November 2008
Something to Do With Sebastian by Douglas Lind
A Rainy Night of Density with a Reckless Neurotic by Richey Piiparinen
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DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us
A Feast for Athene
by Sarah Hilary
Nigella’s on the television, flirting with figs and cream, her head cocked like a spaniel’s. Her cinched waist supports a coquettish roll of fat; I want to pinch it like the crust on an uncooked pie.
I’m bulleting peas into a bowl, green shells piling at my feet. I’ll tidy when I’m done. That’s the way I work, make the mess then clean it up. A solitary pea misses its target, barrels beneath the dresser. I feel a pang for its freedom. Later, I shall track it to earth, armed with my canister of killer spray. You could eat off the floor in here but you won’t, wanting your supper on the table at seven prompt. If Nigella can do it, why not me? Whip up a delicious little something to tickle your taste-buds after a hard day’s grind.
Had I Salome’s style, I’d serve your head on a pewter plate garnished by its own sweetbreads.
Try telling Nigella meat is murder. Mouth-watering, Michelin-star-studded murder. You say she’s a Real Woman, whatever that is. I feel no more kinship for this culinary volupturess than I do for her skinny celebrity confederates. All we’ve done is swap one tyranny for another. I cannot cook, my hair does not bounce, I have no cleavage to heave.
Domestic goddess? I’m Athene. War and wisdom, that’s my bag. Before you start, tell me whose idea it was to celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary in varieties of olive oil? Who thought a meat tenderiser a cute birthday present? I recognise an act of war when I see one.
I have counted the teeth on my meat tenderiser. There are forty-two. I’ve scoured the steel indents, all the places food and germs might lurk. I’ve practised my back-swing, imagined the moment of impact. Skull fracture, depressed. In my dreams, I have spilled the white meal of your brain and seen its jelly quake.
I have my cans, a spray for every stain. I can make the place shine again when I am done, a forensic gleam to baffle the keenest eye.
It’s your birthday next Wednesday. You’ll be forty-two. Same number as the teeth on my tenderiser. Let’s see if I can’t whip up something special, shall we?
A Feast for Athene is copyrighted 2007 by Sarah Hilary and may not be reproduced under any circumstances without the author's permission.