The Unknown by Edgar Lee Masters

YE aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
As a boy reckless and wanton,
Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
I shot a hawk perched on the top
Of a dead tree.
He fell with guttural cry
At my feet, his wing broken.
Then I put him in a cage
Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
When I offered him food.
Daily I search the realms of Hades
For the soul of the hawk,
That I may offer him the friendship
Of one whom life wounded and caged.

Masters, Edgar Lee. Spoon River Anthology. New York: The Macmillan company, 1916; Bartleby.com

Susan G. NO MEN

I was somewhere – seemed like a corporate office. There was some kind of fund-raiser/awareness raiser about breast cancer. I popped my head in the room where this was taking place, while digging into my pocket to search for a few dollars to donate. I was met with immediate venomous resistance: “NO MEN IN HERE, GET OUT!” Shocked, I turned my head and saw that it was indeed a room full of women, exclusively.

I high-tailed it out of there, bewildered as to why they would limit their audience via sexual discrimination. I was now on an escalator, complaining bitterly about my experience and was told to keep my voice down, that the two women that run this program were right behind us. Angrily, I said, “good!” I turned around and said, “why the hell would you do prohibit men from trying to help!?” They gestured at me and said, “come, take a walk with us.”

Suddenly, I was walking outside with them, it was a woodsy area, pretty quiet and abandoned. They seemed to be having a civil conversation with me, when they suddenly grabbed me and a few other people joined them in restraining me. “Do you know how many cases of men being raped by women there are in this country? Not nearly enough…” I remember being restrained using pieces of white cloth – one of which was balled up and shoved into my mouth. I remember screaming and yelling “no” (as best as I could). One of the girls revealed a gigantic syringe. If this part weren’t horrifying, it would have been comical – at least the way it looked. “How would you like HPV?” My screams and futile protests grew louder and more rapid. The large needle was then being slowly lowered, just hovering above puncturing the left side of my pelvis.

This was the part where it transitioned to me watching this as a movie – in which the movie was now showing a wide angle shot of these woods, far away from the action. A very audible unrestrained scream sounded and echoed as the scene came to a close and so did my dream.