Jamie Uy, Oxtail

Oxtail

Jamie Uy

When she slept she dreamt of mornings. Her mother frying banana fritters her brothers bicycling across rice terraces her cheek on cool bamboo floors. Day greening like a crab apple ready to pick off the tree. Houses on stilts farmers plowing their fields grandmothers weavelooming scarves grandfathers chewing betel nuts paper kites like dragonflies peach blossoms molded out of glutinous rice. In the dream she was eating salted fish with chili paste warming herself near the fire. When she awoke her mouth was dry she was shivering only her mother’s black sarong covering her no brothers no food. She got up slowly. She wanted to pray to the ancestors to her mother but she had no coin to throw nothing white to wear no pig no fruit to place at the altar. Gelid air. Each day colder than the last. The girl dreamed often of her mother as she trudged through valley after valley. Strained her ear for bombs. She cursed every god every animal every ghost every flower every holything. Until her tongue felt dead dumb desiccated. Moonchipped mountains sneaklaughing at her. She was sure there were fat catfish somewhere if only. She could find a river. She longed for a frog to eat but there were none.

She had no clothes except for the sarong. Watermelonskirt with stripes. The last time she ate watermelon was two days before the uniformed men came. Her mother reserved the sarong for festivals wore silver jewelry and a greenmango belt. She knotted the cotton frayed scorched around her chest. Before she had breasts small hills now the little peaks had collapsed. During nights she wondered if she might have married the boy. He had smiled when she held his hand during the xoedance. The branches of her body thin. If she survived how would she ever bear a child. She thought if this is living no one should ever be born.

She walked through gorges so steep she thought the rock swallowed the sky. Her chest a cave. Her legs so thin. Fog made her forget what her limbs looked like. She saw dead shrimp fully translucent floating down a stream shrivelled ravaged trunks of forests that once were. She was too afraid to eat because they had poisoned the land. She did not wash herself. You were not supposed to bathe until after the funeral was complete besides she had no water. Even if she found a wateringhole she would freeze to death after. And they would have to lightcorpse her too. Until she was just ash. All that was left. The girl remembered distantly another village another tribe in the mountains seven days journey. Famous for red plums size of your palm. More planes overhead. She got lucky. Landmine exploded on the third day abandoned rice field. Didn’t hit her. But she hallucinated. She began to doubt if there was a village if there ever was a tribe. If there were others.

The girl found the uniformed men on the sixth day. Rib of a girl. She wanted to cry at least taste the salt of her teartracks but couldn’t. The fog had eaten the moon. Her mother her father her brothers her village. Maybe they didn’t see her because she was already dead. They lit firewood and roasted cans of pork beans. She was just thinking to wait for them to leave and lick what was leftover. When she saw the water buffalo. In another world sacrificehouses greengrass fine coats of hair rolled in the mud. The buffalo was emaciated. The girl once lived in a house with a buffalohorn roof and corn wine. She remembered her mother smoking buffalo meat for the festival. Thick corpulent slabs ginger spiced. She salivated. One of the men pushed food to the buffalo like an offering. Stupid. Buffalos eat bamboo fern moss grass waterlilies.

When the man shot the buffalo the first time she meant to run.

But she was tired. And the eyes of the buffalo so big. The man shot two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen times. Her mother her father her brothers her village. Her mother by the man one two three four five times. Naked trembling told her to go take her sarong no time. Eyes watching. All that was left.

The girl ashamed wished they would leave the baby buffalo. For her to eat. She didn’t care how filthy. But the men threw the carcass into the well. Long silence ringing aftermath of artillery too still. Then they left. Unseeing boots crunching bruising the earth. The girl kept hearing faint bleating bubbling. Toothless baby buffalos slaughtered carved on hooks. When she hefted herself onto the brick she did not recognize her own haggard face pupils shiny black and dumb in the reflection of turgid water. Contaminated. She lowered herself into the well. Fumbled with shaking hands a piece of an ear mouth twitching mouth. The head or what was left of it the skull. At last she found it. The oxtail. Ravenous the girl tore off flesh glistening raw sucked on marrow imagined her mother’s cooking. She ate of the holyanimal. Fighter jets bombers overhead. Somewhere a massacre.

Once there were blessings. Her mother’s singing basketfuls of rice wooden flutes sundrying silk hot wintermelon soup picking tamarind her brothers kicking rubber balls stuffed pheasants ebony flowers frangipani trees tortoiseshell shamans pickled jackfruit embroidered quilts harvest season. Life the white membrane of a perfect egg. Kitchenspirits dancing in the alpine air. She chewed two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen times. Her mother her father her brothers her village. Once there were blessings and lush mountains that reached gods.

Image on facing page by Sara Pan Algarra