Razor's Edge

The air was thick enough to swim through. I padded past sweating women, clutching the small prize, and squinted through the dim steam. She was leaned against the far wall, legs crossed and arms limp in her lap. Only her third day, and she bled for a full seven, sometimes longer.
Oishiki smiled a tired greeting when I settled next to her. Loath to give it away, but unable to keep it for myself, I presented the pathetic and precious gift. We both stared at the strip of salted meat, and I fought a flare of guilty desperation. I tensed against a roiling groan from my stomach, then Oishiki was gnawing the morsel in half, the whiteness of her teeth bright in all the dark. I swallowed dryly as the last bite disappeared, but I could not begrudge my friend. The dried meat granted to me was meager most days. She had only clear broth in the mornings for the entirety of her bleeding.
Shifting in the enclosed space and smothering another rumble, my eyes closed in the heavy air. The rolling waves of heat called my sins to my skin where they slid down my smooth head and back. Tight muscles loosened, and knotted shoulders stretched. The cleansing cot always made me stiff. It was my fifth day which meant I would soon finish. Tomorrow I could sleep in my familiar bed again, let my hair grow for another moon’s turn and eat my fill of fresh food.
My hunger spoke treacherously again, refusing to quiet this time. Oishiki stirred beside me, and without a word, her fingers threaded through mine. I guided my drained friend through the rest of the ritual, leading us out of the steam, and rinsing the sweat from our skin. The pure water was warm from the sun, but out in the open air, it cut the fever of the steam bath. A bright scent clung to the new clothing we wrapped around ourselves. I slid my slim razor into the folds of my belt and helped Oishiki’s clumsy fingers wrap her own blade.
Clean another day, we walked into the sinking sunlight, parting only when we reached her home. My gaze supported her slightly swaying steps until she disappeared inside. How many times would hunger come calling tonight?
The smell of sweet spices guided me home. My stomach nearly expelled its emptiness, so fiercely did it yearn, but I did not stop for envy. The cot folded me in its stale embrace and awoke all my aches and pains again.
Not long after, he announced himself with quiet footsteps and passed me my water, careful not to touch. My belly quieted at the semblance of sustenance as I drained the soothing drink in several long gulps. With a sympathetic smile, he promised me a full meal the next day, bade me goodnight and the assurances that soon I would finish, that soon I could return to him, and my comforts, and normalcy. He extinguished the lights early, retreating to the opposite end of the house.
I searched for sleep in every corner of the cot and found it in the quiet rhythm of his movements instead.
He wasn’t the worst husband.


Her screams sailed over the grass and into the open sky, and the stick snapped into splinters against the tree. Mahitwe bruised the trunk with her fists and feet before dropping into a final shriek in the dust.
Sorrow whispered through us, we who watched in the dappled shadows. Chidri sniffed beside me, and behind us, I could hear Naika fiddling with her razor. I wiped my own silent tears. For my bleeding friend, betrayed by an impatient husband; for her cold daughter, mauled by an insatiable man. Silence spoke for us as we waited and shifted with the shade, brushing the salty streaks away.
When the bird fluttered close, picking through the seeds at the base of the tree, Mahitwe struck, swift as a snake, and snared it with her bare hands. As one, the rest of us gathered our weapons and set to work, and after feathers and scales and furs had draped our shoulders, we turned and chased our long shadows home.
The buildings grew distinct as we drew close in the gathering darkness. Mahitwe took the lead, boldly cutting through the heart of the town instead of tracing the perimeter as usual. No one greeted us except our own dusty footsteps. Night had carried sleep to the town, but the stillness had followed us home.
We dropped our kills at the butcher’s hut before entering the bathhouse to begin our cleansing. I always appreciated this ritual more after a hunt in the heat. The sand and suds washed the day away, and the shave of the razor was satisfying against my skin.
She stared at the blade she dragged along her arm, scraping away the fine hairs and dirty stains. Did Mahitwe believe it would erase her pain too? Chidri rinsed her off, the water fluid against our friend’s stillness, and we watched it run down her legs, lightly coloured by the blood.
Kisses placed on smooth heads, and then my friends disappeared into the steam. I wished to follow and shed the weight of the day in the steam, but my bleeding had finished a few days past. The dark entrance stared back at me, and I wondered if Mahitwe could expel the sins she carried when they never belonged to her to begin with.
He was already sleeping when I slid into the narrow bed, pressing close and closer despite the lingering heat. There was drowsy shifting, then he was pulling away, berating me in a raspy tone. Touch wasn’t tolerated on hunting days, not even after my cleansing ritual.
As he left to wash my touch away, I stretched across the bed, trying to fill the emptiness around me. His murmured prayers floated through the darkness like a lonely lullaby.
The warmth of day had finally bowed to the coolness of night when he gently draped the extra cover around me. I gathered the blanket to my face and dried my tears. His presence faded as dreams embraced me, but he lingered in the scent that filled my head.
He wasn’t the worst husband.


