Kate Zambreno - Green Girl

End of her shift. How did I do? A little girl, still wanting to please. Fine, fine, said Alice. We’ll give you a call.

The end is near! The end is near!

She escapes into Oxford Street. In the opposite direction of the crowd she fights her way through. People pushing against her pressing against her. She jabs her way through a river of bodies, a dance of elbows and arms and knees. There is a commotion. She hears the clang of the Hare Krishnas approaching. They are pouring down the street a parade of tambourines and drums. They are gleeful, children, men, women, bodies, bodies, bodies. They are carrying a wizened old man above their arms. They are dancing, clapping, singing. They are handing out plates of sweets to passersby. Tourists are stopping pointing taking their picture.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Ruth turns the other way and begins to follow them, walking on the street. She is taken up by the masses of bodies. She is one of many in the crowds. She is lost in the crowd. She wants to lose herself to lose herself.

For wherever you go I will go…

The end is near! The end is near! Her Oxford Circus preacher.

The crowd envelops her. More bodies, bodies, bodies. The crowd envelops her. She cannot breathe. She cannot breathe. A shudder goes through her. She gasps for breath.

Hare Hare Hare

Save yourselves! Save yourselves!

An immense violence is stirring inside of her amidst the turmoil of the street. A warmth inside. She grows dizzy and weak. She fingers her tiny stub of a ponytail. Oh, to shave it off to shave it all off. To be reborn. To be wiped clean.

If I could smash that thing that houses me inside of myself.

To disappear. A delirious death. She is drunk with this sense of abandon. She throws herself into the crowd. It is beginning to rain, a warm rain. The dingy day now thick with humidity. The robes of the Hare Krishnas dotted translucent. They form a circle. She doesn’t know what she is doing. She is closing her eyes, she is throwing her arms up above her head, she is swaying back and forth, back and forth. She is dancing round and round in a circle. The ecstasy of commotion.

Such joy, such joy, such joy.

I want to go to a church she thinks. I want to sit in a church and let the white light bathe me. It doesn’t matter what church, what religion. It would be best if I did not understand the mumbling pleas directed up high. I want to go to a church and direct my eyes up high and open my arms open my arms up to the ceiling. And scream. And scream. And scream.

FIN

Many thanks to: Bryan Tomasovich and his team at Emergency Press, Mairead Case, Dakota Brown, Amy Scholder, Lidia Yuknavitch, Kate Durbin, Pam Lu, Angela Simione, Bett Williams, Gina Abelkop, my colleagues in the Fiction Department at Foyles Bookshop, especially Tammy Petroff, my mother, and again to John.

The production of Green Girl was supported by the Antioch Media and Publishing Center in Seattle.