Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

fast, just rammed it down, and I feel surprise, this one second

o f complete surprise in which, without words, I want to know

the meaning o f this, his intention; there’s one second o f

awesome, shocking surprise and then I go under, it’s black,

there’s nothing, coma, death, complete black under the

ground or past life altogether in a region o f nothing without

shadows o f life or m em ory or dreams or fear or time, there’s

nothing, it’s perfect, cold, absolute nothing. When I wake up I

think I am dead. I begin to see the walls, barely, I barely see

them, and I see I’m in a room like the room I was in when I was

alive and I think this is what death is like, the same but yo u ’re

dead, the same but you stay here forever alone, the same walls

but you barely see them and the same place where you died,

the same body, but it’s not real, it’s not alive, it doesn’t feel

real, it’s cold and shadowy and yo u ’re there alone for all the

rest o f time cut o ff from the living and it’s empty, your d o g’s

not here in the room in death, in the cold, shaky, shadowy

room, it’s an imitation in shadows o f where you were but it’s

em pty o f her and you will be here alone forever, lonely for her,

there’s no puppies with the dead, no solace; you wake up and

you know yo u ’re dead; and alone. O nly m y eyes m ove but

they barely see, the walls look the same but I barely see them;

tim e’s nothing here; it stands still; it’s not changing, never;

yo u ’re like a m um m y but with m oving eyes scanning the

shadowy walls, but barely seeing them; and then the pain

comes; the astonishing pain, like someone skinned the inside

o f your throat, took a knife and lifted the skin o ff inside so it’s

raw, all blood, all torn, the muscles are ripped open, ragged,

stretched and pulled, you’re all ripped up inside as if you had

been torn apart inside and under your throat there’s a deep pain

as if it’s been deep cut, deep sliced, as if there’s some deadly

sickness down there, a contagion o f long-suffering death, an

awful illness, a soreness that verges on having all the nerves in

your body up under your throat and someone’s crushed

broken glass into them and there’s a physical anguish as if

someone poured gasoline down your throat and lit it; an

eternal fire; deep fire; deep pain. I felt the pain, and as the pain

got sharper and deeper and stronger and meaner, the walls got

clearer, I saw them clearer and they stayed still, and as the pain

got worse, crueler, I could feel the bed under me and m y old

drunk body and I figured out that I was probably alive and

time had passed and I must o f been out, in a coma,

unconscious, suspended in nothing except whatever’s cold

and black past actual life, and I couldn’t move and I wanted my

dog but I couldn’t call out for her or make any sound, even a

rasping sound, and I couldn’t raise m yself up to see where she

was although in m y mind I could see her all curled up in her

corner o f the room at the foot o f the mattress, being good,

being quiet, how she curled her head around to her tail and the

sweet, sad look on her face, how she’d just sit thinking with

her sweet, melancholy look and I hoped she’d come and lick

me and I wondered if she needed to be walked again yet but if

she did she’d be around me and I’d manage it, I swear I would,

and I wondered if she was hungry yet and I made a promise in

m y heart never to put her in danger with a stranger again, with

an unknown person, never to take a chance with her again, I

couldn’t understand what kind o f a man it was because it

wasn’t on m y map o f the world and I ain’t got a child’s map, did

he like it, to ram it down to kill me, a half second brutality o f

something o ff the map that didn’t even exist anywhere even

between men and wom en or with Nazis; and I don’t know if

he did other things, I can’t feel nothing or smell nothing, he

could have done anything, I don’t feel nothing near m y

vagina, I try to feel with m y fingers, if it’s wet, if it’s dirty, i f it

hurts, but everything’s numb except m y throat, the hurt o f it,

I’m thinking he could have done anything, fucked me or

masturbated on me or peed on me, I w ouldn’t know , I’m

feeling for semen or wet places with m y fingers but I can’t

m ove because m y throat can’t m ove or the pain implodes,

there can’t be a single tremor even, I can’t lift m yself up and I

know I’ll never know and I push it out o f m y mind, that I will

never know; I push it out and I am pulled under by the pain

because m y throat’s crushed into broken bits and it’s lit with

kerosene and the fire’s spreading up m y neck to m y brain, a

spreading field o f fire going up into m y cranial cavity and it’s

real fire, and probably the pain’s seeping out onto the floor and

spreading, it’s red and bloody or it’s orange and hot; penis

smashed me up; I fall back into the cold, black nothing,

grateful; and later I wake up, it’s night but I don’t know o f

what day except m y dog would’ve come by me, I’d remember

her by me, but I wake up and it’s hollow, m y life’s hollow, I

got an em pty life, I’m alive and it’s empty, she’s gone, I raise

m yself up on m y elbow and I look, I keep looking, there’s a

desolation beyond the burdens o f history, a sadness deeper

than any shame. I’ll take the physical pain, Lord, I deserve it,

double it, triple it, make it more, but bring her back, don’t let

him hurt her, don’t make her gone. I look, I keep looking, I

keep expecting her, that she will be there if I look hard enough

or God will hear me and the boy will walk through the door

saying he ju st walked her and I pray to just let him bring her

back, ju st let him walk in the door; ju st this; days could go by

and I w ouldn’t know ; he’ll be innocent in m y eyes, I swear. I

hallucinate her and I think she’s with me and I reach out and

she’s not real and then I fall back into the deep blackness and

when I wake up I look for her, I wait for her; I’m waiting for

her now. M y throat’s like some small animal nearly killed,

maimed for religious slaughter, a small, nearly killed beast, a

poor warm-blooded thing hurt by some ritual but I never

heard o f the religion, there’s deep sacrifice, deep pain. I can’t

move because the poor thing’d shake near to torture; it’s got to