3 Pieces from The Woman's Cadaver Closet
The woman had a cadaver closet. She used the skulls as filaments and the mouths as little plastic wire gadgets. She fit them all inside her gums and chewed. Little children traveled three forest lengths to sit at her front door. Come in my babies, she said and yanked them towards the stove. The children didn't question the amount of butter she forced down their throats. It was slow-churned and pale white, more like milk than solid cream. They drank and got fat while the woman washed the closet walls. By fall, the children were so heavy, they rolled down the hallway to getfrom the kitchen to the bathroom. The woman followed after them, sweeping up their dripping fecal matter and adding the chunks to a pot. She slaughtered them in the sink. The drain clogged with bits of sinew and cellulite. My little precious children, she said. I wouldn't hurt you if it weren't for my hunger. It is uncontrollable. Such a terrible thing. Truly. My
apologies. Or at the very least, here is an extension of my condolences. The woman splashed the bodies with chicken stock. She dragged them into her closet. Meat hooks dangled down from the lights. She strung the children onto each metal bracket and patted their sides until the ribs cracked. Three racks were removed and placed onto the grill. The children swung back and forth. She would eat everything: the spinal column and the coccyx bone. The parts she couldn't bite through would be thrown to the rabid wolves circling outside.
The corpse cabinet was forbidden. Too many men came in and never pulled back out. There were knives in there. Sharp-bladed things. They stepped and that was the end of them. [Or did they resist stepping? They looked in and immediately, some long rod entity pushed through the eyes. They had blindness then.] The woman sharpened the weapons with the sides of her nails. She ate a meal of raw meat tainted with lemon juice. Every bite exploded into flames upon reaching her tongue. She lapped at the heat and her face smoldered. The corpses looked on. They detached the linguae from their genitals and threw them at her. She dodged the erect appendages. She spit three times on the floor and the penises wilted. They melted. They became a fleshy puddle on the ground. The woman kicked them. She threw them into plastic containers and left them to rot. The pieces solidified. They beat against the top of the container and tried to break their way out. The woman stood over the boxes, a blow torch in her hand. She directed the fiery cores at the genitals. The corpses cringed. They fell over and tucked themselves into tiny balls. [They were small buckyballs and made light bell sounds. The carbon vibrated and spread across the walls.] The closet had no windows. The charcoal smudges blocked light and bricked up the bodies. You're my own mausoleum, the woman said. She kissed the preserved flesh and pricked her hands with serving forks.
The woman impregnated her closet. Many hundreds of corpses sprang out of the walls like fungus. They were moist to the touch and spiny. She let them nurse from fake breasts she kept stored in the closet corners. [Does this collection ever distract you from the day to day, her closest friends asked.] The woman poured salt over the groping slug tongues. The corpses shriveled and fell onto their backs. [If I get distracted, it is only because I am hungry, she said.] The woman clasped the corpses' hands in prayer. She kissed the molding fingertips. I am sad today, she said and sewed the corpses' eyes up. They tried blinking but the action pulled their lids. The bottom halves stretched out. [When she was happy, the woman tore the lids open with barbed wire spirals. She adorned each barb with a single eye lash piece. Victory, she crowed and stuck wooden splinters through her eyes. [The woman stored the ripped eyelids in a small wood box and locked it. She kept the box in the back of the closet in a tiny cubby-hole the bodies could not reach without an arm extension.] The woman plaited the spinal columns until the nervous systems stretched across the floor. She coiled the spines around her and defecated near the lumbar bones. She ate the many glochidia with a glass of white wine made from the feremented sacrum. The glasses were flavored with a pinch of sea salt and a small amount of unprocessed sugar. [Drink, she told the corpses and guzzled their backs.]