Thriller
3 min
The Zookeeper
Ailyn Zinn
Fragile
Delicate
Underdog
I've heard this same crap over and over, many times before. These same three labels follow me everywhere in hushed whispers, eyes gazing upon me with pity, or as they claim it "Empathy".
What they mean is,
Weak,
Sensitive,
Prey.
A tiny blade of grass chopped down by a lawn mower susceptible to blowing in the wind.
A beautiful painting hung up to be viewed but never touched in its frangible state.
A spectacle.
A woman.
When I walk the streets of this Zoo anyone could see what I mean. People like to make it their business to be in everybody else's and through that comes the tiniest things turned into the hugest scandal. Or I guess it's tiny to them considering it's not like they do anything about it.
But they know.
The zookeeper of our town is Truman. Truman Knot. A generic white male: privileged, handsome, kind, authoritative, organized. Someone who knows how to keep an image, or at least most people would assume.
I am Marigold Knot. A white woman and wife to Mayor Truman Knot, or at least that's how people know me. It seems to be my only personality trait, a wife.
Homeschooled from age five to eighteen and therefore deemed unsociable, you could say I played along as the unsociable housewife. That is how they saw me.
My makeup was perfect. I smiled and waved and I sat by my husband's side, a mask of acting to hide my shame, like a wilted flower held upright through a stake in the ground.
"Be a good wife", I thought.
I thought I was doing good. But that can never be enough, can it?
Nobody questioned it at first, the occasional bruise, a scratch on my arm, but it can only ever get worse from there.
Fun Fact: Even the strongest of foundation can't cover a bruise.
So there I was on display, this beaten and battered soul, left alone like one does an apple that has been dropped and bruised on the ground. But even apples get picked up. I never did.
Because you don't mess with the zookeeper. Instead you play along, looking through the glass at his small, captured animal.
A prisoner.
A victim.
And as I walk the streets of this town, this Zoo, people clear the way for me, watching as if I were an animal on the loose, and that same trail of whispers follows me, chaining me like a leash all animals should wear, the words fueling my anger.
The swirls of purple and blue shine in the sunlight and people gawk and stare as if they've never seen me in this state before.
I'm their delicate little flower.
Their point of gossip in this stupid town.
Emotional,
Reckless,
Quiet,
Shadowed.
I'm sick of it. These words claw at my heart, and I can't help but feel manipulated, played, forgotten and alone. If I stay silent, then I'm weak, like all the women around me. But if I say something, I'm emotional, unfeminine and possibly just naive to the true horrors of this world
All it does is add fuel to the fire.
I'm done staying silent and I am done being the scapegoat of this pathetic town. I feel no more sadness, only anger so sharp and so hot that I feel this deep pump of adrenaline and fury shiver through my veins like a high.
These words and whispers that follow me are silenced by the beating of my heart matched with the heavy thumping of my heels as my pace speeds up and my vision focused on one thing.
The door swings open without a sound, as silent as the love left inside of me, dead and boiled alive by my bubbling black hate. My eyes are focused forward as I ascend upon the freshly polished staircase that swirls up to our second story. A hushed chill brushes my arms, making goosebumps spring up, and I follow the draft to our bedroom, with its door split open.
I see him.
I can hear my heart pounding in my ears and red lines my vision at the sight of him.
He's asleep on our bed.
So careless and peaceful, undisturbed by the things he's done.
I cross the room.
My body shivers and I look at his hands, those same hands that carried out attack after attack.
Each bruise he ever gave me, every scrape and every way he ever scathed me throbs in pain, and I wait for the inevitable, the punishment for standing in his presence.
All this pain and pity and manipulation he hurled at me tears my insides binding me to these impossible assumptions. These assumptions, these expectations and these stereotypes, and the hope that I'm like them has torn me apart, into something I'm not and now it has brought me to this. Or is this what I was meant to become? Is this who I am? I don't know, but I'm done letting others decide for me.
I am anything but weak.
And now, I am anything but merciful.
Goodbye, Mr. Truman Knot. I hope your stupid expectations and dreams for a perfect American housewife die with you because it was my nightmare.
But don't worry about me. No one will know. After all, I am just delicate little Marigold.
And I am anything but remorseful.
This was an entry for a writing contest held in conjunction with Center for Fiction and The Decameron Project
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