Phyllis Konieczko: "At Dawn"

Fatal words. Cruel destiny. Why, oh why did she ask the boy to accompany her to her chambers? Did she not know that the male sex causes naught but havoc and should best be kept in cages? Alas, she should learn, and she should learn in a harsh and horrid manner. Gruesome is the tide of time, gruesome yet instructive in its unrelenting ebb and flow. And stern are the gods of fate, armed with canes and moved by the ceaseless throbbing of stony hearts. One late Winter night, the moon was sinking and the stars were pale, a woman invited, growing tired of the party that whirled around her in full swing and empty conversations, a man to take her home in the hope of entertainment and stimulation. Both cruised the dance floor with its throbbing light and general odour of pleasure and perspiration. Both kept to the shadows, not because they shunned the light but because the light, jealous of their internal radiance, nervously shunned them. Both carried their Übermensch-hood with gleaming pride and Umlaut among the writhing bodies of those who did not qualify for the noble and sublime. Yet they knew, and only this justified their presence at the festivity, that those numb masses too must exist, the crowds of those revelling in median sub-humanity and roaming, wantonly and gormlessly, in the undergrowth of both intellectual and emotional development: only then, their heart-and-mind-sprouts, green and tender, assured them, true soulful power, be it the composition of groovy poetry or a general sense of self-reflective inwardness, may stand out like the piercing fir or the steadfast oak. As the night rolled and rocked in the cradle of space,

da.sein.cain:the_vengeance_of_myth_against_its_conquerors

&

ImmanuelaCunt:do.we.think.emily.dickinson’s.ghost.is.mad.at.me?she/they

simultaneously escaped to the balcony, shrinking cigarettes between their lips and growing ideas between their ears, blowing blue clouds towards the heavens, and catching the moonlight in the sweat-pearls on their brows. They uttered words in bashful nonchalance. Yes, they impressed each other with general observations, and expressed a healthy, yet possibly inebriated, interest in intimacy and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Thus, alas.

Thus, alas, when the party ended and the first vomiting creature drew a line of slimy lumps between the lovebirds on the balcony, the woman asked for company, and the story took its course! Lo! Lo and behold! The Uber swayed like a deep-sea-vessel on streets made of cracked asphalt! Kissing is hard in these circumstances, for with every bump you might bite off your beloved’s tongue. Once the destination was nigh, once the car spat out the lovers and the dark hallway swallowed them, once they mounted the staircase to mount each other in her apartment’s snuggly privacy, dawn begun to hold court: the sky frowned slightly, furrowed her brow, blushed a bit, then bruised as if some spirit had kissed her neck to hungrily. The morning star appeared, quaking like a firefly punctured by a thorn. Some birds sung. The star spread her feeble light from the depths of space, so far away, like an overheard conversation, like the whisper of a babe who falls asleep, like the moan that lives beneath fallen leaves, like a poem drowned in ink, like a song lost on a tongue, like a bite that wants to be a kiss, like a blackberry pressed between probing fingers, like a dinosaur freezing under a younger sky, like a skin on milk, like a lie, like an IPA, like all the bloody coughing that awaits at the far end of tomorrow. They shut the window blades. He came in to freak out. She had come out as bi a while ago and her guest was the exception to a new set of sapphic conventions. The man ran his fingernails experimentally over the woman’s inner thigh. The woman opened her mouth to invite into its cavern the man’s tongue. A playlist played on someone’s phone but the phone-owner was poor, and so advertisements syncopated the careful flow of songs. The man sat on the woman. They licked each other’s faces to the sound of a nice voice recommending fishfingers. The woman said, her hair a fiery halo on the off-white linen:

