From the Kitchen of Half Truth by Maria Goodin

Author:Maria Goodin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2013-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

chapter eleven

It’s the White Giant who tries to strangle me in my dreams. He looms over me, faceless, his shoulders so far above me that his head disappears into the clouds. He’s the one who smells of raw meat. A bloody steak that sits on the chopping board. A red lamb chop before it’s laid on the grill. Pink worms of pork that churn out of the mincer. The innards of a chicken. I hold my breath as he comes near me, afraid that I might be sick.

I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’ve made him angry. Very angry. He swoops down on me, blocking out the light, and grabs me with his enormous hands that tighten around my throat. I try to scream, but there’s no air in my lungs. I can feel his calloused fingers digging painfully into my windpipe, below my jaw, under my ears, squeezing. I try to swallow, once, twice, but I can’t, and suddenly I am gulping like a goldfish on dry land and there’s a pressure in my head like it’s going to explode. I imagine my eyes popping out of my head and shooting out across the room on springs, like in a cartoon. I try to pry the giant hands away, but they are stuck to my skin like glue. The world around me is turning gray, the colors draining away like chalk drawings on the pavement when the raindrops start to fall. The light is fading, disappearing down a narrow tunnel that keeps on shrinking until it is no more than a little white pinprick.

It is going.

Going.

Gone.

***

“Out! Out! Out!”

The scruffy dog sits down in the middle of the kitchen floor and wags its tail at me expectantly.

“What are you doing, you stupid creature? Get out!”

I make a move to grab it by the collar, but it seems to think we’re playing a game and rolls over on its back, its long pink tongue dangling out the side of its mouth.

“Stand up!”

My experience with animals has been fairly limited to date, and I have very purposefully kept it that way. At age thirteen, I became unreasonably attached to a hamster by the name of Jeremy that my mother bought me as a birthday present. For weeks after Jeremy’s death, whenever I thought of his beady black eyes and his tiny pink nose, I would feel tears welling in my eyes, and I had to repeatedly pinch myself to regain control. It was ludicrous that I should be so upset over a little animal who did nothing other than sleep all day and run around in its wheel all night, keeping me awake. It made no sense to keep thinking about him, and I hated that my feelings seemed so disproportionate to what I had lost. I decided there and then that, as animals obviously evoked irrational feelings in me, I was clearly not cut out to own one.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” I tell the dog. “You’re all dirty; please go back outside.

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