The Melancholy of Anatomy: Stories Read Online Free PDF

Mexican guys in the apartment across from us came out on their landing, laughing and hooting.
“Putas! Marimachas!”
    Late that night I woke up and looked out the window. The fog was purple and mauve, saturated with city light. Across the way a light was on in an empty kitchen. Down in the yard I could see Cass leaning against the egg. She was licking it.
    I dreamed Cass grew fat, shiny, red. As she waxed, the egg waned. At last she was almost spherical, a powerful figure, staring like an idol. The egg was the size of a malt ball, and she picked it up and popped it in her mouth. Then she turned toward me and opened her arms. Her sparse hair streamed fromthe pink dome of her skull, her eyes rolled, her teeth struck sparks off one another, and her hands were steaks, dripping blood. Now I knew her. She was the egg. I turned to run, but her arms folded around me, and I sank back into her softness, and awoke pinioned by my comforter, on the side of the bed.
R EADING N OTES, J ULY 19
     
    Ancient Persian mystics write that the universe is an oyster. Our incessant desires and demands annoy it; we are the itch in the oyster. Around our complaints a body forms. The egg begins as a seed pearl. It grows beautiful. For this treasure, princes would pauper themselves. To harvest the pearl, we would pry the earth from the sky, though the satisfaction of our desires would destroy the universe and us with it. But be warned. The egg is the gift that robs you, for its germ is pure need: gain it and you will lack everything.
    After breakfast the next morning I went down and unlocked the gate across the alley between our house and the neighbors’. There was a heap of splintery boards blocking the alley. I carried them back a few at a time and piled them in the yard. On the other side of the fence, the neighbor’s dog went up and down the alley with me, whining softly. When the way was clear I went back to the egg.
    I rocked it back and stuck a board under it, and then I squeezed behind it and rocked it forward onto the board, and stuck another under it behind. Then I rocked it back and fit another board onto the first. In this way I raised it little by little. It took me several hours to raise the sagging center a few feet off the ground. That was far enough. I got down on my stomach.Syrup hung in sticky cords between the bottom of the egg and the pavement. They snapped across my face as I squirmed beneath the egg. Once the egg’s center of gravity was directly above me I gathered my legs under me. The egg gave slightly above me, allowing me to crouch. The boards creaked, but held.
    I stretched my arms out to either side.
    Somehow, I stood up.
    I took a step. I was carrying it.
    There was a thump and scrabble behind me and I started. The egg pitched to one side, but I took a quick step and righted it. The red face of a huge cat was staring from the top of the back fence. Then it jumped down into the yard and padded toward me. I turned back toward the alley. Two more cats crouched menacingly in my path, but as I staggered toward them, they slunk to either side, and then turned in after me.
    Little by little I made my way down the alley toward the street. The dog kept hurling itself against the fence beside me. Syrup ran down my face and body and drizzled on the sidewalk. My footsteps sounded like kisses.
    “Imogen!”
    I turned carefully.
    Cass was standing at the top of the front steps in her dressing gown. “Wait, Imogen! Please!” She whirled; I saw the pink flash of her heel as she dashed up the apartment stairs.
    I continued on my way. The dog finally crashed through the fence and came bounding up. Six cats slunk after him, followed by a corps of creeping birds. I turned left down Eighteenth Street. I crossed Church. Guerrero. Valencia. People made way. Someone dropped a burrito and it burst, black beans rolling across the sidewalk in front of me. We walked across them.Someone pushing a shopping cart fell in behind me; I could hear the