[Issue 2024.71]

‘That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck’, Vanessa Fogg

Art © 2024 Ellis Bray

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You are thirteen and in the shower when you find it. A hard, dangly little thing, like a tag, stuck to the back of your neck. It’s stuck just where your neck bones merge into your back, between your shoulders. Reflexively, you try to brush it away, swat it off, as you would to a bug. It stays stuck. Hot water sluices over you, and the thing is slick and hard to grasp, but you manage. The thing feels like metal. It’s small and rectangular, and there’s a little round opening at the top, where the tip of your finger fits.

It feels exactly like the pull tab of a zipper.

You tug at it and feel the tug on your skin. You try jerking it up. It’s fixed tight. Experimentally, you try pulling it downward. Just a little. Something gives way.

You pull it up again, fast. Your heart’s beating hard. You turn off the shower and step out.

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You’d fought with your mother earlier that night. You’d done something wrong; you’re always doing something wrong. What was it this time? All your transgressions blur into one. She’d kept after you all through dinner: Sit straight, stop slouching. Stop jiggling your leg. Why can’t you stay still? You’re holding that spoon wrong, don’t look at me like that, why are you scowling, oh my god why can’t you act like a normal human being for once?

Your father, as usual, ignored you both, checking messages on his phone.

You tried to keep quiet. To keep your eyes down.

And then you simply couldn’t take it anymore. You’d shoved back from the table, grabbing your half-empty plate to leave. You knew you were making a scene—you didn’t care.

Somehow, the plate slipped from your fingers. It crashed to the floor.

Shards of ceramic and spilled rice and meat. The ring of the breaking plate still echoing in your ears. You cringed, waiting for your mother’s temper to now really blow.

Silence. You heard your father sigh. Tentatively, you looked up.

Your mother’s eyes were hard and bright, and you could have sworn they were bright with hate. Clean that mess up, she said tightly. What on earth is wrong with you?

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Now you’re standing before the bathroom mirror and yes, there’s something wrong with you: it’s stuck to your neck. By twisting and bending you can make it out: the glint of metal. And yes, it’s a zipper, exactly like the zipper on a dress, exactly like the zipper on the frilly little-girl dress your mother bought for your birthday last month, which you hate. The zipper pull-tab is there, but there’s no track beneath it, no line of fitted metal teeth. Just the tab itself, your skin a smooth expanse below.

You hold the tab between your fingers. What if you pulled it down again? What if, this time, you kept pulling?

You don’t. You towel off and change into pajamas. You brush your teeth and crawl into bed. You hug a pillow until you fall asleep.

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You’re a thirteen-year-old girl, and you have so many emotions that they fill you up like a balloon. Your feet nearly lift off the ground with them. The expanding space of your unnamed feelings might just lift you to the sky, or beyond.

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Your mother says she is harsh on you for your own good. She is trying to teach you how to fit into the world. To be normal. To survive.

It’s true: you don’t fit in. You don’t know how to be in this world. You don’t know how to be with other people. You don’t know what to say, how to move, how to act, how to be. You laugh when you shouldn’t, you’re silent when you should laugh. You say only wrong things. You’re not in control of your own limbs; you’re clumsy and break things and make messes. Your skin is too tight. The thoughts in your head are too big. You stumble and flail, missing all cues, always a half step behind.

The other kids at school ignore you except, every now and then, to offer you a look of pitying disdain.

At night you curl up in bed on your side and you reach for your zipper. It’s an embodiment of your freakishness, and for this reason you hold it tight; you press it between index finger and thumb. You like the smooth metal feel. You won’t pull it—the thought scares you—but you like knowing you could.

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Your mother teaches you that everyone wears a mask. She’s perfect at it.

Whenever she wants, she can be charming and sweet. It’s like a dress she slips into when she leaves the house—a magic trick. She turns an inner light on, and her voice warms with honey. She becomes vibrant and witty, fun-loving and fun. People flock to be near her. Your teachers and classmates are stunned when they first meet her—that she, this beautiful and charismatic woman—could be mother to someone like you.

You’re with her at a mall when she runs into an ex-colleague. The two women squeal in delight, their voices rising in matched frequency. They chat like dear friends. You know your mother hates the other woman’s guts.

The two of them hug and promise to catch up more fully sometime. Then the other woman leaves, and your mother sees the expression on your face. Her own face changes. A smirk of faintly bitter amusement. “Don’t look at me like that,” she says mildly. “She was pretending, too.”

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You wonder if anyone else has a zipper sewn into their skin. You think of how it might be hidden on others, covered by clothes or a fall of long hair. You think of bare necks and backs you’ve seen. You’re pretty sure your father doesn’t have a zipper; you’ve seen him at with his shirt off. But your mother? Have you ever seen her neck? She wears her hair down and long, just like you.

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Be normal, your mother tells you, and you try.

You watch those around you and try to copy their actions. You don’t understand people, but you can imitate them. You can analyze patterns of behavior, stimulus and response. You can memorize lines for small talk, and whole scripts for conversation. You practice your smile.

