by Amanita Rose
She creaks as she walks, the sound of stone grinding and bones snapping. She smells of moss and grass warmed by the summer sun. She smells of bleach and manufactured lavender and pine. Her fingers are permanently gnarled, barely able to clutch her spray bottle.
Her smiles are big but forced, her grey eyes screaming with pain as she dusts the bookshelves, elbows snapping as she tries to unlock them to reach the high ornate light fixtures. It smells like chamomile and cedar when she wipes down the wooden furniture, buffing out marks and scratches. She works as quickly as possible, a painful shuffle to her step, her energy already ebbing. It’s only been thirty minutes.
Hands and arms shake from the vibrations of using the vacuum. She works frantically as bits of stone and dirt trailing behind her. The room smells like Oxi as she works on the upholstery. No matter how often she cleans the couches, the water is always a dark muddy grey. She scrubs at the floors viciously, trying to keep blood from dripping down her nose on the laminate. The floor sparkles, but she had to pause to throw up. Tiny bits of glass, plastic, and gem stones sizzle in yellow bile in the kitchen sink. The acid threatens to eat through the stainless steel. She has to work quickly to remove her disabilities from sight, least they offend. Nothing a scouring pad and a corrosive cleaner can’t fix the gargoyle tells herself, her lungs filling up on fumes upon fumes upon fumes upon fumes. When her eyes water, thunder rumbles outside, and rain drip drops slowly, sizzling as it hits the ground. It melts grease off the BBQ and grimy dirt from patio furniture.
The furious storm is little more than a whisper by the time she reaches the bathrooms, each step achingly heavy, parts of her left leg turning to stone so that it must be drug behind her. She uses a long, knotted wood cane for support as she scrubs pink gunk from tile and grout alike with her small bristle brush. She smells like acid and summer rain as moss lattice forms on her back and hair as she pulls rotten gunk from sink drains.
Her entire right arm is stone. Mycelium laces up her veins to her throat and lips, restricting her breathing. She has to use her left arm to clean the toilets. She’s not very good being left handed, and has to clean up more of her own mess. Twigs from birds nests fall from her wings, limescale from her tail shedding every time she moves.
She barely makes it to the woods in time when her shift is over, her breath wispy, aching and desperate. She now smells like sweat and disease. Her place of rest is the slab of river rock she was carved from. It turns blue when it rains, like now, various rainbows of blue wrapping around her body. The walking trail blooms with aspen fleabane and larkspur, lifting up towards lightning filled skies. Her secret garden is bitterroot, mountain daisy, yarrow, bluebells, wavy leaf thistles, and arrow leaf balsam root. Goldenrod, oxeye daisy, wild rose, and blanket flower shake in the wind. Her orchard grows serviceberries, huckleberries, wild strawberries, cherries, plums, and sandcherries. Her protection is lodgepole and ponderosa pines, shielding her forest.
She crawls, knees and palms bleeding, clinging to her slab. Lions mane and chanterelles grow on her arms, destroying angels and deadly galerina bloom from her outstretched palms as she pleads with either heaven or hell for respite. Her body rattles and twists, her face contorts into a grotesque soundless scream, spine splitting pain until she is frozen, captured in timeless suffering. One hand reaching out to God, the other to Lucifer, her tail curled around her spray bottle.
Her stone apron pockets are filled with moths and spiders as they crawl over her stone skin as they always do. When she awakens next afternoon, stone splintering and ripping chunks of her skin off, her payment will be a bottle of whiskey and a watering can filled with soap, bandages, and a few packets of seeds for her garden. Just enough to kill her and her pain. Just enough to be clean before she enters the giant house to work. Not enough to pay for medicine and no one to help wash away the dust that gathered overnight on the gargoyle housekeeper in the secret garden. Not enough to live or barely survive, to continue greasing the cogs of capitalism, only to be tossed away when her body finally shatters. For who has the need of a disabled Gargoyle?
Amanita Rose (she/they) has works published under various other pen names. They currently are living in the mountains of Montana with their amazing spouse, four snuggly cats, and three chaotic ferrets. Find her on Twitter & Instagram, @whimsicaluproar.
