the book and leans back into the chair to stretch her tortured body. With no more words to transcend, her skin begins to lighten. The scars fade and her eyes pale to blue. She slides off her chair like a slave loosed from a whipping post. Fatigued, she wrestles the book into her backpack and heaves the bag over her shoulders with a great effort.
Previously appeared in The Linnet's Wings
Every so often, she furrows her brow with a look of anguish. After a time, she sets the book down and reaches her hands to her neck, massaging out the flecks of cramp and tension. She tugs and presses with languid dancing fingers, but gives up with a sigh.
Someone comes through the door nearby; a blast of humidity assaults her and she recoils. She seems to welcome the disruption though, smiling at the door as its seal pinches closed. The book envelops her again, and the words from its pages begin to leap up and crawl on her.
She becomes a page.
By finger’s breath she turns the pages as words continue to slither up her hands. The text is small, quick, undecipherable, black and ominous, contrasting her tissue paper skin. The words must be light on their feet because she doesn’t slam the book shut or seem to notice the migration.
The first sentence arrives at her eyes and disappears beneath her lids. Consonant clusters and vowels follow, headed to her brain. If anyone opens the door again the words will scatter and she’ll be stuck with half an idea embedded in her mind.
Her skin, now veiled, black as oppression, has no white space left. Letters have tangled in her hair so it’s kinked and woven at her skull. They’ve flooded through her eyes and turned them tawny. Only the rim of her lips remain pink, though now, swollen with grammar. Her once visible veins are covered over by the flow of syntax and punctuation. Several jagged strips appear like scars over her back, entire paragraphs dammed in the flow.
She turns the final page, closes the book and leans back into the chair to stretch her tortured body. With no more words to transcend, her skin begins to lighten. The scars fade and her eyes pale to blue. She slides off her chair like a slave loosed from a whipping post. Fatigued, she wrestles the book into her backpack and heaves the bag over her shoulders with a great effort.
Previously appeared in The Linnet's Wings
