Lily Hoang - Unfinished - stories finished by Lily Hoang

The others call her something, but that something varies from day to day.

Her husband calls her something; her children do as well.

She answers to anything.

She answers by nodding or blinking. She makes hand gestures. There is no order to her movements. Some days, a single finger raised to the sky can mean breakfast. Other days, it can mean tired. Other days still, it can mean circular building or car or beautiful.

Her silence is not a protest. It is not a sacrifice. It is something she simply did one day because she could no longer speak the language of the blood of Jesus.

The words refused to leave her mouth. The sound stuffed itself down her throat. It burned of suffocation. Even her chokes became silent.

Look: she is not a martyr.

There’s a devil inside her.

All around her, people go about their lives. They remain speaking. After they leave, their residue stays, and she goes sniffing. That is what she eats. She spits out all the good after chewing it beyond recognition. She gets all the nutrients without consuming. She does what the devil tells her.

The people who speak the language of the blood of Jesus do not like to think about her. They do not try to save her. She walks into their churches and their schools. She lets their children into her home to play with her devil-children and their devil-toys. She cooks them her devil-food. She does all of this, and they do not try to save her.

They take her devil-money and dye her devil-hair so that it looks natural.

She does all of this without sound.

She claps her hands and nothing. She starts her car and nothing. Everything she does comes out mute.

Her husband and children are not inherently evil, but she has been poisoning them with her devilspices for years and years. Even if they are not fully evil, there is no escaping what has been infused in their blood and saliva.

Her husband thinks of killing her.

But then, he goes to church and speaks the language of the blood of Jesus, and the thoughts are extracted.

He is still impure, but he is saved.

Her children think of killing her. They do not speak the language of the blood of Jesus. They will not be saved, not if she can help it.

Look: she did not ask for the devil to be inside her.

When she was a girl, she would look up: up to the broad sky of heaven. She would imagine herself there, floating against the sun. To those below, she would look like a dark freckle, a mole, a mark of beauty planted on the face of the sun.

Now, she sears when she touches.

Now, she can no longer crane her neck to look at the broad sky of heavens.

Now, she can only look down. The dirt and the dirty are her punishment. They are what the devil wants for her.

The devil gives her the ability to see.

Even though she is fairly sure he’s dead, she still stands there, her back against the refrigerator, watching him.

Her chest heaves. The little flowers printed on her dress flutter. It is, nonetheless, what she’s paid to do.

Although it’s never her intention to kill and, despite any regret she may or may not consequently feel, no amount of purely logical or even emotional reasoning has provided adequate ammunition to prevent murder.

She simply can’t stop herself.

Before she begins, she says, “Be gentle this time,” or “Try retain some control,” or “At the very minimum, don’t make such a mess.” But once the adrenaline begins moving around her body, she can’t stop herself. Then, there’s another dead body.

This ought to disappoint her. It doesn’t.

She does regret, however, that she is unable to enjoy the act of killing more.

Whereas her lack of self-control is what has allowed her the flexibility to kill without much personal effort or remorse, it also tends to blind her during the actual act of violence. One minute she steps into a room and sees her target, the next there is a huge mess room she must clean up. It’d kind of be like if you had to wash dishes (including pots and pans, and of course, you have to clean up the entire kitchen area!) for a dinner you weren’t allowed to eat, but from the dishes, you could tell it was a delicious, delectable, gourmet feast.

That’s kind of what it’s like for Pony.

Pony loves ax murders, mostly because of the strength required to make steel go through bone.

Pony tries to deny the legitimacy of her name by claiming that it was her nickname as a little girl — because she’d wanted a pony so badly as a child and couldn’t have one — but the truth of the matter is that her real name is Pony. And the great irony is that her story is completely untrue: as a girl, Pony did have a pony, that she aptly named Pony, even though he was a boy pony, and he was the very first creature Pony ever killed.

It’s quite possible that human Pony loved pony Pony.

But still: when Pony was six or seven — after she’d had Pony for a year or so — she murdered him without reason and without even the slightest hint of timidity or regret.

Other than killing her pony, Pony had a pretty normal childhood. She was an attractive girl, with flowing golden curls, which her mother always pinned up to the top of her head in the most magnificent patterns that would fall down the nape of her neck and along her face just so, and an adorable face everyone had to pinch so it could be a little rosier. And surely, it didn’t hurt that she had such a unique name — Pony! That’s divine! — to fit such a perfect little girl.

Come to think of it, she was a pretty normal teenager too. She did all the things attractive little girls did when they grow up. She was in the dance team, dated a few football players — although she really did prefer the nerdy boys who ran cross-country — and got good grades in all her Honors classes. In all respects, she was the average beautiful girl. Nothing she did excelled beyond expectation, but only because the bar is set higher for girls who begin life with a certain amount of privilege, both financial and physical.

But Pony didn’t mind. She simply did what came naturally for her. She didn’t have to study too hard for her grades or practice too much to become co-captain of her dance team. She didn’t have to flirt too heavily to get boys to ask her out, and her cries never became sobs when they broke up. No, Pony had a pleasant though utterly mediocre life.

Then came college.

She went to a good, prestigious small liberal arts college where she had to face her first truly difficult decision: which innocuous major she wanted more: English, History or Communications. Nonetheless, a decision was made and she graduated in the expected four years with some honors attached to her name. Her professors enjoyed her in classes, though they could hardly articulate why. She had a few more boyfriends, her most recent on his way to law school at Columbia. Pony had very little to complain about.

And the truth of it is that she didn’t complain.

But then came the day she had to decide what to do with the rest of her life. Like most college students who major in the liberal arts, she didn’t particularly think about how her degree would necessarily lead to a career.

One day, Pony lamented to her mother the futility of the concept of work.

She had been surviving — rather lavishly — on her parents’ dime for a year since graduating.

Not that her parents minded.

They were patient and enjoyed the luxury of providing for their daughter.

Pony said, “You’re generous now, but how long do you think it could really last?”

Her mother said, “It can last as long as you want it to. We don’t mind it, really we don’t.”

“But what can I do? I’m not good at anything in particular. I’m good at everything and nothing at all!”