Figure

He snapped his lighter shut, placed it beside the metronome on his nightstand. We’d just made love and I was sitting naked on the edge of his bed, watching the stars appear. He told me my skin was chatoyant in the window light, like wet fiddleback maple. I asked him what chatoyant meant. He grinned and explained growth distortion, how it could pattern the wood fibers into flames of alternating tones. I told him that was nice and he said he could take me to the workshop for a look around. Show me what he was talking about. I rolled my eyes. It sounded so boring. But then he bit into my thigh and said he wanted to fashion me into a beautiful cello. He drove with both hands on the wheel and told me he thought of everyone as instruments. He said his father was filled with knots like a burl and only good for music boxes but his mother was quilted beneath her surface, like rippled river water. Then he just stared ahead at the road and kept quiet the rest of the way. When we got inside he felt along the wall and flipped a switch so I could see the three white torsos, each with a headstock and fretboard attached to the sternum. They were displayed on hangers like guitars. I covered my mouth with a shaking hand, backed away and ran out to the parking lot. He stood at the door and watched me squeal away in his pickup. The sky clouded over as I drove to the police station, all the millions of stars like birds’ eyes. Like the darkness was sawn off the trunk of a black walnut tree, then sliced into a veneer.