"Listen, You Object" by Garima Chhikara

I was told to walk deliberately, rehearsed. One careful step at a time, so the click of my stilettos wouldn’t pollute the silence or intrude on anyone’s thoughts. Not to turn my head, show a grimace, or even shift the curve of my lips or brows when commented on. Not to flinch or stir, not even at an obvious brush, a shove, or under the weight of a fixed gaze.

That’s how you avoid a dog. You can’t outrun a dog. He’ll chase you down and tear you apart. You can’t ask for help. Who are you? A girl with no mother? Or a weak, pathetic girl whose mother taught her nothing? That was my mother’s advice. I get it. She’s met many dogs in her life, and she survived. Thrived, some would say. Our rented apartment, filled with beautiful things that carry no story; my private college degree, debt-free; and the respectful nods from conservative neighbors are proof enough.

But today, I have no patience. I wanted to arrive early. I couldn’t risk missing it. It has finally called for me. It wants me. Me. Imagine.

So I run. Not like a lady, like something uncultured. Like a fugitive. I spit in the direction of the barks, no longer pretending they were mere comments. The strap of my dress slips. I crash through puddles and potholes, leaving the heels of my expensive shoes behind, broken in the hole-filled tiles of the footpath. I am disheveled, impure. Feeling my heartbeat in my mouth and ears, I rejoice in her, this wild version of me, drunk on want. It’s intoxicating.

I don’t stop at any horns, whistles, or warning signs. I nearly trip when some letters are hurled at me along with suffocating smoke breath and wet-mouthed laughter. Ae, sun. Listen. One particularly sharp sound—chee or a whistled kiss—hits my bare shoulder, and I fall. My scraped ankle stings with grit, tobacco spit, and blood. I resist the urge to scrape off the skin that was touched. My head swims. But I continue to run.

And I make it. I stop and stare. It’s just the bridge: the crossing between who I am, who I want to be, and who I must be. It’s brighter than I imagined. Its scent is loamy and spicy, like irresistible quicksand pulling me in.

They promised me this: the mud, its hold, and the vast expanse would wash away my sins and imperfections. Then, the stars, the moon, and all that was meant for the pure could be mine. Me: the maiden of grace and perfection. I only have to let it consume me. It might hurt, but it’ll be worth it.

At first, it narrows at my stillness. But when I don’t move, it opens wider, deeper. It’s unfathomable to me. Is it… Waiting for me? I’m a tease. Aren’t I?

It exhales my name, a soft whisper against the back of my ear. Maybe it’s trying to tempt me. But what I once mistook for affection is only hunger—lonely, needy, and ugly.

I wince at the memory of the years I spent trying to be called, trying to be accepted by it, the years when the hope of one day belonging to something vast and boundaryless wrapped itself around every inch of my life. It covered everything: the cramped space I lived in, the certainty I clung to, the parts of me I didn’t dare dissolve: my wildest dreams, my unspeakable desires.

I sit, spread my limbs, wheel-wing the space, muddying it with my selfishness. The flying dirt stings in its eyes. It mumbles curses. “I am tainted,” it announces. But it still needs me, like a wild creature settling for a corpse.

When I look the other way, it roars an unkind wind at me. As time passes and I still don’t budge, it says it’s ready to worship me. It begs me to come in.

Now, that’s tempting. I need to think. But then I hear them again, the stray, filthy ones I’d left behind. Cockroaches follow. Cockroaches will survive the end of the world. They’ll feed on your fossils. And some dogs are cockroaches.

What were once just Ae, tch tch sounds have formed language.

“Sun, item,” it barks. Listen, you object. It wants my attention.

So does this thing in front of me. “Get in line,” I say.

This thing in front of me is slowly taking shape. It has boundaries, after all. And the shape isn’t much different from the ones behind me.

“Oh, hello, item, are you deaf?”

“You think you’re such an item?”

Item. Item. Item.

I sigh. At last, something I can agree with. I am an object—but not a thing to possess. I am a vision: untouchable, like a flame too dangerous to play with.

I turn and blink. I make it all true, wearing their words like a crown. My eyes, a dark sea—not of longing or hunger, but of an abyss it dare not enter.

They huff, mouths opening and closing in disbelief. Then they leave.

Weeks later, when the story is told, parts are left out. Because who talks in depth about failed pursuits? Or rather, unworthy pursuits?

It ends with a declaration: The shrew, the asking-for-it item, was a witch all along.

They fiddle with their lockets meant to ward off evil, the evil being me. The one who didn’t break. The one who threw back their nasties, spell for spit.

And I don’t deny it. I never do.

Garima Chhikara is a writer from Bangalore, India. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Forge Literary Magazine, Hobart, Lost Balloon, Sky Island Journal, La Piccioletta Barca, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Halfway Down the Stairs. Find her at garimachhikara.com.