The Terrible Meal

A mother is one who gives her own body to be eaten.

—Elias Canetti

And all these things took place in the City of Roses, hard by the Willamette River, in the not-quite-final throes of the Age of Acceleration.

ourtina strove for six days and nights, until the guttural moans of a birth agony issued from hir chamber. And when s/he had accepted the Final Sacrifice, s/he summoned the Cannibals. S/he prostrated before them, saying, my daughters.

ourtina, they answered, making reverence with wrists crossed on breastbones, fingers grazing clavicles.

Daughters, I've a riddle. Who among you can guess the answer?

So they all clamored, begging to be tested.

ourtina said, the wound I'm thinking of is both throat and blade. Tell me its name.

Melissande guessed a supermax prison.

Moacir guessed phalloplasty.

General Lizz guessed a city.

Changing Suffering guessed a cunt.

But Nonnieboy guessed correctly, saying, the world.

Then all began to mourn and to beseech, crying, Mother, Mother. Tears drenched their cheeks and dampened their clothing. Only General Lizz stood silent, desert-eyed.

ourtina bade them hush and open up their ears. My life is not so important, s/he explained. What matters is to leave a legacy: sustenance for the ones who are coming later, who will have much to contend with.

S/he paused, to make a space for their reply, but hir audience sat dumbfounded.

But General Lizz, who was bravest, put the question at last: Mother, what will you leave us?

ourtina's expression hardened as s/he answered: What do you think? You see how I live, in a manner devoid of secrets. What have I got to leave you but my substance, the most basic part of me?

Then they implored hir, saying, spare us this gift. We are not worthy—and even if we were, we're far too weak to bear it in our present condition. We are only your needy and obedient children, who require their Mother's mercy.

S/he tried to calm them, saying, Daughters, it is needful that a new evil and a new agony should enter this world, for the old torments have almost extinguished it.

For was it not foreseen and written of old: when the Beloved Patient is on hir last legs, there must come an one, who was not born a woman yet shall s/he become Mother to multitudes? To all of you, and the billions on the way, I bequeath my human protein, and as many bones as stories. Your vision shall be cleansed; the Beloved Patient's mortal agony shall be to you as the slaughter of your firstborn; but unheard-of powers shall be added unto you.

Lizzie, sharpen your long knife. Daughters, save your tears. Tomorrow you must eat the Terrible Meal.

And ourtina withdrew to her chamber.

Then the Cannibals lamented, tearing their clothing. Some seized the candles that were lighted upon the altars, and burned their arms and legs with dripping wax. Some, their bodies held rigid as dominos, toppled to the floor, chipping teeth and spraining extremities. Others gouged their arms and legs with the tops of metal cans, or scored their scalps and foreheads with clam shell fragments.

As night wore on, however, some began to murmur, saying, what Mother in all the ages, seeing that hir children required sustenance, has proffered them this hideous nourishment?

But General Lizz rebuked them, with words to this effect: Hush, selfish people! ourtina needs hir rest. Only think what work awaits hir on the morrow!

At the first gasp of dawn, ourtina appeared before them: tall, stooped, ashen-faced, unsmiling. Moacir had to boost hir up on the butcher block. S/he stretched the length of the table, baring hir bony throat.

Daughters, s/he whispered, never doubt that I've loved you. I, who never knew the furrowed gray bellyflesh and dripping milk-ache of the bodymom, bid you snuggle close and latch on. Imagine me with as many hands as breasts, offering suck to multitudes.

(Hence the icons that depict hir as the Sow...