Mary cut off her toe, the smallest one furthest to the right on her right foot. It happened in a moment of fury, a moment of paused conscience, comparable to the space in between musical notes where instrument transcends musician.
When the incident occurred, Mary was midway through a game of chicken she was playing with her wall clock, during which one opponent challenged the other to see who would twitch into the next second faster. Mary�s tactic was as follows: repeated saunter between kitchen chair and a secondary location, the occasional interview with one of her possessions (tea kettle, hand soap, sweater, newspaper, pen, cigarette), and observational study (the wall on which the clock hung, the discrepancies in sound of her humming ceiling light, and her own body).
Mary was not the sort of exceptional beauty yet she was beautiful enough to cause some discomfort in others at her presence and beautiful enough to become queen as she wriggled beneath the pumping body of a man. Her hair hung straight and thin, long enough to tickle the skin of her shoulders and colored like the dusty top layer of sand. Her nose and cheekbones were freckled alluding to both a soft femininity and inescapable childhood. Her eyes sat narrowly sunken without the accentuation of lash and brow which were near indistinguishable from her equally ashen skin. Her lips were delightfully pinkish but thin. To this, Mary was unaware because whenever she looked in a mirror she unconsciously pursed them outwards in an affectionate gesture to the air, imitating the glossed pose of a starlet. This head sat in a slight crook over a longish body of an above average height for a woman of her age in her location and time in history. There were two exceptions to her lank: the cushion of buttocks and the way in which gravity already tugged on her young breasts. Their hang added voluptuousness despite their size. To herself, Mary referred to them as European- styled breasts.
Mary sat cocked backwards in her chair with her feet resting on the windowsill, the air wriggling between her toes.
The meat cleaver lay on the table beside Mary. The humming ceiling light fell upon it, enamored with its metal sheen.
In one swift action Mary�s body folded on the floor with the cleaver in hand. She let down a chop aimed with specificity at her smallest toe, on the right of her right foot. The flesh parted with a satisfactory exactitude exposing one tiny chicken bone inside. Mary�s eyes darted the room until they caught sight of a hammer in an open cabinet. Mary reached and slid, grasping the hammer. With the cleaver in place for a second blow, she unleashed the hammer with upon the object unprecedented force. The bone snapped, as both Mary and now the separate entity of toe coiled backwards.
The consequence is blurred. With certainty the following occurred:
The exposed flesh did not gush with blood and it seemed a long instant of waiting before it began. The blood puddled on the floor until Mary moved a newspaper underneath which soaked her spew into a graying puddle and made the headlines of the page dribble. It read �Rift Grows as Leadership is Challenged�.
Into a towel the toe was wrapped by Mary. Around and around she wound a reel of tape until her foot emerged as a red spotted pillow encased in plastic.
�Ennie minnie miny moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, ennie minnie miny moe,� Mary scoffed at the toe.
Finger pointed she sang, �Alone and blue I see you tell me tell me now what damage may you?�
�Oh and how it were with you in your mighty miniatude, not a scar not a notion, not a begging nor a fleeting need and off of me you did feed!�
�Taunt me with you? Flesh have now undo!�
�Destroyer of me, I destroy you�
�Perfection�s powerful coup! Now lay forever in imperfection�s shoe!�
�Torturous toe take twice torture thus unto�
Mary�s voice rang without reluctance.
�Blue? Blue! Blue blueblueblue blue blue you!�
Now threatening her remaining toes, �consequence shall come unto, guillotine of mine, boo!�
Introductory, �to all those named toe, here is one no longer toe, instead Moe, and here is Moe�s show�
Moe, propped up by Mary�s fingers, did a little wiggling dance for the toes.
Then, forgiving, �though you bestowed on me my oppression, this was done without your direction, for you I am owner to one digression, this be in the name of your resurrection�
And finally, �lack of space left no room for distaste, but now tiny toe a greater gift give, separation from age so that beauty may live!�
The tiled lines of Mary�s kitchen floor, led, not into their usual haphazard directions but instead to one converging spot where Mary lay crumpled, pealing her eyelids open to morning. A hint of sunlight and the draft from the open window let in daybreak. Mary�s head rose from her comatose. For an instant, the previous night felt like an obscure dream, a hypnotic state that never really was. This moment was broken by a sharp, all body consuming pulse originating from her right foot. It pulsed again. Mary moaned. It pulsed again. Her moan unleashed from someplace new, someplace of deep pain and feeling unknown to Mary. Her voice was loaded and throaty. Her foot continued its pulsating pattern and Mary�s moans joined it in rhythm. Mary found herself unable to think, unable to contemplate the coming course of her day. She was unable to contemplate wall clock or tea pot or even the events that had passed or were now passing. Nor was Mary�s body of any consequence, in its beauty or almost beauty. What remained of the world was a pulsing. Her heart led her blood led her veins led to her pulsing. This rhythm held Mary. The cold air held her moans so gently and indifferently. Tingling bumps spread the course of her skin. Her fingers clenched the floor defeated in their force to penetrate the stone tile. The pulse was Mary�s body. Mary�s body was nothing more than the pulse. Mary was reaching something more whole than orgasm, more holy than a convulsion of spirit. The harmony of indifference and feeling seemed apparent. Though this, Mary was alive. Though this, Mary was power.
