Dante's Heart
Ross E. Lockhart
Bitch
Once a month, I turn into a real bitch. I’m not talking about my menstrual
cycle; I’d just as soon trade that in for a Yamaha. No, this is beyond
hyperbole. Full moon comes and I turn into a slavering, hairy monster with
an appetite for meat and mayhem.
Which really sucks, since I’m a vegan.
It happened after me and Megan got kicked out of the city, maybe three
months after we hooked up with Marker and his crew. Gendercrime, they
called it. Girls aren’t supposed to fall in love with girls, let alone share a kiss
in the War Pavilion with the Founders’ statues watching. Imagine, a kiss, an
act of treason. Since we weren’t going to be supplicant little breeders, they
dropped us over the wall, pointed toward the barrens, and said, “Get out.”
Exiled from Eden, an angel with a flaming sword to bar the way back home.
We dusted off our shoes, threw the city the finger, then picked up our bags,
our meager possessions, and marched off to the Barrens, and beyond
that, the Shambles, a ruined city from the world that used to be.
Megan and I set up a squat in a ruined high-rise. One whole wall, a dozen
stories high, was peeled away, open to the elements, providing a view of the
streets below. During the day, we scavenged, claiming canned food from
abandoned mini-marts and supermarkets. Nights, we hid, at least for most
of the first month, barricaded in our cozy squat, protected from all the
horrors that we’d learned about back home, the monsters of the Shambles:
rape gangs, mutants, ghosts wandering the burned-out city. It was tough, but
we got each other through. We dredded our hair, decorating it with bits of
wire, beads, coins. We painted our faces, our bodies with ash and charcoal,
like savages, Petra Pan’s Lost Girls. I let Megan carve her name into my
shoulder, inch-and-a-half block letters, as beautiful as she, then rubbed in
ash to make it permanent. She was home. We’d spend our time making up
songs, telling stories, claiming we didn’t miss the life we’d left behind.
And then, one night, we heard music. It wasn’t like back home, glee-club
chorales and solemn hymns for church. No, this was different: heavy beat,
electric, syncopated, celebratory, psychopomp sounds. Pure bliss. We
followed the music to the building’s edge, then gazed out onto an awesome
sight. Under a full moon, a mass of celebrants danced, their painted bodies
writhing to the beat, balefires casting shadows onto the ruined buildings’
canyon walls. Below us we could see an array of couples: women dancing
with men, men dancing with men, women with women, trios, and more.
“Hell yeah,” said Megan. “It’s a party.” I protested, telling her that we
should stay in the squat, but she just took my hands, kissed them, then led
me down the building’s sin-dark stairs and onto the cracked streets.
Page 2
Bitch
Once a month, I turn into a real bitch. I’m not talking about my menstrual
cycle; I’d just as soon trade that in for a Yamaha. No, this is beyond
hyperbole. Full moon comes and I turn into a slavering, hairy monster with
an appetite for meat and mayhem.
Which really sucks, since I’m a vegan.
It happened after me and Megan got kicked out of the city, maybe three
months after we hooked up with Marker and his crew. Gendercrime, they
called it. Girls aren’t supposed to fall in love with girls, let alone share a kiss
in the War Pavilion with the Founders’ statues watching. Imagine, a kiss, an
act of treason. Since we weren’t going to be supplicant little breeders, they
dropped us over the wall, pointed toward the barrens, and said, “Get out.”
Exiled from Eden, an angel with a flaming sword to bar the way back home.
We dusted off our shoes, threw the city the finger, then picked up our bags,
our meager possessions, and marched off to the Barrens, and beyond
that, the Shambles, a ruined city from the world that used to be.
Megan and I set up a squat in a ruined high-rise. One whole wall, a dozen
stories high, was peeled away, open to the elements, providing a view of the
streets below. During the day, we scavenged, claiming canned food from
abandoned mini-marts and supermarkets. Nights, we hid, at least for most
of the first month, barricaded in our cozy squat, protected from all the
horrors that we’d learned about back home, the monsters of the Shambles:
rape gangs, mutants, ghosts wandering the burned-out city. It was tough, but
we got each other through. We dredded our hair, decorating it with bits of
wire, beads, coins. We painted our faces, our bodies with ash and charcoal,
like savages, Petra Pan’s Lost Girls. I let Megan carve her name into my
shoulder, inch-and-a-half block letters, as beautiful as she, then rubbed in
ash to make it permanent. She was home. We’d spend our time making up
songs, telling stories, claiming we didn’t miss the life we’d left behind.
And then, one night, we heard music. It wasn’t like back home, glee-club
chorales and solemn hymns for church. No, this was different: heavy beat,
electric, syncopated, celebratory, psychopomp sounds. Pure bliss. We
followed the music to the building’s edge, then gazed out onto an awesome
sight. Under a full moon, a mass of celebrants danced, their painted bodies
writhing to the beat, balefires casting shadows onto the ruined buildings’
canyon walls. Below us we could see an array of couples: women dancing
with men, men dancing with men, women with women, trios, and more.
“Hell yeah,” said Megan. “It’s a party.” I protested, telling her that we
should stay in the squat, but she just took my hands, kissed them, then led
me down the building’s sin-dark stairs and onto the cracked streets.
Page 2
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