Vishi worked in a butcherie in a gourmet Grocers in the city. She spent her days grinding and molding grass fed cattle into grass fed hamburger. Men in grid patterned collared shirts with soft feminine hands, women in yoga pants with prominent collar bones who seemed rather to float through the aisles than walk, these were the people who consumed her waking hours. These are the people who consume everything, Vishi often thought. Like Wolf Spiders who carry their young on their backs, or in a baby slings, only to devour them with self serving ideals. Entitled insects.
Vishi was finishing her day at work when she tied a piece of butcher's string around her index finger. There was something she needed to remember. Later.
She pulled off her gloves, her apron, her white cap, and tossed them away. She pulled a yellowing sweatshirt from her locker, she pulled the strings of her hood so that they puckered, like a baby's bonnet around her face. She set out on her bicycle home in a grey, cold drizzle.
She dropped her keys into a glass lily pad ashtray on the counter. Vishi did not smoke, but the ashtray had always been there. It came with the apartment.
In the bathroom, there was a mirror. That, too, had come with the apartment. Someone had once decided to stick puffy, heart shaped stickers on the four corners of the mirror. Vishi had never tried to remove them. She looked at her image. Her face was brown and moony. Broad cheekbones beneath red chapped skin, small eyes beneath sparse black eyebrows. Her forehead loomed low, creating shadows in the pockets beneath her black eyes. Her hair was black, chopped to her jawline...she didn't look into mirrors much.
Vishi showered. She ate. She slinked into her bed. She pulled a black notebook from under her mattress, made some notes in the margins with a mechanical pencil and replaced it.
Vishi slept.
Vishi dreamed she was eating grass on a lily pad ashtray with a caviar fork. The walls around her were red, the ceiling was high, arched, like a barn. The grid shirt men and floating women were all around Vishi as though they were all attending a dinner party...their mouths were agape. Their eyes were yawning wide. Their faces were purple, blue, and black. They had meat hooks thrust into their backs.
Vishi continued to eat the grass.
She woke up. She pulled on her underwear, her company issued uniform shirt, her company issued uniform slacks. She brushed her teeth.
She thought she might try some lipstick, today. She pulled a tortoise shell tube from the cabinet. The lipstick had always been there. It came with the apartment. She dabbed it on her lips, softly at first, and then more aggressively, until her lips bulged a dingy pink, the color of bovine tongue.
Vishi put on her back pack and reached for her keys. Her bound finger was throbbing. It was bloated and purple. She rode her bicycle to work.
The double doors behind the butcher case were still. She was the first to arrive for the day. She pulled on her apron, her cap, her gloves. She pulled giant rolling racks out of the walk in refrigerator, pulled the day's cuts, and set about grinding themeat.
The pink grey hamburger sat in a stainless steel bowl. Vishi's finger was numb. She pulled a small vial from her apron pocket. The white powder sprinkled on to the hamburger...just like sugar, Vishi thought. She began to pound the beef into patties.
After the tragedy, Vishi's notebook was apprehended. Her keys were found in the lily pad ash tray.
Vishi was hanging from an orange extension cord in her bathroom, the mirror reflecting her slowly turning body. The index finger on one of her hands had turned black.
