Metamorphosis

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Metamorphosis © Talia Pura

These excerpts may not be used for any purpose whatsoever. Rights to produce, in whole or in part, by any group, amateur or professional, are retained by the author.

The Egg

…. I may never watch television again. This could very well be my last night on this earth. I don’t know for absolute certain that my shelter will be able to withstand the blast, but I think it will. If I knew exactly when it was coming, I would definitely put my head under a blanket as an extra precaution, but you just never know when it will strike. I think that if I were living in New York City or someplace important, I would hear the siren, but I’m pretty sure that I won’t hear it here. There is a siren that goes off every day at noon, but for anyone in this town to turn on the siren to warn us of the blast, they would have to first hear one in a big important city and I don’t think that is going to happen. It’s just too far away.

I’d feel a lot better if my mother wasn’t a lapsed Catholic. That’s what Ginny’s mother called her. A lapsed Catholic. Ginny’s mother told Ginny that she didn’t have to worry about a nucklar blast because Jesus would definitely be making his second coming in time to take all the born agains to heaven before the blast happened, but that I was out of luck on account of my mother being nothing more than a lapsed Catholic. I asked my mother what a lapsed Catholic was but she just told me that Ginny was full of shit and that nothing was going to save us if the Commie’s pushed the button. She said that we would all go to hell in a hand basket and there wasn’t anything we could do about it and to for christ’s sake stop watching the 6:00 news. I told her that wasn’t true. We could do something. In school we had a drill to run home as fast as we could when we got the signal. They timed us. I made it home in less than 4 minutes on account of I live really close. I would be saved because I would be in my shelter here. I asked the teacher why we couldn’t just make shelters in the school, but she said it was important to be near our loved ones in a time of crisis. I told her that my only loved one is my mother who is at work during the day. She said, well anyway, everyone else’s mother is at home all day and that’s where we all belong in times of crisis. I wanted to know how come the school would get a signal but the whole town wouldn’t. She said, shhh, on you mark, get set, run home quick like bunnies and I’ll see you all back after lunch for story time. So I guess that I’ll be okay if the blast happens during school hours. After school, I can’t take any chances. Without a signal, I can’t risk leaving my shelter. My mother says that this shelter isn’t any safer than the rest of the house, but I know that she is wrong. I would prefer that she was down here with me, but I guess that she’ll have to take her chances in the kitchen like the rest of the town.

My teacher refuses to tell us what the crisis is. She just says it is a “general crisis practice”, just in case. In case of what, I asked, but she just smiled and told me to take out my spelling book. I didn’t tell her that I watch the news and know all about the Cuban mess up crisis. I know that President Kennedy is messing up and the Soviets don’t like it one bit. Last year, when Kennedy went to the Bay and bought lots of pigs and sent them to Cuba, the Soviets weren’t impressed either. I don’t know why they would get so excited about a bunch of pigs. Well, I guess that some pigs can be sort of gross. They can’t all be Wilbers. I guess without Charlotte, Wilber could have turned out to be kind of gross himself, but I don’t know why that would make the Commies want to blow us all up. Blow us up to smithereens. I can’t really imagine what I’d look like all blown up to smithereens. My arm over here, my leg over there. I wonder how the room would look if I could see it from one eye over here and from my other eye over there. Some things are just too hard to imagine. And I think that I have always had a reasonably good imagination. For example, I have no difficulty imagining you here with me right now. My mother never knows where you’ll pop up. Sometimes I tell her not to sit on you on the sofa in the living room, when she comes in to watch The Lucy Show on TV. LOOK OUT. YOU’LL CRUSH THE LIFE OUT OF HERBERT. I shriek it really loud for effect. She jumps a mile. Jesus, will you cut it out with that Herbert shit? I look very hurt and tell you to come and sit on the floor with me. I love the expression on her face, cause she doesn’t know what to say next. But she usually makes pudding for desert and let’s me sit on her bed while she puts on her make-up whenever I bring you up. So, Herbert, I guess that you’ve got to hang around for another few years. I may be too old for you by the time I reach eleven. That is assuming that I will reach eleven. There are no such guarantees right now, I can tell you that. ………

The Caterpillar:

You’re hungry? I’m hungry. I’m very hungry, but I gave you my food. You crawl over there and pick up that last crumb. I didn’t waste my food on you to see you miss some crumbs. Oh, you are a bad boy. Mommy needs to spank you harder. You never learn, do you? You need me to spank you. (she cracks her whip over and over again) You’ve been a very bad boy and you need to be punished. You need to have your behind whipped. ……….. You have no idea how tough a job this is, emotionally, mentally too, not just physically. Sure, I love it. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. If I didn’t love it, I’d do some boring, mundane job, like the rest of the vanilla people you see sitting beside you on the bus every day. I love everything about this. I get to wear great outfits, play with way cool toys and then there’s the pain. I love pain. I can’t get enough of pain – well, giving pain, actually. I can’t get enough of handing out punishing torture. That’s my thing. But I’m not a bitch, really, I’m not. Some DOMMINAS are, there’s no question. I know Mistresses who are absolutely horrid to everyone. They really are total bitches. But that’s not me. Me, I just have this insatiable hunger for pain. And for pleasing people. I’m a real people pleaser. As long as receiving pain is what pleases them. It consumes me. It makes me wet just thinking about laying this beautiful whip across someone’s backside. ………

The Chrysalis:

What does it all mean? What’s it all for? You pour yourself into it and for years you think it actually means something, that you have become somebody, and then you find out that it was all a lie. It all evaporates as if it had never been. I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little disillusioned right now, a little vulnerable, that’s all. It’s not important, really.

Oh, I should never have believed everything they said about me. I did, you know. I was young. I had the world at my feet. Every director in Hollywood wanted me for their next picture. And the press! They followed me around everywhere I went. …………

This business. Maybe I should just be grateful for how far I did go in Hollywood. Right to the top – for a while. Not bad for a little Prairie girl from small town Canada. When the world didn’t end when I thought it would I gave up the news and started dreaming of becoming a star. Thank god Uncle Charlie had money for braces. And I guess I should thank my mother for giving me something to run away from. Oh, she would have been proud of me. Too bad she drank herself to death so young. Still, nothing like a reverse role model to help whip a girl into shape. I guess that I should be content that I got my wish for a moment. I had my fifteen minutes. What more could I ask for? Well, there is more, and I want it all. Or at least, I think I do. ……..

the butterfly:

The music plays throughout the scene, while she twists and climbs, falls and dances on the silks.

It’s so beautiful. It’s so wonderful.

My body isn’t big enough to hold my heart. Nothing is big enough to contain all the joy, all the freedom. The ecstasy. The sheer pleasure of being. It’s all too beautiful.

There are other worlds than those. Worlds in which a body can fly. Can reach up and touch the stars. Feel the warmth of the sun and the cool of the moon. Stretched to full length between earth and sky, the wind makes its music in the harp of my hair.

Suspended. Timeless. Tasting every breath, yet never needing to take a breath at all. ……