Eden Fell Excerpts © Lily 2008

From Chapter Three:

anybody could
fit into a glass slipper
it all depends on
your pain threshold

I am a seed husk, a pea pod, a sunflower shell, just another hole to fill. Fill me up, relieve yourself of the burden of being a man so that just for a moment while you’re deepest inside, just for a moment, you can forget the sin of your own precious, precious seed. I am your service, your need, a container to hold all that melts away with the first hit of a climax. Do you understand me? You’re not suppose to smile at me like that, like I am human.

From Chapter Six:

sleeping forever
isn’t so bad
it’s not any different
than being awake

“Dahling, you can’t live without a phone, or with a busted elevator for that matter.”

I shrug. There have been times when I’ve lived without a roof over my head and Terry is well aware of that fact. Or maybe that was in another lifetime. I don’t feel like pointing out the obvious to him again so I change topics.

“I’ve been thinking of trying realism again.”

My agent looks at me suddenly and then beyond me, his eyes full of dollar amounts that would be wasted on this experiment. Then he nods jubilantly and says, “You want to try realism? Okay, all right, I’ll see what I can do. Maybe you could take a class?”

I scowl. All those years I spent finishing my art history degree sapped enough of my essence, I feel no need to go through that again. Listening to some virgin, overweight professor lecturing me on what he thinks I should think about my art.

“Forget it,” I sigh with my head hung low over my coffee cup. What would I paint anyway? Fire breathing dragons eating cranberries?

He rubs circles on my back, “Well, dahling, you know you have tons of potential, really you do. You could do anything you wanted. Now isn’t the time, we’re so close to your next exhibit, which is going to be a smashing success.” He radiates with the imagined glory of my highly publicized exhibit. It’s going to be held at that little gallery which mostly serves as a coffee house for the delinquent.

Yet, the entire art community has been informed of the event, this grand spectacle that’s being advertised as the best work I’ve done so far.

I know what Terry wants. He’s hoping my exhibit is as successful as he thinks it should be and I’ll be inspired to produce more similar art. The money will come rolling in, green oceans flooding the land with all his expectations and dreams of the future. Talks of switching my focus makes him uneasy, gives him the impression he’ll have to start from scratch with the Eden Project and all his investments up until this point will have gone to waste. I want him to stay so I smile in hopes it will reassure his neurosis.

“Yes, it will be a smashing success.” The phrase leaves a sour aftertaste in my mouth.

I’ve given the incentive he needs to discuss my coming exhibit, which was the purpose of his visit today. His babble is enthusiastic now. I nod and smile at the appropriate moments.

I can feel the plastic growing on my skin, climbing up my arms, the snake screams in mockery, They are all going to love you. The plastic sheen reaches my face, I can feel the skin of my cheeks tightening under the synthetic material, still wet from its new growth.

The rhinoceros cries his tears until the floor is flooded up to my ankles. The goldfish glitter as they swim in somersaults beneath the clear saltwater on my black and white tiled kitchen floor. Yes, love my art, love me, love the stale commercialism that brings comfort to your naïve, industrialist eyes. A goldfish nudges one of my bare toes, then darts around the gray pebbles forming on the floor. The water rises higher, the salt stings the wounds on my knees.

“Don’t you think that’s a wonderful idea?” Terry happily urges.

Nod and smile, nod and smile. There are goldfish swimming in my lap, tiny flashes of light bouncing off their scales, the skin on my hands wrinkling, the skin of prunes.

When the water reaches my eyes, the salt stings briefly, but I quickly adjust. Soon, the water feels like a balm and my vision blurs into waves of distorted, familiar objects; the swooning coffee pot, the swirling tea kettle, the spiraling kitchen table. Flourishing reality, I can breathe easily down here, on the bottom of the sea.

“They are good people you know. You should be grateful they’ve offered to be there, and it will look so good for the art critics.”

Nod and smile, nod and smile. The mermaids appear around the corner of the kitchen doorway, diminutive and insubstantial. Flowing closer to my naked ankles, their long hair brushes against my legs. Those fishtails, blending reds and yellows, smears of orange muted by the surrounding water. They laugh silently, their wide eyes regard me with glorious mystery.

“What do you think, Eden?”

And the water flows over my head, floods my ears with goldfish and finally drown out his words.