|
Quarter-Light -- ©Brenda Carter  After a few of these stories, I start to feel sick, stifled, claustrophobic, alone. I, who spent decades of my life "in the closet," finally understand how fully the phrase describes what can be felt in the body.
The authors obviously intended their stories to be read, but I can't help feeling like a voyeur who sits by and watches while others attempt to exercise control over the unbearable by slicing their arms with razor blades or refusing food as the flesh evaporates from their bones. The thought of Sandy, isolated inside her head, putting herself through homophobic rituals of self abuse, appalls me. The fact that she prescribes the same course of action to others is more than I can deal with, more than I can reconcile with the cousin I have loved all my life. I turn off the computer, but the queasy feeling of having seen something shameful stays with me for days. *** Out of loyalty to Sandy and her secrets, I don't talk to anyone but Rin about my troubles. But when another week passes without word from Ojai, my pent-up emotions get such a bad case of cabin fever that I phone my friend Jonelle for help. After I finish the whole sad story, Jonelle asks in her evil-dyke voice, "Do you want me to shoot her for you?"
|
