The Handmaid’s Tale
the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone.
garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors
I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as
the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in
the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.
they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.
They were objects of fear to us ironic, as women are usually described as objects to men; power in
reversing gender stereotypes
Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies.
That was our fantasy. Willing to exchange sex, make deals with their bodies to get out of this world
They've removed anything you could tie a rope to.
Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.
It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
Her face might be kindly if she would smile.
They were shelling peas; even through the almost-closed door I could hear the light clink of the hard
peas falling into the metal bowl. Domestic hard labour, sexism, domestic sphere, racism, slavery
If I hadn't of got my tubes tied, it could of been me, say I was ten years younger. It's not that
bad. It's not what you'd call hard work.
Their faces were the way women's faces are when they've been talking about you behind your
back and they think you've heard: embarrassed, but also a little defiant, as if it were their right.
we would talk, about aches and pains, illnesses, our feet, our backs, all the different kinds of
mischief that our bodies, like unruly children, can get up to.
We would exchange remedies and try to outdo each other in the recital of our physical miseries
sinking my hands into that soft resistant warmth which is so much like flesh. I hunger to touch
something, other than cloth or wood. I hunger to commit the act of touch.
I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?
Go to the Colonies, Rita said. They have the choice. Colonies traditionally don’t have the
choice. Syntretism. Corvée system.
daffodils are now fading and the tulips are opening their cups, spilling out colour. The tulips are
red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they had been cut and are beginning to heal there.
Many of the Wives have such gardens, it's something for them to order and maintain and care
for.
From a distance it looks like peace.
,They aren't scarves for grown men but for children.
I am a reproach to her; and a necessity.
There's always a black market, there's always something that can be exchanged. She then was
a woman who might bend the rules. But what did I have, to trade?
As far as I'm concerned, this is like a business transaction.
Here and there are worms, evidence of the fertility of the soil, caught by the sun, half dead;
flexible and pink, like lips.
I open the white picket gate and continue, past the front lawn and towards the front gate. Pass
through gateway to new life, through virginity and innocence
This at least hasn't changed, the way men caress good cars.
Low status: he hasn't been issued a woman, not even one. Women to be issued by men, for
men
He begins to whistle. Then he winks.
Perhaps he saw the look on my face and mistook it for something else.
Think of yourselves as seeds, and right then her voice was wheedling, conspiratorial, like the
voices of those women who used to teach ballet classes to children, and who would say, Arms
up in the air now; let's pretend we're trees.
We aren't allowed to go there except in twos.
the occasional Birthmobile
As we walk away I know they're watching, these two men who aren't yet permitted to touch
women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt
sway around me. It's like thumbing your nose from behind a fence or teasing a dog with a bone
held out of reach, and I'm ashamed of myself for doing it, because none of this is the fault of
these men, they're too young.
I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there. I hope they get hard at the sight of us
and have to rub themselves against the painted barriers, surreptitiously. They will suffer, later, at
night, in their regimented beds. They have no outlets now except themselves, and that's a
sacrilege.
Gilead is within you.
mark the women of the poorer men.
Though I never ran at night; and in the daytime, only beside well-frequented roads.
Women were not protected then.
I think about having such control.
I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew
, Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks
to us, touches us. No one whistles.
There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the
days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be
able to choose, then. We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.
One of them is vastly pregnant; her belly, under her loose garment, swells triumphantly.
She's a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She's a flag on a
hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved.
Now that she's the carrier of life, she is closer to death
All children are wanted now, but not by everyone.
She's come to display herself. She's glowing, rosy, she's enjoying every minute of this.
Her hands rest on it as if to defend it, or as if they're gathering something from it, warmth and
strength.
She could get one of those over her head
She's too old. (Or too smart, or too lucky.)
I trusted fate, back then.
It's been a long time since I've seen skirts that short on women. The skirts reach just below the
knee
the high-heeled shoes with their straps attached to the feet like delicate instruments of torture.
The women teeter on their spiked feet as if on stilts, but off balance
They seem undressed. It has taken so little time to change our minds, about things like this.
Then I think: I used to dress like that. That was freedom. Westernized, they used to call it.
Modesty is invisibility...Never forget it. To be seen—to be seen—is to be...penetrated. What you
must be girls, is impenetrable.
that to stare at them through the lens of a camera is, for them, an experience of violation.
The smell of nail polish has made me hungry.
the men too: we are secret, forbidden, we excite them.
sometimes it's as dangerous not to speak.