You can be what your mother wants: a pretty, cheerful, perfect, and successful young lady, someone to show off to friends. At school you can adjust your persona as needed. You’re in high school now, and you’ve finally found a group of people to sit with at lunch. You can be sarcastic with them, a little edgy and dark, without pushing too far. You’re always polite to your teachers. You study and do extracurriculars. You get straight A’s.

Your father doesn’t really care who you are or what you do. As long as you get good grades and stay out of trouble. As long as you don’t fight with your mother, and don’t bother him at all.

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Every now and then, you remember your zipper. When you’ve made a misstep, when you didn’t meet expectations, when you’re feeling ashamed. When your emotions are too big. When you feel you might burst out of your skin.

The zipper tab doesn’t trouble you except when you think of it. Somehow, it never catches on anything; it doesn’t dig into your skin. Somehow, the tab lies flat against your neck, although there’s no visible groove or track beneath. You don’t feel it unless you reach for it.

Pressure builds up within you, and you reach for it.

You’re lying in bed in the dark, and you finger the smooth metal tab. It fits so well in your pincer grip. Like all zippers, it was made for pulling. It’s the reason for its existence, the reason it appeared.

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Something changes for you in college.

It’s like something’s finally clicked, all your hard work has paid off. What was practiced and difficult becomes natural and easy. Now you know what to say and do, and you no longer have to think about it.

You know how to smile, how to laugh, how to nod your head in sympathy. How to widen your eyes and lean in with attention; how and when to reach out with a comforting touch (you’ve learned how to touch). You can set people at ease; you can keep any conversation going. Now everyone wants to be with you, know you. You toss your head with a bright laugh, and you know that you look and sound just like your mother.

The first time a boy runs his fingers through your hair—sliding his hand up the back of your neck as he does so—you freeze. You’ve been kissing on his bed. He cradles the back of your head. He doesn’t seem to notice your zipper at all.

Later, he walks you back to your dorm room and you find yourself standing alone before the closet mirror. You take off your shirt, and by flipping your hair and turning to the side you can still see it: your zipper. You can reach down and touch it. But he didn’t see or feel it at all.

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It occurs to you that maybe others do have zippers—just not on their necks.

You become a little obsessed with finding them. You run your hands the length and span of your lovers’ bodies, seeking. You explore each curve and hollow, stroking and probing. A girlfriend purrs in delight. You’re so passionate, she murmurs, and bites your ear.

You never find a zipper on another. Nor does anyone notice yours.

You begin wearing your hair up. You wear low-backed tank tops and outfits. You even guide a lover’s hand on your neck to your metal zipper tab.

He doesn’t notice.

So many years you’ve hidden this, and now you want people to see, and they don’t. You want someone to comment, to recognize your freakish nature. You want to know that you’re not alone, that someone out there has something similar, somewhere on their body.

It never happens. You cut your hair short. You sunbathe at the beach, on your stomach. A lover slides her hands all over you, and her mouth as well. Nothing happens. There’s nothing to fear.

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You graduate from college and get a great job. You work your way up to six figures. You’d majored in a technical field, but your excellent people skills find an outlet in management, where the money is better.

You buy a lovely condominium in an expensive city. You are polished and charming. You’re everything your mother wanted, although you rarely call home.

Your romantic relationships never last long, but you have friends in the city with whom you can grab drinks. You get promoted again. Everything’s perfect.

So why do you wake at night with a pounding heart, a feeling of unbearable pressure in your chest? Why do you feel something nameless expanding within you, itching for release?

You meet someone at a work conference. You figure that it will be just a little fling, some fun and a warm body to help you sleep. Something to help take the edge off. But when you check out of the hotel and arrive at the airport, you find him waiting at your terminal gate. He’s on the same flight home. And not only does he live in the same city—he lives on the same city block.

Somehow, he becomes a fixture in your life. Somehow, he sticks around, and you don’t tire of it.

He touches you with such tenderness. His dark eyes looking straight into yours as he cups your cheek. His lips gently pressing your forehead, then kissing your eyes closed. Lying in bed, his hand glides up your back—up your neck—to hold the back of your head as his other arm curves in about your waist to hold you—all of you—within a circle of warmth.

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Tell me about yourself, so many have said to you. Friends and dates and would-be friends and dates, all seeking to get close.

I want to know all about you, lovers have insisted, trying to push past your polished surface. Claiming that they want to see you in your entirety—all of you.

I’m interested, I’m not joking, I really want to know, this new man tells you now. You’re folding laundry together in your bedroom, and you’re trying to laugh off his questions about your childhood, ridiculously detailed questions on the minutiae of your life, on what it was like to grow up and be you.

You flick away his questions with another joke. He laughs this time and allows himself to be distracted.

People aren’t what they seem. You’ve known that for a long time. Nevertheless, you still feel a little betrayed at finding this out: that the man you assumed was an easy fling at a conference, a smooth-talking player, is a romantic at heart. That he’s somehow become more to you than you thought. That he’s stuck around, he wants to stick around, and he wants—like so many before—to know and see you for all that you are.

