A False Sense of Finality

Clarissa Marie Clark moved from station to station across the living room, retractable feather duster in hand. The end table, the crystal lamp, the window sill—at each station, she worked her thumb on the mechanism to extend the feathers, flick, retract. Extend the feathers, swipe, retract. Extend the feathers, swish, retract.

It wasn’t like her daughter not to call. No matter how busy she was in her life as a college student, surely she could always make time for her mommy.

The feathers blossomed each time, exploding outward like the petals of a daisy in a time lapse series. They seemed to bubble over with joy, the duster happily anticipating its next task.

Which is precisely why she quickly retracted the thing after each swish, swipe or flick, dragging the feathers and the creature they comprised back into the tube, squeezing, squashing, compressing all the joy out of them until their existence was necessary again a moment later.

Or several moments later.

Or next week.

That was the essence of Clarissa’s joy. The thing itself, the feather duster, couldn’t know whether the most recent flick was its last for the moment or the week or forever.

That’s what made it all worthwhile.

That and the act itself of retracting the feathers.

Sometimes she watched as she retracted the feathers. She tried never to let on that she was watching, but sometimes she became too engaged to care.

Sometimes she caught herself touching the tip of her tongue to the center of her upper lip in nervous anticipation as the feathers were slowly dragged back in.

Sometimes tiny beads of perspiration appeared on her upper lip and nose and forehead as the gossamer strands clawed at the edges of the tube, striving not to be dragged away. She could almost hear them screaming, pleading, being crushed out of existence.

Sometimes she emitted a long, soft sigh as the tip of the feathers, once splayed out over a foot-square area, were compressed and reduced and crushed and compacted, filling the end of a half-inch diameter tube.

The retraction of the feathers, the smug eradication of their unbridled joy, was exquisite. It was her calling in life, crushing them, erasing them and the faces she’d envisioned among them.

Retracting them was pleasing in its own right, but she took great pleasure in going that extra mile. Each time she retracted them, she switched the knob of the little mechanism to the right a quarter-inch, effectively locking the feathers in the cold, dark tube. The mechanism emitted a minuscule, sharp snap, providing a satisfying if false sense of finality.

That the sense of finality was false made the little death no less satisfying.

It was a way to commit murder without having to find a new victim.

The faces she saw among the feathers were always the same, although they appeared in different order from one time to the next.

It was easy to smile as she imagined her father being retracted into the tube. Likewise it was easy to imagine retracting into the tube her uncles, either or both of them, and her mother, for that matter, who knew but chose to remain silent in favor of decorum.

And she couldn’t forget her siblings, who were both older and more frightened, and whom she could recognize most easily by looking at their backs.

Then there were the guys in college who set the tone for the cliché and literally never called her back. Especially the one she overheard laughing about it as he walked into the bar just before he realized she was sitting at a table alone, nursing a screwdriver.

What was it he called her before he realized she was listening?

No, she wouldn’t allow the thought in. It was hurtful.

And there was the chemistry professor who thought he was God’s gift and who gave her a C on her term paper even after... well, after she had done that thing he had told her she had to do to increase her grade to a B.

A tear appeared in the corner of her eye and she squeezed the feather duster, squeezed the tube, hard. Then she relaxed her grip and worked the mechanism, sliding it all the way forward, extending the feathery petals, watching them blossom out.

She put the faces on the feathers at the tips and started to pull the slide to the rear.

No. That wasn’t right. There was nothing to compact. The feathers, sure, their gossamer strands straining at the edges, that was all right, but people don’t have gossamer strands. When people are compacted you should damn well be able to tell.

She extended the duster again. All the way out, all the way, watching it bloom into its stupid, bubbling, overjoyed self yet again. Then she put faces on the feathers at the tips again. Then she added shoulders.

Shoulders. Without shoulders there was nothing to compact really. Shoulders aren’t gossamer. Shoulders don’t just flow into each other. Shoulders have to be crushed and ground, the skin, muscle, bone compressed into mush.

Shoulders have to be compacted into themselves and into the shoulders and faces of the others, compacted into a brackish red roll of stuff disappearing into the tube.

She grinned. In a sing-song tone she said, “There can be no satisfaction without absolute compaction, with the faces and the shoulders and the rest, so when you need the satisfaction of an absolute compaction, reach for the duster that’s the best. Ta ta.” She flicked the duster twice in rhythm with the ditty.

Then she retracted it and laughed. For a moment she wondered whether her daughter might call soon.

She extended the blossoming duster again. It was nice to have choices, and if she had nothing else she had choices. With the faces and shoulders hers for the picking, she could take them one at a time or all at once.

She could center her father in the gizmo, then drag the mechanism back and watch as the feathers closed on him, slicing and slashing him, the mechanism dragging him inexorably back into the void.

She could center her uncles with him, or either or both of them, or her mother, all with the same effect except that her father and her uncles were mostly bald and her mother had that long, luxurious hair that would easily blend with the feathers.

