The Collection

I don't want to get Father mad, either.

So I say nothing.

My period ended a few days ago, and I know I was sup­posed to wash out my maxi pads in this week's bathwater and then use the water on the outside plants and hang the maxi pads out to dry, but the thought of my blood makes me sick, and I just haven't been able to do it.

I've been saving the maxi pads beneath my mattress, and tomorrow I'm going to stuff them in my underwear and take them to school. I will throw them away in the girl's bath­room, just like everyone else.

I feel wicked and nasty.

I hope Father doesn't find out.

But I know he will when he takes Inventory.

I try to tell Father that we can donate my old clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, that they will recycle my f clothes and give them to other people. I hint that I can buy pants and blouses that have been worn by others at those same thrift stores and that this will contribute to the recy­cling process and allow me to have some new clothes, but he will not hear of it. The clothes we have are the clothes we will always have, he tells me, and only after death will they be passed on to someone else.

So he cuts up the material, takes out old stitches, and re­fashions the cloth into new blouses and pants.

I attend school dressed as a clown, laughed at by my classmates.

When I come home, I feed The Pets. They are kept in an enclosure in the center of the back yard, the low fence surrounding their habitat made from refashioned cans and cardboard. I feed them the crumbs and leftovers from yesterday's meal, mixed in with the compost of our own waste. I think this is wrong, but Father says that our bodies are not as efficient as they should be and that both our solid and liquid waste contain unused nutrients that can be fully utilized by The Pets.

I stand outside their enclosure and I watch them eat and I watch them play. When I am sure that Father is not around, I pick them up and hold them. Their bodies are cold, their skin slimy, their wings rough. I gave them names at one time, and sometimes I can still call out those names, but I'm ashamed to admit that I no longer know to whom they be­long. Like everyone else, I can't tell The Pets apart.

I do not know why Father keeps The Pets and why he in­sists that they be fed, and that frightens me. Father never does anything without a reason or a purpose.

Every so often, when I'm standing there feeding them, I think to myself that their habitat looks like a pen.

Sometimes I try to tell the kids in my class the horrors of recycling, but I can never seem to find the words to describe what I mean, and they always tell me that they enjoy ac­companying their parents to the recycling center on Satur­day and dropping off their cans, bottles, and newspapers.

Cans, bottles, and newspapers.

Once, during ecology week, I told my teacher that any­thing can be carried too far, even recycling. She tried to explain to me that recycling is important, that it will help us preserve the planet for future generations. I said that instead of recycling everything, maybe it would be better if we used I things that didn't have to be recycled. She said that I didn't understand the concept of environmentalism but that at the end of the week, after I had completed my worksheet and seen all the videotapes, she was certain that I would.

That night I went home and urinated into the blue bucket and defecated into the red.

It is Thursday again, and I know what that means.

I sit quietly on the couch, tearing the sections of today's newspaper into the strips that we will wash and screen and turn into my homework paper. I say nothing as Father enters the living room, but out of the corner of my eye I can see his dark bulk blocking the light from the kitchen.

He walks toward me.

'I feel The Need,' he says.

My stomach knots up and I can't hardly breathe, but I force myself to smile because I know that if he can't have me he'll start in on Shari. His seed can't really be recycle (although he tried it once with frozen jars and the micro­wave, using his semen first as a skin lotion and then as a toothpaste), but he does not want it to go to waste, so when he feels The Need he makes sure that he finds a receptacle where it might do some good. In his mind, impregnating me is better than letting his seed go unused.

That's how we got The Pets.

I take down my pants and panties and bend over the back of the couch, and I try not to cry as he positions himself be­hind me and shoves it in.

'Oh God,' I say, recycling the words he taught me. 'You're so good!'

And he moans.

It has been four days since Shari last spoke and I am wor­ried. Father is not worried, but he is unhappy with me. He felt The Need yesterday, and I let him have me, but I could not pretend that I enjoyed it, the way I usually do. He got angry at me because my unhappiness meant that his emotion was not recycled. He does not want anything to go unrecycled. He feels that, in sex, the pleasure that he feels should be transmitted to me. I am supposed to be happy after he takes me and to utilize that transmitted pleasure, to stay happy for at least a day afterward (although usually I'm mis­erable and sore and feel dirty), and to do something nice for Shari. Shari is supposed to recycle that pleasure again and do something nice for one of The Pets.

But I don't feel happy, and I can't fake it this time.

I tell Shari to lock her door when she goes to bed.

When I come home from school, Shari is crying and strapped to a chair at the dinner table and Father is in the kitchen preparing our meal. I know something is not right, but I say nothing and I wash my hands in last week's dish­water and sit down at the table next to my sister. Already I can smell the food. It is meat of some sort, and I hope Father has not decided to recycle a cat or dog that's passed away.

No matter what type of animal it is, I know that I will have to clean and carve the bones afterward and make them into forks and knives and toothpicks.

I try not to look at Shari, but I notice that her crying ha not stopped or slowed even a little bit and that worries me.

Father comes in with our meal, carrying it on the single large plate that we share in order not to waste water, and is some kind of casserole. He is grinning, and I know that grin: he is proud of himself. I take a close look at the ingredients of the casserole, at the meat. The piece I poke with my fork is strangely white and rubbery. I turn it over and see on its underside a darkened piece of skin.

Slimy, lizard skin.

I throw down my fork and glare at him and Shari is crying even harder.

'You killed one of The Pets!' I scream.

He nods enthusiastically. 'In the future, it may be possible for us to be entirely self-sufficient. We may never have to go outside the family for a source of food. We can create our own meat, nurturing it with our own waste. We'll be the prototype of the family of the future.' He grins, gesturing toward the casserole. 'Try it. It's good.' He picks up a fork; spears a chunk of meat, and puts it in his mouth, chewing, swallowing, smiling. 'Tasty and nutritious.'

I stare at the food and I realize that it has come from my body and will be going back into my body and will come out of my body again, and I suddenly feel sick. I start to gag, and I run out of the room.

'The yellow container!' Father calls. 'Yellow is for vomit!'

I can hear Shari crying louder, the legs of her chair making a clacking noise as she rocks back and forth and tries to get away.

As I throw up into the yellow bucket, I wonder if our din­ner is one of The Pets that I had named.

Father is rougher now. He seems crueler than before, and I wonder if it is because I disobeyed him.

I would run away if it wasn't for Shari.

In school we are learning about taking responsibility for our own actions and how we should clean up our own messes without Mommy or Daddy telling us to do so.

It is hard for me not to laugh.

Father says that I have caused him a lot of pain and emo­tional distress, and he beats me as he prepares to mount me from behind. My pants and panties are down and I am bent over the couch as he pulls out chunks of my hair and slaps my back and buttocks with the hard side of his hand. He is making Shari watch and she starts to cry