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Still half-asleep, he reaches for you at night. He pulls you in close, warmth against warmth. Your bare back pressed to his front. He nuzzles and kisses the back of your neck, right where your zipper tab is. He doesn’t sense it; he doesn’t feel it. He has no idea.

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The two of you begin talking of marriage.

You’re both in your thirties and not getting younger. You’re both at a stable point in your careers. Marriage, children, a house in the suburbs. The next logical step. The right step.

This is the track you’ve stepped on, and this is where it leads. A perfect life. The life that everyone wants. It’s okay if he never knows you in full; no one does. You can still have the shape of a perfect, successful, blessed life.

And it’s a life he wants—he let you know that early on, surprisingly so. His face so open and earnest as he told you his dream: a happy family. A partner for life, and children raised with love.

You agreed with him. Two children, you both decide—the perfect number. They’ll be healthy and strong and beautiful and smart—how could they not be, you joke, with parents like yourselves?

You speak of the future so calmly, with such confidence.

But you’re having trouble sleeping again. At night, your chest is tight. Something is ballooning within you, pressing out breath.

You haven’t thought much of your zipper in years. It’s become just another part of you, nothing much to take note of—like the mole on your right shoulder or the birthmark on your hip. But now the old fixation comes back.

Would a child of yours have her own zipper tab? If so, would you ever see it? Could you see it? Would you know?

What kind of mother would you make? You see your own mother, casually exchanging and discarding various masks with ease. You feel something stirring within you, something old and longing and pained.

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You know that the proposal is coming. You know the week it will happen.

He’s booked a getaway to the coast, and he won’t give you details. He says that he wants it to be a surprise.

And then you find yourself pulling up to the front of a historic Victorian inn, perched on a high bluff above a wind-tossed sea. There are fresh flowers in your room and chocolates on the pillow.

You rest for a bit, and then he suggests a stroll through the gardens. You know what is about to happen. Daisies and summer roses bloom all around you. The sun is setting. Dark waves heave and break below.

You say Yes, of course. Of course, of course. The two of you have discussed this; you’ve already agreed this is just a formality. You find yourself crying. He assumes that it’s joy.

The sun’s rays slant copper and fire across you and into the sea. The diamond in your ring glitters, catching the last of the light.

And now it’s time for dinner—a celebration dinner, of course! Reservations at the inn’s Michelin-starred nouvelle French restaurant. You and your fiancé walk in together, arm in arm.

The waitstaff already knows of your engagement. Someone comes with champagne and congratulations; there are complimentary hors d’oeuvres. A basket of fresh bread. Your new fiancé is beaming.

You feel your head spinning, even before you take the first sip of champagne.

“I—I have to go the bathroom,” you say.

He leans in, a little frown forming adorably between his brows. “Are you okay?”

You plaster a reassuring smile on your face. “I’m fine. I just have to go to the bathroom real quick.”

You walk up the grand, curving staircase. Then you run down the empty hall to your room.

You’re near to bursting—you can feel it. It hasn’t been so bad in years. Not since you were a teen.

In the bathroom you step out of your high-backed summer dress, letting it fall to the floor. The zipper beneath—the zipper affixed to your skin—glints under fluorescent lights. You reach for it, fumbling. Just to hold. To reassure yourself. To calm what lies beneath.

You can finger the tab, feel the opening at the top, the smooth metal between index finger and thumb. The comfort of that pincer grip. You can hold it and know you have the power to pull, and the power to choose not to. Like standing at the edge of a waterfall, looking down until you’re dizzy, but knowing that you’re safe as long as you stay behind the high railing.

But this time, you don’t feel your heart slowing. You grip doesn’t slacken. What moves beneath your skin doesn’t calm.

Your mother knew, you think distractedly, in your last moments. She must have known—that was why she was so hard on you, so insistent that you discipline yourself, adhere to all norms, learn to pretend to be human. Why she sometimes looked at you with hate. You remember the scene you once caused at a dinner, breaking a plate. Your father ignoring you. Your mother’s bright, glaring eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t just hate in her gaze; perhaps her eyes shone with fear, as well.

And then your hand pulls downward. Just a bit, a little bit, and the zipper glides the rest of the way down on its own. So effortlessly, your skin parts. It falls loosely and puddles on the floor, on top of your summer dress. Easy, so easy, and underneath it all you come bubbling out; you come frothing and oozing and swelling and bubbling out. You’re out, you’re free, you feel the air at last on your own true self, you’re exulting and growing and bubbling up to fill the whole room.

And then you’re knocking down the hotel room door with your bulk; you’re oozing and sliming your way down the hall. You’re creeping and sliding down the grand staircase; you’re headed to the restaurant, roiling and boiling. Your fiancé once said that he wanted to see your true self, in all your entirety—well, now you’ll show him. You’ll show everyone. The whole world can finally see. You roll and heave and froth into the dining room, and with pleasure you hear the first screams.

© 2024 Vanessa Fogg

[Issue 2024.71]

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