I noted the coldness on my knees when I collapsed into the stains even as my hands slipped and pressed into her wrists. My gasps gave way to groans and then finally to guttural screams. They shattered the calm of the morning, called anyone and everyone capable of hearing, brought a sharp sting to my throat that matched the sharp smell in my nose, but they were still not loud enough to wake her from that eternal slumber.
At last, clean hands pulled me outside and held me when I heaved into the dirt. The crowd grew and dwindled. I leaned into the women who stayed and washed me with their tears, and I stared through my own at the men who shrank away, shuffling the children beside them.
One man countered the current and came to a long halt as he surveyed the scene. Tulodomi’s husband leaned heavily on his walking stick and spat out a wet cough. My eyes closed to his shakes and gestures and glares. My ears deafened to his wheezes and questions and grievances. I turned my back on that wizened man, turned away from the innocent razor that had spilled her secrets, and let my feet carry me to the cleansing huts.
The blood, which had seemed so chill before, now felt like burns on my hands, and I plunged them into the water. Someone gently scrubbed my back, head, and body, but I could not tear myself away from the red in front of me. Eventually, they guided me away and began the familiar strokes. The razor scraped the slight hairs on my arms and legs, and shaved the short coils on my head, but there was a heaviness that could not be cut away. I wanted to take my razor and finish what they would not start.
Neither the warm water nor the high sun could cease my chattering teeth, and a fresh wave of shivers shuddered through me when I stepped past the threshold. He passed me a cup of freshly steeped tea when I sat across from him. Relief from the pain came as I allowed the steaming brew to burn my mouth and sting my sore throat.
He expressed sympathy for Tulodomi’s husband, hoping that peace would be quick to find the elderly man in this trying time. It was difficult for the ailing to care for themselves alone. A flinch struck his face as he wondered how someone could inflict such pain on their loved ones.
I thought of the potency of a razor, of how it could indeed slice through skin, through a marriage, through a life, but words will always have a way of cutting one to their core. If Tulodomi hadn’t always been so busy calling for aid for her sickly husband, would we have heard her own cries for help?
After the teapot emptied, he wandered about, completing menial tasks around me. I didn’t take any of the food he laid in front of me, eating the hours of the day instead and staring at my clean hands. I could still feel her; she had seeped into me, soaked into the fine lines of my skin.
He lit several sticks of incense. Their scent and smoke and the prayer he murmured for Tulodomi wandered through the creeping quiet of the night. He remembered her kind attentiveness and wished her tranquility in the afterlife. I remembered her quiet desperation and wished her freedom in death.
My blank mind could not help but fill with all his words. They ran circles in my head and sang me into the numbness of sleep.
He wasn’t the worst husband.


But he wasn’t the best either.
My toes twitch underneath him, cold and stiff. I wave a fly away and send them all scattering. They simply buzz back, tiptoe along his feet, inspect the shadows on his face, and flit to and fro between us.
A sea of impending clouds has long since swallowed the bright and blue, and there is a swell in the air like the sky is holding its breath. That heady scent, so rich and alive, has permeated the stagnant air. A stuttering light strikes, and moments later the following boom shatters the silence. Then, all at once, the rain falls. The roof reveals its many little leaks, and the water drips into little puddles of sound. As though he listens, water collects in a small pocket next to his ear.
I remain untouched in the dry corner. Another flash reflects bright white against the thin blade cradled in my hand. I fall into its familiar grip, trace the bumps on the handle, glide along the smooth silver sides, caress the razor’s edge. Always sharp, the feather of a touch glides through my skin, and red appears against black. It collects in the thin lines of my palm, vivid even in the gloom. I paint patterns on my fingers, along my wrist, all up my arm, and I marvel at the ticklish trails the blood leaves as it trickles away.
I’ve summoned them, and several flies dart close to oversee my work. I swat them away, and they all briefly disperse then resettle to business once more. They have discovered his deeper crevices, and they explore the dark caverns in the folds of his clothes and crawl along the roads that weave through his tangled hair. I touch his thick beard, rubbing the coarse hair between my fingertips, then barely brush his lips, trace his round nose, smooth his wild eyebrows, linger on his long lashes. My fingers pass through his strewn hair. It’s wiry and glossy and knotted and soft all at once, and so long it maps out the entirety of his life. I reach the end, and everywhere I’ve been I’ve left red.
An almost forgotten chill has settled, but I am numb to the cold. The rain still falls, and the puddles still fill until the one beside his head finally floods and reaches for me. My hand hovers above. Fallen blood mixes with muddied water, and then I greet the cool kiss.
The sharpness seeps into my skin and slaps me from my reverie. I startle, and the razor slips from my slick fingers. It slices, and spins, and falls, and it’s finally swallowed in a hollow splash by the dancing water, and I am left clutching my burning arm to my aching chest.
I can hear the rushing of the rain, the high shrieks of the children, the low laughter of the adults, the splashes of jumping feet, and everything interspersed by the percussion of the thunder. The symphony of sounds calls me to my feet, and the flickering light guides my way. With one hand held close and skirts bunched in the other, I carefully step over his body and into the downpour.
The parched ground isn’t even able to swallow this deluge fast enough, and the mud grabs at my feet. I’m soaked in seconds. Rain splashes into my open mouth, mixes with the tears falling from my eyes, and fills every crack that runs through me.
Never before have I felt so smooth and clean and awake.