Malignant

I take my daily walk along the foreshore and then up to the end of the jetty. Normally I do this at dusk, that brief period of time when you can hide in the long shadows and still enjoy the warmth left by the sun's passing; but not today.

Today I grew restless early and began my restorative while the sun was still in full glory, while the sun was powerful enough to hide a sinister touch underneath his tender caress. This has proved unwise. My white cotton dress has begun to stick with the sweat of summer, a possessive embrace, as if some otherworldly spirit was holding me tight and restricting my movements, trying to wear me down. I am tired.

I stopped part way down the jetty for what I promised myself would be a little rest and turned my attention to the fishermen. They all sat with their focus slightly below the surface of the water, gently tweaking their lines as if that somehow will help them catch 'the big one'. They all sat in shirts and shorts smeared with the entrails of their past conquests, all with their plastic boxes filled with sadistic torture implements and buckets full of what looks like primordial soup; the slightly cooked brine and burly that somehow is supposed to catch their dinners and fill their bellies.

I looked down upon the water as the fishermen did, but at the surface rather than at the catches they thought lurked underneath. The water reminded me of green cordial. I was almost expecting spherical ice blocks to float past like the ones my mother put in the jug she filled at dinnertime, always cold cordial with fresh salads and sliced meats in summer. Eating the feast was never pleasant though, I was always afraid that the flies had been at it and that I would have maggots grow inside my stomach.

The flies had not changed between then and now. They'd still buzz around your face until you raised a lethargic arm to shoo them away and then they'd whiz past your eyes before you'd even have time to lower your hand again, but now I just ignored them. Let them crawl onto my skin and burrow in my ears; they do not care about the beauty of their human carrion.

I looked back onto the beach at the brazen bronzed beauties. I could almost smell the coconut oil they let run over their skin in the attempt to be vain, to attract men, to have them buzz around their sun-kissed faces so they could half-heartedly shoo them away again. They would learn though that the sun is not a gentle lover, that his light kisses would suck their skin dry and leave open sores where he was at his most passionate.

Like after any long love affair, they would then hack at their flesh with fervour to remove the signs of his passing, but their furtive actions still a sign of vanity rather than self preservation. Of this I am also guilty; the knife, the scorching flame and the ice - oh so different from the blocks in my mother's cordial - none of these were kind to my pretensions, shattering my internal mirror long before I destroyed the real ones.

The sun used to be my most faithful lover, my most coveted drug. I heard the warnings of 'Don't Get Burnt', but did not heed them. I wanted more, but believed myself immune to the symptoms of abuse that manifested themselves on others. I remember the raw pink I subjected myself to in my quest to be brown year after year. The pain of burnt nerves was never enough to deter me from pursuing the colour I craved after the winter fade. I can recollect the ice-baths in which I lay to alleviate my self inflicted suffering, promising myself 'never again'. I remember the lacework and delicacy of the layers of peeling skin, my deliberate tearing back of my damaged skin, just so I could examine the flakes; it was how I imagined snow would be under the microscope.

I did abuse my lover; he in turn had his revenge, striking me across the face and leaving my skin covered with twisted scars. Now I am cautious, avoiding the temptation to re-embrace the sun's tendrils. I turn my focus again to the water.

My fear of summer started as a small spot in my mind, it turned black and began to bleed. It spread until there was no part of my essence that it did not touch. It left me standing on the jetty clad head to toe in white as if I was a believer in Victorian sensibilities, wishing for my former lover to surround me again, but fearing his touch would burn. So I stand here, my face hidden from the scathing public eye by parasol, watching the undulations of green ebb beneath the planks and wishing I could jump back into the innocence of that other time. Any plunge I made now would be damned with knowledge.

Michelle Wauchope ©1996

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