Mary is in her bathroom dressing her wound. She finds it shocking what a straight cut she had made. She is devotedly involved in the task. She wraps it tight in gauze. The bleeding has seemed to slow but still trickles. The smell of surgical tools excites her thoughts back to a job she had a few years ago in a dentist�s office. She had adored all of the silvery tools, the mint smell, the hygienic liquids; she loved to wrap things in paper and to line things in a row. She loved to start fresh all over again a few minutes later with a new patient.
Mary is lying on her back in bed, position crucifixion. Her mind is slowed to a steadiness. Each pulsing rush throughout her body calms and releases and stimulates.
�My pulse is my heart and the core of my physical,� she thinks.
�Flaw has led to perfection for some reason this doesn�t seem curious or strange. All my longing, all my imperfection exists only in my wants for perfection� it seems so obvious now. Beauty is in evenness. If I took off my skin and unfolded I would have two and a half times in one large space but instead I am parts and some parts break my steady. That little toe, in all its innocence was more beautiful. That little toe��
Maybe Mary is trying to figure. But Mary is really thinking nothing. She doesn�t care. Why should she?
�Amputation for the whole!� she�s giggling. Pain is pulsing her body.
This is different now. Not like the other night. That, then, was reaction, was involvement, was flight. This, now, this is evenness. This is Mary slow and steady.
Mary is placing a container into her bathroom mirror cabinet. It is a tiny glass jar, one that used to hold berry jam. The lid is goldish and still tells the name of some jam company in Pittsburg. This has become ritual, a new routine different than her older ones. The jar makes Mary giddy and pink. Really, her cheeks are all apples just like on a fresh winter day. Inside the jar a clear liquid is swishing around as she moves it into its location. The liquid is vodka. A tiny piece inside the jar marks this swishing. It�s a tiny piece of whitish flesh with a little prickling bone sticking out.
Mary is in the caf� downstairs slowly sipping her coffee at a table with three chairs.
�Can I freshen that up for you?� asks Ana, the round woman in a blue smock.
�No thank you�
Ana starts complaining about how busy the morning has been and how she hasn�t gotten a break yet and about how she�ll see her boyfriend after she gets off at three but they have to go see his mother because she is sick and her boyfriend is watching his mother�s little weasel dog because of it and that dog peed on the carpet this morning.
Mary smiles her mouth at Ana. She feels so free.
�Its funny,� she thinks, �just so funny�.
Mary is wearing pretty white knit socks and some black paten leather shoes. She�s taping her right foot.
�When I feel my foot push and touch I remember and then I remember how funny�
She giggles a bit and Ana is still talking.
Mary is on promenade on Main Street, this town. She mixes in with all the passing faces in her blur petticoat. Inside Mary is surging, continually surging. She pauses casually at a window but she is only thinking of this surging. A dirty little secret can do wonders for a girl�s sense of being. All of the people unthinking of what isn�t inside Mary�s right shoe. �Of all assumptions�� is her thought.
There is an oil painting looking at her from the other side of this glass. It�s full of rotting colors. It drips and blends because of itself. �The artist only owns responsibility for some of those paints,� Mary thinks. The rest is the pattern of chance which is unpredictable. Intention isn�t creation. Toe = art.
Mary is kicking at the wall. The paint blisters and peels and there is a white dust and cracking and responsive noise. She is pushing and it is not happening. She is lying on her back again. She is despondent and unsure. �How did it creep back?�
�There is is,� Mary relieves as a new surging begins. This blood clotted stud is sinking back inside her, erasing as it changes.
The tools are lined in a row fluffed on top of layered paper tissues. Number one: nail polish a pearly mauve. Mary paints delicately only responsible for some of the result. Number two: a pad drenched in rubbing alcohol. This burns her nostrils as she cleans her skin. Number three: rubber tourniquet. The line continues in sequence: a tiny surgical blade, a hand saw, bolt cutters. On the right hand: gauze, tape, plastic, iodine. Formaldehyde.