Wordless Savagery by Trish Bell, (c) 2007   It was my first trip out of the country. My feet were bursting with the need to get out of the car, to run, to explore, to see it all. I begged Mark to stop the Bronco at a little town just across the border, even though the stop wasn’t part of our careful trip plan. Everything looked so quaint as we’d been driving by, the houses so adorable, the little shops full of curio items. Mark decided to fill up the tank while we were there, so I wandered over toward the shops alone, poking my head in and out of different ones, winding my way down the curving streets and back up again. I found a collectible spoon that I wanted for my mother, and decided I would bargain for it. I saw it in nearly all of the shops, so I hopped back and forth from one to the other, trying to talk the shopkeepers down, seeing how low they would go. After a few stops, I was giddy with bargaining power, so giddy that I didn’t think twice about trying my hand at the shop across the way--even though “across the way” was actually a little further than it seemed, and certainly off the main tourist pathway carved out through the town. But I got my spoon there for less than fifty cents, wouldn’t you know it, and came out with the biggest smile on my face. I even gave a dime to one of the cute little kids selling Chiclets outside of the store. I patted and ruffled his head as I started walking back toward the main strip. Then, out of nowhere, it seemed, a herd of dirty, scruffy children surrounded me, hands outstretched, beseeching me in broken English. I tried to wave them away with a polite smile and a shrug, but they immediately grew demanding and insistent, angry even. They stopped asking nicely, stopped talking at all, really. Several of them grabbed at my purse, pulling, while others kicked and hit me with their little fists. They ran off with my money and my ID, leaving me standing in the street, mouth open in shocked denial. I finally found my voice. “You little savages!” I couldn’t believe it. They even took my spoon. # It was morning. I was getting ready for my first day back at work, busily buttoning up my crisp, white collared shirt--all the way to the top, covering up my finer assets like a good corporate business woman should. I was late, so I didn’t do much more than slash a tube of lipstick across my lips before throwing an apple in my purse and heading outside. I didn’t hear the boy screaming until I had already opened the gate and stepped onto the sidewalk. My head turned, but I didn’t see what was coming before it hit me, all 125 pounds of angry, snarling, furry fury. My head hit the pavement hard enough to narrow my vision, black fuzz crowding out all but the very center field of my view. Within this thin frame, I saw a black flash, white teeth bared, and I rolled onto one side, curling up into a fetal ball. A burning, tearing sensation in my thigh ripped a scream from my throat, the first noise I’d made yet since leaving the house. My shocked mind could form no cohesive words. I heard a woman’s voice in the background, followed by a man’s, arguing. A metal gate clanked somewhere up the street, feet slapped the pavement, then there was a hissing, spraying sound. My eyes were on fire now, but the tearing in my thigh had stopped. The hissing sound continued for a long time. “Take that, you savage beast,” I heard someone say, a few seconds before I passed out. # I took the last sip of the dark, noxious beverage, unsure why I was there, who was with me, and what I was supposed to be doing. Someone had a cup to my face. Droplets of sticky fluid coated my tongue and leaked down the back of my throat. I could feel the drops, hitting my stomach with a splash, as though released from the spigot of a faucet. Someone’s hand was at my face, holding my chin up, staring into my unfocused eyes. There was a television in the far corner, mounted up near the ceiling. The Princess Bride was playing. Fred Savage’s character was on the screen, talking to his grandfather. I tried to speak, but my tight throat could only croak. In the next moment, I was looking at the world around me through a crazy kaleidoscope of spots. My mind splintered. I croaked incoherently again as my head hit the pillow with a thud. # Mark shut the door behind us and took me into his arms. It felt so good to be home again. I never wanted to see the inside of another hospital. “Mark,” I breathed, reveling in the feel of his strong arms around me. Over his shoulder, I saw the strange artifact he’d brought back with him from our trip. He must have unpacked it and hung it while I was recovering. I didn’t know quite how I felt about it. The axe was an odd shape and it looked really old and kind of dirty. Mark had hung it in a glass case to protect it from the elements. I wrinkled my nose as I looked at it. It didn’t seem to need protecting. I rather wished it would crumble into pieces and dissolve into nothingness. The woman at the museum had said it was called a savage, a special type of axe that was more ornamental than practical and was usually used to denote social status or rank. Mark had probably just marked our house as having the status of a pauper. I shrugged. It was easy to forget about bad decorating choices when Mark’s arms were wandering into territory that hadn’t been charted for quite a while. “Mmm,” I sighed into his ear, as he nipped lightly, then not-so-lightly, at the hollow of my neck. His hands twined and fisted in my hair, demanding possession of my body. “Now,” he growled, the low, throaty tone of his voice making my toes curl. “Yes,” I hissed, falling down onto the carpet beneath him, the savagery of his movements stoking my own passion from a smooth, flowing river into a life-sucking tsunami. “Yes.” No other words were necessary. ###