The Abductions
1
We are coming home a failure. Mother hugs our extra skin. She is humming, “Never let them put words in your mouth.” Father examines us, his hands on our shoulders; he is not fond of our condition. Our koi fish
pigment is scratched and shaded. We smell of outside. Home is small, slow, and quiet.
We are eating dinner with the family. Mother is happy to see us full. Father waits for the story of our ceremonious abduction. A story for our sisters getting ready for their own abduction. What can we tell them? No matter the performance, outside we’re too large and too blemished for the sentiment, he’s
more afraid of you than you’re afraid of him, to be true.
2
For a ceremonious abduction: Shave off all welts and keloids in thin layers, leave room for hair. Wear his smile. Dress in his vocabulary. Walk hungry. Shake his hands with your eyes and grip. Find enjoyment in lights. Stop when they bleat. Laugh human and at human things. Do not breathe loud. Only eat and drink with friends. Late nights are good nights. Inflate the chest to friends you like. Fill yourself with water. Find his orgasm. Watch others in your position.
If your skin does not fit, and droops and pulls and tears and blemishes and sloshes and folds and drips color, you’re wrong. You’re wrong and failing.
3
“Son, it’s not that you can’t go anywhere. It’s that you can’t go everywhere. You’re not them. You can’t do what everybody does. Go where everyone’s going to be. I’m scared for you. I’m scared you’re going to get
caught out there. Not paying attention, not stopping for lights. Think of your abduction,” our father said, holding our shoulders as if he’d always feared God. We pulled up our pants and tucked in our skin. “Don’t stop for bleating lights,” he said again. Those lights paint the skin colors that aren’t ours.
We remember this in the backseat. Away from home. We are with friends, in their car full of smoke. Bleat, bleat. We cannot breathe. We are frozen with thoughts of better places to be. The lights pass us by. Everyone but us erupts in human laughter.
4
The neon evening blushes our skin green. Whispers in cupped hands kiss us gay and constellations tell others with whom they are compatible. We prepare ourselves for a little abducting. They, our friends, recline comfortably in their vessels and enjoy a helping of sautéed carcass, peeled zucchini, and fried rice. We sit with extra skin spilling over the sides of our plastic stools. Silent, ignoring our friends’ questions, “Who was your first love? Which one of you said it first?”
5
The girl beats the heart. The boy nibbles on the lungs. There is so much water. So much water, overflowing from the T-shaped incision. How neat the layers are. How mechanical everything looks. No extra skin. No need to worry for lights. Just human. What a ceremonious abduction they’ve done. Good for them.
6
Do not fall for, over, or on. We don’t know where to stand. A navy black crescent roofs us. Our friend’s hand is just our friend’s hand. Stupid, stupid. Of course we trip. Friend’s laugh is heavier than the extra skin under
our breasts. Friend knows occasion, knows how to touch, is known to steal time. They see us watching, waiting for spontaneity. We did not mean to stare.
Another chance for an abduction escapes us. The night is over as the summer is almost over as is another year might as well be over, too. “I’ve never been with anyone that had extra skin.” Friend says it just like
that. “You’re awfully quiet.”
We never realized how little we speak.
7
Mother calls us for not calling her. “No news is good news, right?” She waits for the sound of our breath again.
Outside, a human holds her children close at the sight of us. We cross to the other side, getting out of the way. Our skin sloshes back and forth when we do this, never keeping still, always out of place. We can hear the human explain to her children what they just saw.
8
There is another boy with extra skin. We can tell by his fading scars. He calls us handsome and nice. Nice in a harmless way. Handsome like a child. He means every word he says. Skin everywhere. He is massive. His head is high, shoulders erect, feet light. We follow a couple of steps behind, out of breath. He wears a wonderfully abducted smile that fits him snug.
“You know, it’ll come to you. This whole ceremonious abduction thing—just find one that you do best. Try ’em all out, don’t force it. You’ll know when you find it. You won’t be able to picture yourself as anything else,” he says, confident.
We are with friends walking down a long road. Everyone likes him. He can talk to everyone at once. He walks like sex. There are no lights down this road, no humans except for the ones we know. But at every corner his neck bobs and his hands become nothing but knuckles. Sweating almost as much as we are.
9
“You don’t think some of us would like to have some of that extra skin? Beg for some of that skin? Spread legs for some of that skin? Kill for some of that skin?” A human with very little skin saw us alone and wouldn’t let us leave.
10
We feel particularly big this morning. This morning being still night. Behind these walls the time of day is counted by shades of blue. We stare at a coarse ceiling. The day is now cyan. We are stuck on our back, in pain, and can feel exactly how our rib cage is formed. This extra skin is swelling, verrucous-like, weighing down on our bones, yet we can feel organs float. Bubble and float as if they were no longer, or ever were, part of a whole.
First published in the Winter/Spring 2020 issue of The Southampton Review.