We have learned to see the world in gasps.
the young men with their naked arms
When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like
that.
the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone.
garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors
I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as
the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in
the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.
they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.
They were objects of fear to us ironic, as women are usually described as objects to men; power in
reversing gender stereotypes
Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies.
That was our fantasy. Willing to exchange sex, make deals with their bodies to get out of this world
They've removed anything you could tie a rope to.
Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.
It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
Her face might be kindly if she would smile.
They were shelling peas; even through the almost-closed door I could hear the light clink of the hard
peas falling into the metal bowl. Domestic hard labour, sexism, domestic sphere, racism, slavery
If I hadn't of got my tubes tied, it could of been me, say I was ten years younger. It's not that
bad. It's not what you'd call hard work.
Their faces were the way women's faces are when they've been talking about you behind your
back and they think you've heard: embarrassed, but also a little defiant, as if it were their right.
we would talk, about aches and pains, illnesses, our feet, our backs, all the different kinds of
mischief that our bodies, like unruly children, can get up to.
We would exchange remedies and try to outdo each other in the recital of our physical miseries
sinking my hands into that soft resistant warmth which is so much like flesh. I hunger to touch
something, other than cloth or wood. I hunger to commit the act of touch.
I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?
Go to the Colonies, Rita said. They have the choice. Colonies traditionally don’t have the
choice. Syntretism. Corvée system.
daffodils are now fading and the tulips are opening their cups, spilling out colour. The tulips are
red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they had been cut and are beginning to heal there.
Many of the Wives have such gardens, it's something for them to order and maintain and care
for.
From a distance it looks like peace.
,They aren't scarves for grown men but for children.
I am a reproach to her; and a necessity.
There's always a black market, there's always something that can be exchanged. She then was
a woman who might bend the rules. But what did I have, to trade?
As far as I'm concerned, this is like a business transaction.
Here and there are worms, evidence of the fertility of the soil, caught by the sun, half dead;
flexible and pink, like lips.
I open the white picket gate and continue, past the front lawn and towards the front gate. Pass
through gateway to new life, through virginity and innocence
This at least hasn't changed, the way men caress good cars.
Low status: he hasn't been issued a woman, not even one. Women to be issued by men, for
men
He begins to whistle. Then he winks.
Perhaps he saw the look on my face and mistook it for something else.
Think of yourselves as seeds, and right then her voice was wheedling, conspiratorial, like the
voices of those women who used to teach ballet classes to children, and who would say, Arms
up in the air now; let's pretend we're trees.
We aren't allowed to go there except in twos.
the occasional Birthmobile
As we walk away I know they're watching, these two men who aren't yet permitted to touch
women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt
sway around me. It's like thumbing your nose from behind a fence or teasing a dog with a bone
held out of reach, and I'm ashamed of myself for doing it, because none of this is the fault of
these men, they're too young.
I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there. I hope they get hard at the sight of us
and have to rub themselves against the painted barriers, surreptitiously. They will suffer, later, at
night, in their regimented beds. They have no outlets now except themselves, and that's a
sacrilege.
Gilead is within you.
mark the women of the poorer men.
Though I never ran at night; and in the daytime, only beside well-frequented roads.
Women were not protected then.
I think about having such control.
I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew
, Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks
to us, touches us. No one whistles.
There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the
days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be
able to choose, then. We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.
One of them is vastly pregnant; her belly, under her loose garment, swells triumphantly.
She's a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She's a flag on a
hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved.
Now that she's the carrier of life, she is closer to death
All children are wanted now, but not by everyone.
She's come to display herself. She's glowing, rosy, she's enjoying every minute of this.
Her hands rest on it as if to defend it, or as if they're gathering something from it, warmth and
strength.
She could get one of those over her head
She's too old. (Or too smart, or too lucky.)
I trusted fate, back then.
It's been a long time since I've seen skirts that short on women. The skirts reach just below the
knee
the high-heeled shoes with their straps attached to the feet like delicate instruments of torture.
The women teeter on their spiked feet as if on stilts, but off balance
They seem undressed. It has taken so little time to change our minds, about things like this.
Then I think: I used to dress like that. That was freedom. Westernized, they used to call it.
Modesty is invisibility...Never forget it. To be seen—to be seen—is to be...penetrated. What you
must be girls, is impenetrable.
that to stare at them through the lens of a camera is, for them, an experience of violation.
The smell of nail polish has made me hungry.
the men too: we are secret, forbidden, we excite them.
sometimes it's as dangerous not to speak.
We have learned to see the world in gasps.
the young men with their naked arms
When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like
that.
