Read Online Green Girl by Kate Zambreno - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kate Zambreno
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
Ads: Link
to honor another with so much as a glance. The brutal indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest becomes the more repellent and offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together within a limited space.
— Friedrich Engels, quoted in Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project
She goes to the same places to avoid getting lost. The perennial return to the center of the beast. She gets out at Tottenham Court Road to a drizzling rain, everyone heading down the stairs in the opposite direction. The Boots, the Sainsbury’s, the flower stand. Past the booth of fake designer watches, the table set up of bleeding black signatures—wettening posters of protest, ImpeachTonyBlair DownWithGeorgeBush InternationalTerrorists OutofIraq SendTroopsHome. Ruth shakes her head No not wanting to speak imagining the mere sound of her voice will unleash antagonism, a chorus chant of Crucify her! Crucify her!
She is not political. She is not political yet. She is halting, she is silent, she is unsure. She has not formed any opinions that are her own. Sometimes she hears someone else’s opinion, someone more forceful than herself (which is almost anyone) and she says that’s good for me too. So malleable she changes identities easily. How else does one figure out who one is? She has flashes of who she could be someday. She speaks in advertising jingles and silly catchphrases and slang. I am not really into politics she would say. She is self-involved. She is volunteering for her own Party of One. The Me Party. Campaigning under the Woe Is Me ticket. My seductive little solipsist. Does she know there is a war going on? Is there a war going on? Turning on the television I thought there was a sale going on, and a season finale, and some celebrities getting a divorce. She knows there is a war waging inside of her. Yet she doesn’t know who is winning. She did not vote in the last presidential election. I can’t believe it either, but there you are. She is the apathetic youth we always read about. They are silent when not texting away on fancy mobiles or talking on their cell phones about their new game console.
I want to choke these youngsters just to hear them make a sound not banal or repeated or well-behaved. If I choked Ruth she would make a squeaking sound, like a rubber doll. But I won’t choke Ruth why would I choke her I love her. If I did choke her it would be in a loving way, like the poster of the Heimlich maneuver you see hung up in school cafeterias and auto shops, the two faceless figures doubled over together in a violent embrace. I would choke her to get at her insides.
Ruth heads down Oxford Street hurriedly, head down, bracing herself against the rain. Jutting in and out of a world of umbrellas an obstacle course. She does not feel like using her cheap Boots umbrella, which might break in the wind. I watch her slinking down the street. I see her shoulder blades stick out like a little bird’s wings. She is so fragile. Like she is going to blow over. She is sending out signals of distress. These lilting lilies. They shrink from the world. I want to stomp on their fragile stalks not yet formed, those spiky buds creeping up through moist dirt.
The street is decorated with lights for the holidays. The whiff of roasted chestnuts. A blonde man in a black leather jacket matches his stride next to hers. He holds his umbrella over her. The grin of a confident salesman. Can I ask you something? I’m sorry I’m in a hurry. He persists. Who cuts your hair? Ruth feels vaguely humiliated. She knows what this is, a routine to lure her into whatever high street hair salon has paid him to be charming to lonely Americans. But she can not help smiling at him, shyly shaking her head, saving a fickle strand of wettening blonde hair from falling into her face. He quickens his pace. You’d look absolutely brilliant with something chin-length. I’m not interested, Ruth replies
— Friedrich Engels, quoted in Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project
She goes to the same places to avoid getting lost. The perennial return to the center of the beast. She gets out at Tottenham Court Road to a drizzling rain, everyone heading down the stairs in the opposite direction. The Boots, the Sainsbury’s, the flower stand. Past the booth of fake designer watches, the table set up of bleeding black signatures—wettening posters of protest, ImpeachTonyBlair DownWithGeorgeBush InternationalTerrorists OutofIraq SendTroopsHome. Ruth shakes her head No not wanting to speak imagining the mere sound of her voice will unleash antagonism, a chorus chant of Crucify her! Crucify her!
She is not political. She is not political yet. She is halting, she is silent, she is unsure. She has not formed any opinions that are her own. Sometimes she hears someone else’s opinion, someone more forceful than herself (which is almost anyone) and she says that’s good for me too. So malleable she changes identities easily. How else does one figure out who one is? She has flashes of who she could be someday. She speaks in advertising jingles and silly catchphrases and slang. I am not really into politics she would say. She is self-involved. She is volunteering for her own Party of One. The Me Party. Campaigning under the Woe Is Me ticket. My seductive little solipsist. Does she know there is a war going on? Is there a war going on? Turning on the television I thought there was a sale going on, and a season finale, and some celebrities getting a divorce. She knows there is a war waging inside of her. Yet she doesn’t know who is winning. She did not vote in the last presidential election. I can’t believe it either, but there you are. She is the apathetic youth we always read about. They are silent when not texting away on fancy mobiles or talking on their cell phones about their new game console.
I want to choke these youngsters just to hear them make a sound not banal or repeated or well-behaved. If I choked Ruth she would make a squeaking sound, like a rubber doll. But I won’t choke Ruth why would I choke her I love her. If I did choke her it would be in a loving way, like the poster of the Heimlich maneuver you see hung up in school cafeterias and auto shops, the two faceless figures doubled over together in a violent embrace. I would choke her to get at her insides.
Ruth heads down Oxford Street hurriedly, head down, bracing herself against the rain. Jutting in and out of a world of umbrellas an obstacle course. She does not feel like using her cheap Boots umbrella, which might break in the wind. I watch her slinking down the street. I see her shoulder blades stick out like a little bird’s wings. She is so fragile. Like she is going to blow over. She is sending out signals of distress. These lilting lilies. They shrink from the world. I want to stomp on their fragile stalks not yet formed, those spiky buds creeping up through moist dirt.
The street is decorated with lights for the holidays. The whiff of roasted chestnuts. A blonde man in a black leather jacket matches his stride next to hers. He holds his umbrella over her. The grin of a confident salesman. Can I ask you something? I’m sorry I’m in a hurry. He persists. Who cuts your hair? Ruth feels vaguely humiliated. She knows what this is, a routine to lure her into whatever high street hair salon has paid him to be charming to lonely Americans. But she can not help smiling at him, shyly shaking her head, saving a fickle strand of wettening blonde hair from falling into her face. He quickens his pace. You’d look absolutely brilliant with something chin-length. I’m not interested, Ruth replies
Similar Books