I am afraid I don’t have any condoms in this house and thus hope that you girded yourself appropriately for those hypothetical erotic encounters you doubtlessly had in mind when attending the party where our paths serendipitously crossed. - The man, jerking, negated any seemly arrangement and smiled toothily. Raising her brows and lowering her legs, the woman repeated her request for proper protection. But the man did not listen, too swollen were penis and ego! Instead, he snarled and increased some pressure on his host’s rump. What else was left to do, then, the woman reasoned, but to shake him of with a sudden movement, to sharply bend her knee and to kick his crotch in an attempt to place herself in a more comfortable position. Of course, she knew how to kick, and everything worked out very well. The male wheezed with pain and fell sidewards, which allowed the woman to sit up and cast the evil eye on the perpetrator. Yet what did this evil eye see! With such a gracious force had she kicked the man’s groin that his penis had fallen off and now floundered on the ground like a waterless fish. The man himself, with widely opened mouth, gaped at his severed dick and trembled ferociously until he fell towards the ground. There, he remained in stupor and stupidity. Boy, it is a very evil thing to insist on penetrating most if not all orifices without a condom to shield yourself and your mate from pregnancy and/or all kinds of diseases! Now you lie on the ground, emasculated in just rage! It all started in harmless, tender friskiness. Yet the entitlement you drank with your mother- or father-milk might have brought an untimely end upon you. For who knows if your heart still beats under your breast, Bacchus’ frenzied fluids coursing in your veins, pain between your legs and panic in your mind. A cocktail of deadly despair. The woman gasped a bit and rubbed her eyes. But then a high-pitched voice made her jolt. Finally free, something squeaked faintly, yet audibly in the shadows of her room. Where did the squeak come from? Was this all but a dream? Yet here she was, there lied the man, and yonder the wriggling penis – the penis! With widened eyes the woman scrutinized the member. And indeed! The urethral opening of the glans formed, like a lipless mouth, sounds of screeching joy: I am free, I am free. Liberated from the beast to which I was attached. Why, oh why do I not have eyes to cast them upon the figure of my redeemer. - The woman was appalled but went with the flow. Who are you?, she asked with subtle irritation. I am a penis, replied the penis. I gathered that, said the woman, but why do you speak? - Why should I not, the penis whooped, the Day of Deliverance has come upon me! Why should I remain silent in the face of such delight! I assume your courageous leg must have so gloriously severed me from the parasite that was attached to my slender beauty. Thanks to you, gracious lady. - For a few moments, the woman remained silent. What shall we do now?, she finally uttered. - Let’s get rid of this monstrous creature, the penis replied, and bended itself slightly into the direction of the collapsed man. You must have some cupboard for these or similar purposes. The woman agreed: a limp body is a sorry sight, and anger still boiled in her heart when her glance fell upon The Guy. She seized him by the arms, felt a faint, yet steady pulse pounding in his wrists, and hauled him towards her wardrobe where she stowed him, with little effort, for she was strong and he naught but a flyweight, away between winter coats and dungarees. While you are here, the woman said, picking up the penis and taking place on her bed, why don’t we pick up right where the rest of you left off a few minutes ago. If not Eros with his love-arrows, then his divine mother with her prurient roses stirs in my intestines. - I do not mind, said the penis, but am surprised by your sudden change of mood! Just an instance ago, you seemed quite intimidated by my sight or, rather, eloquence. Therefore, I must confess a certain astonishment regarding your forwardness! - You really are a dick, the woman cried. My desire is no forwardness; it is an honest invitation which you disrespect with your chatter. Yes, you are an unusual sight, but the sun has already risen, and I don’t see any problem in insisting on what I intended to do already quite a while ago had your master not turned out to be an utter ruffian! - He was not my master, dearest, the penis declared huffily. I was, as commonly known, his master, or mistress. I do not enjoy, it must be said, association with an exclusive position within the binarized system of sexual differentiation for which I apparently became the ultimate signifier. Anyway, the previous problem of, if I remember correctly, the lack of apt protection is not altogether solved. Since the testicles are still attached to me, I’d recommend a quick surgical removal to halt sperm production. Then we may succumb to sweet gambol.

Will these scissors work?

I think so.

Okay.

Soon, a lot of pleasure made the walls quiver, and the rising sun blushed in coy bashfulness. Indeed, a night of terrors, yet also a night of joy was brought upon the woman. The penis she kept in formaldehyde, the man she forgot for a few days and then ate. In a harsh and horrid manner did she learn of the evilness of this world and the secrets of the flesh, yet she also took good care of her own well-being without yielding to untoward compromise. Yes, the police found her, but self-defence is self-defence. And the penis testified as a, though eye-less, eyewitness.

Phyllis Konieczko (and sometimes Koehler) holds a PhD on trauma and hysteria from the University of Cambridge. Her poems, essays, and translations have been published or are forthcoming in Expat Press; New Feathers; CR: The New Centennial Review; Narrative; and Publications of the English Goethe Society.