Читать книгу Sky Saw - Blake Butler - Страница 17

The mother now had given birth twenty-two times since the father’s exit five days prior. Each time the span between the births decreased. The pregnancies were swift and brutal. She expelled her paste in gush and crumbs. The warblings of her and the babies’ bodies both boomed through the empty rooms around them. Sometimes the mother felt she could have named the ancient human names of all the men that made her bigger, despite the blindfolds, the ice and biting—she could taste them in the branding of her flesh—a permanence mostly lost on the ejections.

Person 2030 had been 811’s, who like the mother had descended from two bodies rendered during DELETED ERA. This child—the only one of hers that had thus far survived behind its eyes, held in its cruddy back and black saliva—had been the reason the father left, she knew. Though he’d not expressed this so directly—he’d said nothing really, just been gone—she could tell he’d despised the baby for shucking off his image, for already beginning to grow old. The air had seemed to buzz between them.

The other births after 2030’s were a different matter, following a similar structure to the system of her aging, if reversed—one for each year, young and coming, if all crammed into such a short amount of time—the same spiral cut procession seen in all things, of all things one after another—new infants bloating in her as if in instants, spooling ropes on ropes of breathing cells. She tried to hold them in but they came out.

The 2nd child had burst unfurling as a smudge of scum on the black summer pavement tile while the first child crawled through the whole house calling the father’s forgotten name, already gone. The stench had been horrendous, like endless fire. 1180 had washed with bleach and light for days and still could not forget. The curd left rashes on her face.

The 3rd child had been a trembling wash of chunks that would not stop running, squashed and ransacked in the eyes. It did have eyes, at least that. 1180 took to wearing diapers or standing over buckets until she stopped caring about the carpet.

The 4th child sluiced out while 1180 stood ironing a work shirt she knew 811 would never need to wear. Even if he returned there’d be no reason. Person 811’s place of employment had been converted into pyres. The church was eaten up with acid dust and some white substance. There were no words to call the evenings. And though the counted dead would never end, the state had claimed use of the bodies to build a wall—a wall that would keep them, finally, protected. 1180 ironed anyway. She pressed her knuckles to the iron’s steaming eyes to make a memory.

The 5th child came out of the wrong hole during a shit.

The smell of the 6th child—the mother despised herself for this—reminded her of biscuit gravy, and that was all she’d eaten then for weeks.

The 7th child grew its voice first and still spoke inside her when she was most alone. The 7th child knew things about her and rose them on her skin in detailed dioramas. The 7th child was not a woman or a man.

The 8th child seemed to want to make it. This child had kept in place for two whole days. By the time it came out as stippled magma, one solid body seared to the lining from where it’d come. 1180 had swelled large as a window. It pulled and pulled at her until after some time in the sun room it did not.

The 9th through 19th child came one after another like rollercoaster cars deformed and farting, hardly gas but so much blood—and then the 20th child emerged immediately thereafter, as a glassy substance the mother could manipulate between her hands—enough to make so many bulbs to light the outside bright forever—enough to build a boat had there been anywhere to row.

The 21st child swam around 1180 and caressed her head and told her future and said that soon 1180 would feel safe and she would have what she’d always wanted, but there was still more things she had to do yet and could she hold on please, could she hold, and 1180 shook her head and tried to turn to see this child, this sweet one, this living sheet, and yet no matter how quick she turned her head or in which direction the child could not be seen.

The 22nd child was made of paper, on which Person 1180 wrote.

The 23rd child, this latest stammer swollen up inside her soon-to-come, flooded the folds inside her with its pre-forming—it felt larger than the others—it already had so many eyes, had already filled in though the sound of everything inside her where among awaiting blood the mother felt the thing she’d meant to be herself learning her veins.