April/May 2005



Estrogenocide
by
Michael Graham

The Angel of Death is here on Earth and she will smite you because it is in her nature. Do not ask the snake why it slithers, do not ask the smoker why he smokes, and neither ask Abigail why she smites.

You will know her for she has the chest of a boy whilst the face of a woman. You will also soon notice that the Angel does not blush and she does not smile. She does dance well, however, for she is a death machine.

Abigail freefalls a million miles down from Heaven and lands soundly on her feet in Chicago. It is only dawn and she is naked, but even bare of foot, she begins to smite. She smites a lesbian and a heterosexual, and she nods to herself, because she's just getting warmed up.

She smites three hundred people at a corporate picnic in Aspen, and in their blood - for their blood is clear and watery - she sees her own reflection and notices that she is nude.

“The work of the LORD cannot be done in the nude," she tells a police officer while she is in the process of smiting him, "it's just too distracting.”

In Sydney, she smites the driver of an ice cream truck. She takes his clothing and drives around his truck with its angelic song playing in bells. Nine children approach her and she tells them to bring all of their friends and families, for the ice cream is free today.

They do and - predictably - she smites them all. Those who run, she smites slowly. Those who whisper the LORD’s name in the end, she hurtles into outer space. Those who cry, she damns their eyes.

Abigail descends upon a Bible Library in Vegas and she kills with death a sack of kittens. Kittens whom she earlier put in that very sack. The library is empty and dusty, and the Angel writes something metaphorical in the dust with her stubby little finger. Metaphor is the language of angels, for God has made them so that they might never say anything constructive to mortals.

The Angel tears away the leather covers from each and every Bible. But she leaves a pile of smiling Cambodian skulls in exchange. She hijacks an air plane to Milan and hands over the Bible covers to a tailor, that this sewer might sew her an outfit made of this neglected leather.

Abigail says to the seamstress in Italian, “Nobody gives a fuck about the Bible anyway. God sent me here to smite everyone. I mean, who reads Bibles now, for real? But I will have you make me an outfit from this leather. It will be sexy, as is the nature of cow skin. But - paradoxically - I will smite all whom find it sexy. All will perish. And everyone who does not find my Bible-clad body sexy shall know my scorn too.”

The seamstress shows good humor to the insane ice cream girl, and in one hour Abigail is adorned in fresh leather from head to toe. Rather than thanking the seamstress for the clothing, Abigail smites her by firing a magic ray out of the tip of her stubby little finger.

A Good Samaritan enters the shop and resuscitates the seamstress. Abigail looks at the man's cellular structure and discovers that his DNA is only thinly that of Samaria, and it grieves her that one would fasten oneself to such shreds and call them, "identity".

Abigail smites him soundly with a machinegun. The seamstress, Abigail does not smite again. Rather, she smites her entire family in alphabetical order. She smites them with garden trowels and Barbie Dolls. Each unto their proclivity. One Grandmother, she smites with a bullhorn.

She takes a taxi to France and absconds with the Eiffel tower; this she uses to smite an orphanage in the Ukraine. She spares but one man child, but she smites him eventually. Abigail's belly opens up in the center - to become a mouth with sharpened teeth and large tongue without taste buds - and she feeds the baby to her belly in some sort of perverse inversion of a maternal instinct.

Abigail rounds up the Offspring of Onan worldwide, and takes them to a large field in Shanghai. She then makes them smite themselves with excessive self-proclivity.

She eradicates Albuquerque with extinction and misery. She unleashes a plague of chronic fatal menstruation on Warsaw. She stops for brunch in Whitby, having a slice of cantaloupe and leaves the waiter seventy pounds.

The Angel goes to stand outside of Buckingham Palace, and she tests the resolve of the guard there. She transforms herself into a snake. A large female snake, and she wraps herself about his form. The guard still does not move, he is very determined. And Abigail does not smite him for she is impressed by his will.

Abigail changes her mind halfway to Stockholm and she goes back to smite him.
It is the same story in Tangiers, Hong Kong, and Moscow. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth in San Diego, Tel Aviv, and Amsterdam.

The Angel of Death gets very sleepy at noon and she falls asleep curled up in a parking space in a parking lot in Ontario. A young man named Eddie Cone, who is a baker, awakens her and tells her that it is not safe to sleep here. Abigail is very grumpy when she wakes up, but the young man gives her a pretty yellow flower and she smiles like one of the traditional angels.

She lets Eddie Cone take her home, where they know one another. Lying limp as a squid in his bed afterwards, Abigail realizes that for some reason she cannot concentrate on smiting. She tries to think about crushing the spine of a humble goat herder in San Juan, but in stead her thoughts drift to things like pastels and puppies.

Abigail moves in with Eddie. She wears a sundress and makes him pasta. She watches cartoons all day, and when he comes home from work, she hugs and kisses him. Abigail cuts her brown hair short, hoping to please him, but he only pretends to like it and she cries. But she learns that every time she cries, he will give her things.

He gives her a teddy bear, and a toothbrush. He buys her sneakers and brings her fresh bread from the bakery every day. She gets her own towel and it is twice her size. They go to the zoo to see the zebras and Eddie buys her cotton candy.

Abigail makes the young man a cake one day. He enjoys the cake and he kisses her on the cheek. This makes her very happy. When he is happy, she is happy. She paints her toenails pink because the man likes it when she looks pretty. She wears a fuzzy pink sweater and a short black mini-skirt.

But in the days and nights following, Abigail begins to feel empty. One morning she stands on the balcony and contemplates a snail on the sidewalk below. Her brow is furrowed. There is some thought in her head that she can't quite think. It's like a moth fluttering around in the corner of her eye.

There is something I was put on this earth to do. It's the only thing that will make me truly complete. It's like my purpose. It's what I was made to do, but I can't quite place it. Christ, it's going to drive me nuts.

And suddenly, while watching the snail as it heads into the grass, Abigail's brow straightens. Her face turns gentle and soft, and her eyes light up. She smiles and she touches her belly.

Baby.


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