Hello today. Glad to see you back. I’m surprised you stick with me, as intense as I’ve been lately. I’m sure you’ll be glad to know I found my whimsy. Tonight’s story is…well, different. I downloaded some random words from a random word generator, then challenged myself to work them all into the story. I managed, though I did have to get a little…weird…to do it. But it was fun, and maybe I’ll do it again later. So, here we are tonight, with a woman who discovers how to be the best woman she can be. Add to the fun by trying to guess which words were in the word list; but remember, I have a very peculiar mind on my own, and some of them may have been my own idea.

THE WOMAN SHE COULD BE

 The woman was so gorgeous. It was disconcerting to realize how full of bloodlust she was. She took a job at the abattoir to fulfill her desire for blood, but sometimes she worried that mutilation of already dead carcasses wasn’t enough. She had a barbaric streak that could lead her to excess. Sometimes she hacked the carcasses with more fever than was good for her…or them. She stared at the broken cuts of meat, not useful for anything but stew meat now.

“That’s abuse”, her boss said. “Abuse of a dead beast. Promise me you’ll get help. I mean, you must have had some sort of family trauma, right?”

The men on the line stared at her. They all wanted to go out with her, but seeing what appeared to be insanity made them ambivalent. A chill fell over the room, a powerful fear as though something had entered the world, some deformity they didn’t understand. She was so…unwomanly. She looked like a…a…dream, but she worked like a…a…man. Her cuts of meat were as ruthlessly slaughtered as their own.

“Hey, sweetie!” one of the men called. She refused to look at him. “Look at me, darlin’! I have a proposal for you!”

The day was over, and she left work, not looking back. She needed a break before she went over the edge. She slipped onto a stool at her favorite bar and watched coffee drip in the percolator as she sipped a rum and Diet Coke. “Bob, tell me something.” Her voice was a husky whisper; she spent years cultivating it. Her mother thought it sounded fraudulent, but the men loved it. “I have this…deplorable…need. It’s like I have a primitive urge. I must be confrontational, but…I don’t do it with people. I can’t. I’m afraid of the tiger.”

“Tiger?” Bob was confused.

“Tiger. The…wildness…in me. It’s foul. It’s…not womanly. But I must give in to it or I will die.”

“You’re speakin’ gibberish, darlin’.” Bob pulled a paper from under the counter. “Here, let’s check your horoscope. It’ll tell you what to do. You’re…Libra, right?”

“Yes, I’m Libra. My mother said that means I’m frigid. I don’t think I’m frigid. I just don’t like people much.”

“Yeah, me neither. And I gotta listen to all their problems.” Bob found the page. “Here we go. Today is a good day for you to push a boundary. An accidental encounter may be just the ticket.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know. I just read ‘em, I don’t interpret ‘em. You need a refill?”

“Please.” She pushed her glass toward him. “I don’t know why I drink that stuff. It tastes metallic. What did you put in it, anyway?”

“I stirred it with an electric eel.” Bob laughed and refilled her glass. “Wait. It’s sticky. I’ll get you a clean one.”

The bar filled up. The amplitude of sound ramped up. Men looked her over. A man slid onto the empty stool beside her. “Hey, sweetie, an oracle told me I would encounter a harlot today. Are you a harlot?”

“No, I’m a goldfish. A genie granted me one wish, and I told her I wanted to be a human woman for just one night. I was tired of drinking nothing but water. I will turn back into a goldfish as soon as curfew arrives.” She turned her back on him.

“Wow, you’re a wild one. Hey, guys, I found me a tiger!”

“What did you say?” She turned back.

“I said, I found a tiger.”

She slipped off the stool and walked away, her hips swinging with an inviting swish. Bob watched as she slipped into the shadow. “You said the wrong thing, buddy”, he said. “She ain’t no tiger. She’s a volcano. And lava’s gonna spew out the crater of that volcano soon. She can’t hold it much longer. Guess you didn’t know a magma chamber was her birthplace.”

“Wow. A volcano.” The man stared after her with admiration. “Most of the time I meet a beautiful woman, she turns out to be the blob, just waitin’ to swallow me up.”

The air outside was crisp, and she took the long way home, through the park and over the bridge. She leaned on the bridge watching the water. She noticed the sparkle in the water and waved. It was Mom, coming to check on her. She wished she could explain to Mom that her transition was relatively painless. She could live as a woman for as long as she wished, and return home when she was tired of it. That would probably be soon. There was a lot to tire of being a human woman. She was tired of the way men treated her, like she was an object for them to play with. She was tired of the bosses and the job. Hacking carcasses wasn’t what she wanted. She was made for better things.

She called out, and Mom surfaced. “What’s up?” Her mother spoke in a tone only she could hear; it wasn’t a tone for mere human ears.

“I think I’m ready to come back home”, she said. “Where a woman can be considered worthy. Where a woman has value. I was wrong…being a human woman is…exhausting. I’m done with it.”

“You’re always welcome back home, my dear.” Mom held out her arms, and she leapt off the bridge just as three men ran toward her shouting don’t do it, don’t do it. The moon was a massive ivory orb, casting shadows on the water, as she sank into the depths and felt her tail grow again. Being a mermaid was the best woman she could be.