Lily Hoang: Invisible Women

He reached to open the palace door. He knew that she was lethal and yet he desired to see the face that had killed more than a thousand men. He dropped the thick blanket covering his eyes and he began to weep until there was nothing left to him but bone.

He loved for the little bird. He cared for her. He chewed her food for her and drizzled slowly it into her little beak. Most of the time, the bird spit it back in his eye, but he was not offended. He loved the little bird.

Life was wonderful for this small family unit for days. He would often crawl into her birdhouse and spoon her when the nights were coldest.

Then, on the fifth day of their harmonious union, she fell out of a second story window and broke her neck.

Or maybe she didn’t fall. Maybe she jumped.

To the old haggard of a woman, I said, “Old haggard of a woman, you have almost done as I have asked. You have taken your eyes out and pulled out all of your teeth, but I still see a shard of shining white in your mouth, your mouth which is fowl with blood and stink. I find you disgusting, but I can ascertain that you have indeed attempted to do as I have told you. I am a kind girl, old woman, and I will fulfill my end of the bargain, even though you did not. I will pity you with my kindness.”

The old woman smiled and her mouth brimmed with slime.

She was not an uncaring or cold princess and she, being lonely for so long, took the young knight in her arms and connected her lips to his. She transferred as much of her spit into his mouth as she could. She did this until her throat was coarse. The knight stopped weeping, but it was still quite clear that he was dying.

The princess ran to the fountain and scooped water out by the handful and ran to the knight and fed it to him. Slowly, he gained color. Slowly, he gained strength. And the princess continued her running from knight to fountain, which was no small journey, but she was determined to save him, her last hope for a friend.

It took many years for the young knight to fully recover, but it mattered not because he had consumed nothing but fountain water so he looked as youthful as the day he knocked on the palace door, and the princess, she had legs and hands of pure muscle from her many trips from fountain to knight. She was certainly kind and caring, but she was not smart, and for this reason alone, once the knight was strong enough to walk, he slapped her once across the face for not dragging his lithe body to fountain, thereby saving nearly a decade of running, then he kissed her and returned all the sour spit she had so altruistically given him nearly forty years earlier.

He took a vow that day. He swore that never again would he save another being. In fact, he swore destruction on the world. It was his sole mission to kill all things sweet and kind.

That is how he came to reside with us.

They did not live happily after, but they did live together — he constantly reminding her how stupid she was for lack of education and she ever reminding him that though she may be dumb, she saved his life. In many ways, theirs was a peaceful union, and if nothing else, they were by far the most handsome and youthful rulers in the entire world, although none could actually see her.

But after centuries of rule, the young princess became quite bored with the young knight. She looked at him and said, “Darling, I’ve become bored with you.”

He said, “And I with you. I can’t believe there was once a time when your beauty killed men. Now, you’re so average.”

He said this without thinking, and she knew this instantaneously. So did he.

There was not a pause. She did it without hesitation.

She dropped her veil and her shades, and all of her clothes fell off of her body, and he began to wail.

And that is how she came to reside with us. That is how she came to snore and grind her pretty teeth all day and all night.

The old woman smiled and her mouth was slimy, which I hate. I hate slime. I hate things that shine. But as quickly as she smiled, her mouth opened widely, as if she wanted to swallow me in one fell swoop, but then her eyes caught the empty holes where eyes once were directly behind me. Thousands of them. I hate to brag, but many beggars have come to knock on my door and I offer them a warm bath and company and they in turn remove their teeth and eyes and once they enter my home and I remove their slime, they no longer live. I do not kill them. They simply stop living.

This old woman though, she was different. I had a kinship to her. I felt a warmth that I have not felt since my dear brother stopped living. So I said, “Old woman, here are your teeth and your eyes. Screw them back into place, but only if you promise to live with me for ever after here and play with me every day. Old woman, I make you this offer, but you must not try to eat me. You must play with me and all my dead old beggar men.”

The old woman smiled and hungrily grabbed for her teeth. She sharpened the roots into thumbtacks and put them all back into her mouth. “Now, dear girl,” she said, “do you have any floss?”

This woman sleeping down the hall, it is my duty to kill her. It is true that I live in a house filled with murderers and evildoers, and it is true that we take turns torturing our guests, and when there are no guests, we play games such as Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit to pass time. We are a family, and I have never killed a woman. Before I was an adolescent, I had seen scores of beggar men die, and I mounted their dead heads on my wall for decoration, but I did this only because my parents left me with no paintings when they deserted me.

But now I must do what I must do, and I wish to do it without an audience, so if you please.

The woman down the hall is the woman you have dreamt about for years and years. She is the woman you are always chasing, the one who always escapes even after you tackle the soft cloth of her dress. She removes her shoes to remain soundless, save for her heavy breath, which to this day, you remember. You don’t want this, but this is what you have. You are infatuated with this woman down the hall, and even though she is real, you will never catch her. Even though she lives right down the hall, you will never see her when you are awake. She will evade you, always managing to slip away when you desire her most.

The woman down the hall has a shallow voice, and if sound were a box, hers would be covered in the tiniest sliver of coating.

Only yesterday, the woman down the hall took all of our marbles. She did not trade them, as any decent woman would. No, she stole them, and we let her. We let her take all our marbles like we’d never played marbles before in our whole entire pathetic lives.

The woman down the hall received an oracle that told her that the fetus she was not yet carrying would one day grow to kill her husband and violently rape her. The oracle then said that she would bear another son — at once son and grandson — who would avenge his grandfather’s murder by slaying her husband-son during the act of fornication.

At this, the woman down the hall laughed and laughed until her teeth fell out one at a time. She looked at the fortuneteller, the oracle, and asked, Now who will love me? You fool!