Oh Honey

by Emily R. Austin

"It’s satirical. The innocent girlish note is designed to deliberately contrast with this man’s fully-grown virile anger, offering a subtle criticism on his treatment of sales employees, and potentially also women—"

I find it difficult to envision a place more hellish than a labyrinth of grey cubicles populated by depressed, robotic-speaking smokers collectively responding graciously to a never-ending lineup of people telling them to fuck off.

I believe that I should be able to amputate my own hand if I am so compelled. I am the sole owner of all of my own appendages.

I have tinted my bath water rosy with the happy colouring of my insides. I move my legs rapidly under the water to create waves. I am Moses reincarnated, turning this tub into the Red Sea. Bringing God’s almighty wrath onto this unholy washroom. The rubber ducky cowers in my presence. My wrists bleed like I’m Christ.

"Are you suicidal, Jane?" he asks me calmly. "Are you?" he repeats, the volume of his voice increasing. "Because I sense that you may be. Why else would you continue to call a man who has expressed in no uncertain terms his disdain for your calls? Are you trying to oblige someone to kill you so you don't have to, Jane? Is that the master plan, Jane? Too goddamn craven to commit the act yourself?" I stifle a laugh at the implication that I am thoughtful enough to execute that intricate a suicide.

On the nights when Ivy is not sleeping over at our apartment, she has taken to calling me and talking to me for the duration of the evolution of man. I sit aging on the phone while the stars above me begin burning out. Whole species of animals become endangered and extinct at my feet.

"Have you ever had an abortion?" she interviews me. Moments before we were discussing our mutual affection for domesticated pigs. The conversation did not transition to abortion seamlessly.

As I examine the pen, my co-worker Allyssa says, "Getting a lot of gifts from that disabled guy." I turn to look at her. "Are you jealous?" I ask loudly. She rolls her eyes. "Can’t stand seeing someone else getting pens?"

You have been duped, stranger on the phone. I am not in my living room at all. I am in the dissolute netherworlds of public transportation. At one with the grimy degenerates of our society. I am the single clean thread in the unhygienic tapestry that is this hellish toilet of a bus.

Thank you God for abortions, I thought to myself. Praise Jesus for abortions.

"You know, I have a secret," I tell him, glancing at his friend to make sure he isn’t listening. "Oh yeah? What is it?" I whisper into his ear, "I am not that small a girl."

Keats keeps moaning, "I love you." Ivy keeps moaning, "Fuck me." I keep moaning, "Jesus Christ."

We don’t have a calling list." "REMOVE ME FROM YOUR CALLING LIST." "Sir," I say coolly. "What?" he says, now panting. "We don’t have a calling list." "I AM GOING TO FIND OUT WHERE YOU LIVE, JANE! MARK MY WORDS. I AM GOING TO BOTHER YOU IN YOUR OWN GODDAMN GODFORSAKEN HOME. YOU WILL REGRET EVER CALLING ME. YOU CAN MARK MY WORDS!"

I put his hand on my throat to stop my breath and try to subdue this feeling of being a person who breathes and takes up space and fucks people,

He tightens his grip on my throat. I croak. “I told Mr. Arwol ‘I don’t really need any help but maybe you could show me how it feels to be a mother and a wife.’"

The elevator whines while it drops me. It screams in its elevator tongue that it is in desperate need of repairs. "I am in desperate need of repairs!" we shriek together in a stunning duet,

I told her I was pregnant and the baby died. She said, "Oh honey." I said my mom wouldn’t stay the night. She said, "Oh honey." I said that I hadn’t wanted to be pregnant to begin with, but that I felt sad now. She said, "Oh honey."

I am escorted out of the hospital, a cured woman. Entirely recovered from that which ailed me. All of my demons shredded. Normal and healthy and well.