She could center her siblings and the college boys and the professor, singly or in any combination, and watch with glee as he or she or they were smashed into mush and sluiced into the void of the half-inch tube.

She could watch it all over and over in different combinations and never tire. They would never disappear completely down that little tube. She could pull them into it, crush and suffocate them there, and a moment later spit them out and do it all over again.

That little death, that overwhelming if false sense of finality, was full and complete and, as her chemistry professor was fond of saying, was able to be replicated to verify results.

That was maybe the best part. She could replicate it to verify results. It wasn’t like it was a one-off kind of a thing. She might go through two or three or seven stations in her dusting without interrupting the task to enjoy the sensation of crushing worthless creatures in that half-inch tube. Or she might repeat the entire scene again in a moment. Or tomorrow. Or next week.

No, that it could be replicated wasn’t the best part. Anticipating the replication, that was the best part. Who could ask for more than that? After all, the lead-up, the planning and plotting, the justification of the necessity, that’s where the real excitement was, especially because she could do it over and over and over again to the same worthless individuals.

The rest, working the feather duster itself, was just mechanics. Just shoving a mechanism forward or pulling it back

She pressed against the mechanism again, extended the feathers, watched them blossom and wondered again why her daughter hadn’t called. It wasn’t like her not to call. Being away at college really was no excuse.

When she had been in elementary school all those years ago, not hearing from her all day was acceptable, even understandable. Clarissa thought back, imagined her little girl toddling out to the sidewalk, getting on the bus, smiling and waving and disappearing into the darkness of the bus.

Of course, it was the same in middle school. Well, except in middle school students switched classrooms with some regularity so there were the small interims during which she could possibly have bothered to find a phone. Still, Clarissa knew her daughter really couldn’t have called her from the middle school. In middle school, students learned their schoolwork while in class, but almost as important, they learned to be social creatures during those small interim breaks. That’s part of what middle school was all about.

And in high school, well, there students began to come into their own socially, plus they still had the rotating classrooms and even a different schedule from one semester to the next. As a result, she supposed, probably it was even more difficult to find time to call from high school than it had been from middle or elementary school.

And of course high school is where the nasty boys first became really interested and girls would begin utilizing all their defensive skills to blunt and parry those boys’ advances. Clarissa knew better than almost anyone the importance of avoiding those sorts of boys.

So in addition to learning schoolwork in different classrooms that changed every hour and then changed completely each semester, certainly her daughter would have to apply the lessons she’d learned from Clarissa. She’d have to hone her defensive skills so they were fully developed when she went away to college.

And then in college, well, certainly it seemed that her daughter’s time would be much more her own, but Clarissa knew that wasn’t true either, not really. With nobody to remind her to be on time to her classes and remember where and when those classes were and all that, she had to be a whole other person. Two people, really. She had to be both herself and Clarissa. And with all that going on there was even less opportunity for her to pick up a phone and call her mother.

Of course, even if she could call she would report only that everything she’d learned from Clarissa was working wonderfully and that she wasn’t all that lonely as a result either, really.

She would say, if she had the time and the opportunity to call, that she was glad she was staying in her dorm room studying like a good girl. She would say she was glad Clarissa had kept her from attending party after party after party like Clarissa had.

She would say she was glad Clarissa had protected her from the horrible childhood experiences that Clarissa had experienced with her father and her uncles and all the others, and that it was very much worth it.

That’s what she would say if she called, if she had the time.

If she had the opportunity.

Clarissa always had done her best. She had loved her precious daughter the best way she knew how. She had endeavored to protect her against all the ills of the world, which, coincidentally, she eventually had been able to trap in her feather duster.

She could work the silly little mechanism with no more effort than extending or contracting the muscles in her thumb. And with that one act she could murder, murder, murder the bastards who had created her, who had forced her to be who she was.

She could extend her thumb and open the deadly bloom, then swish it across a table or a flick it across a lamp or swipe it across a window sill. Then she could populate it with those who truly deserved to be retracted, those who deserved to be crushed and compacted into a half-inch tube.

And she could replicate it. She could repeat that little death over and over again. She could achieve that false sense of finality, and that was fine.

It was like waiting for that phone call from her daughter. When it didn’t come, it was just another false sense of finality. It could be replicated. She would wait tomorrow. She would want the phone to ring, want the call to come, and again it would not come.

A false sense of finality was wonderful in that way, really. It was much better than the real thing because it could be replicated, the results re-lived, re-verified. It was much better than the real thing because it wasn’t final.

It wasn’t the same at all as wrapping an infant daughter in Saran Wrap, tight, compacting her little shoulders, to protect her from the bastards of the world.

It wasn’t the same at all as coating that little form with grease and carrying it into the back yard.

It wasn’t the same at all as dropping that tiny form into that four-inch pipe and hearing it hit the bottom several feet below.

It wasn’t the same at all.

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