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Emily was born with the ability to pass through walls painted purple. Besides that, she was a homely child, quiet and
easily upset, who, like most children who have a knack for tiny details, cultivated a dark and lonesome temperament.
For example, I once found her in the upstairs closet crunching the hard grains of uncooked Minute Rice in complete
darkness. Her favorite game of make believe was to be struck by lightening on an ill-fated hunting expedition deep
in the jungles of a twilight South America. For hours she would lie motionless on the floor of her room with her
uneven arms (the right longer than the left) paralyzed in death's position against the throw rug pretending her corpse
was being swallowed by one of the giant Anacondas of the Amazon. When mother bought her a purple jumpsuit she
wore it exclusively.
During her late teens, Emily undeservedly gained a reputation within the cryptic social circle which was the High
School marching band. Surprisingly, Emily used this situation to develop a cruel sense of humor. She would tease
the stray, slightly overweight boys she brought home until they left our front door dripping tears onto their black
instrument cases or clutching sheet music gravely against the copper buttons of their uniforms. I remember several
episodes: Emily lured one victim into our damp, gothic basement then locked him inside until mother came home.
Another was enticed into eating a piece of chocolate covered dog food. In the most famous incident, JoJo Turner
(lead cello, mullet, dungeon master), was suddenly pushed outside Emily's bedroom door screaming for his homemade
Ouija board. Poor JoJo spent that wet November afternoon in our swampy backyard, pleading for Emily to throw the
board, which contained the spirit of a deceased friend (see "Suicide Solution," track one, side two of Blizzard of Oz),
down from the tower of her bedroom window. Emily was as stubborn as she was cruel. Despite Jo Jo's pleas, he ended
up staggering home, cursing in Wiccan, defeated. She finally returned the board, torn to pieces and gift wrapped, many
months later, at their High School Graduation party. By all accounts the spirit had departed, and Emily's reputation had
long since been restored.
One summer, without warning, Emily began seeing an older man. Steve was forty-two, a plump, mustached night
security guard at the downtown aquarium who shared her passion for breeding reptiles. Thinking about it now, Emily
seemed a changed person during the first few months of their courtship. She passed into a sort of easy, solemn happiness.
Gone were the cruel streaks of her youth. She even began painting again, producing several large portraits of pastel
colored unicorns grazing on dark green grass under the light of a full moon. During those late August evenings, she and
Steve would spend long hours together, watching game shows from opposite corners of the sofa as the warm mating calls
of crickets drifted in through the screen door.
Eventually the two were married in a small courtroom ceremony by a Justice of the Peace. Emily moved the entire
contents of her bedroom into Steve's home then promptly miscarried. Later that year, while taking his afternoon nap, Steve
was bitten by a rattlesnake that had crawled under his great-grandmother's afghan. Before the ambulance arrived, he had
died in Emily's uneven arms. A day after the funeral, Emily painted every room in the house dark purple, an idea that Steve
had (understandably) never been fond of. She spent the last few days of her life drifting through the walls of her home
like a living ghost, eating grapes straight from the stem and whispering into the slick skin of her snakes.
As you may already know, Emily committed suicide. We found her hanging headless from the purple ceiling.
Underneath her gently swinging feet, a wooden chair lay kicked on the carpet next to the purple pool of her discarded
jumpsuit. It was an ugly, haunting vision: from the shoulders upwards the sliver of her neck melted into the bruise-colored
wood. In the attic, her bloated, purple head sprouted from green rug like the knob of a rotting onion. The suicide note
was grim and to the point, written in Emily's perfect, sober hand:
1. You will have to call a carpenter.
2. I prefer cremation.
3. Please, free the snakes somewhere near the levee.
-Emily
Copyright © 2005 by Calaveras Station and the CSUS English Department.