Roadside Attraction
by Siarra Riehl
Sylvie found the cello on Highway 16 between two billboards, one advertising fried chicken, the other America’s newest fake meat concoction. A wooden body, neck, and strings—two attached, one swaying, the other missing—poking out of the ditch and heading toward the rumble strips on the side of the road. She halted. Picked up his body. Placed him upright in the passenger seat of her car. She heard the song on the radio seventeen minutes later. A capriccio for violoncello by some composer with half-a-dozen names. The cello’s strings vibrated along with the sonorous melody, and she placed her hand on the back of his neck for the duration of the drive.
When they arrived home, Sylvie carried the human-sized instrument over the threshold like a groom would his bride. His body was rotund, his neck slender. Well-loved, with wear on his back and under his strings. There was tension between them. She, a single woman in her mid-forties with a freezer full of microwave dinners and a job that was mostly brawn and no brains. He, a voluptuous songstress with years of experience in a world foreign to Sylvie.
*
That night, she ordered a large pizza. Ate all but two slices, which she kept in the box and refrigerated for the next day. She scratched names on the back of some unopened mail with a pen she’d spent too long looking for in her junk drawer: Jason. Greg. Phillip. Sam. But none of the names quite fit.
She picked the cello up, his body and head dirty. Carefully removing his three strings, she put them safely in her underwear drawer, then walked up a few flights to coin-wash a large blanket to wrap him in. She placed his naked body into her too-small tub, wiped him clean with oil and a face cloth, and hung the blanket to dry. She wrapped him the following day after eating the two slices of cold pizza for breakfast. By that time, she’d settled on Daniel. A proper name for her music man.
*
When Sylvie was younger, her classmates teased her for having straw hair and big bones. Freckles and crooked teeth. She burned easily from direct sun exposure, so she often looked shockingly white, covered in unabsorbed sunscreen. She lost her virginity to a boy much smaller and more feminine than she. He was drawn to her for her strength and masculine features. She to him for the opposite reasons. They spent the entirety of tenth grade pretending together. Her repulsion at the sight of his penis made for convenient anal sex. She didn’t have to look at it. He could close his eyes and pretend she was someone else.
Getting home from work that Monday evening, Sylvie carefully unwrapped the blanket to expose Daniel’s stringless body. She sat and stared at him. Daniel’s slender neck was so like the boy she’d had sex with in high school. The only boy she’d ever had sex with. But his body was curved and flirtatious, like the hips of the many women she’d been with since. He was both. And she felt excited by the thought of it.
Unsure of what to do with Daniel, Sylvie considered her options. She could drive him to a thrift store. Or donate him to the local symphony. She could break him apart and use the wood for campfires. Or open him up and use his body for storage. She considered what kind of life Daniel would have if he stayed with her. She thought of digging up the brushes and paint from an art class she had taken to appease an old girlfriend. Painting a mural on his back. A tattoo to mark him as her own. She thought of how it would feel to play him. Her fingers gliding up and down his neck. His body between her thighs. His head nestled as closely between her breasts as she could manage. She wished she could learn how to make him sing without lessons or formal training. She wished he would teach her how to play him.
*
When she awoke on Tuesday, Sylvie took a sick day off from work. She propped Daniel up on the couch, put on reruns of her favourite TV show, and made microwaved macaroni for breakfast. After taking the first bite of pasta into her mouth, Sylvie dropped the cardboard container, spilling part of its contents onto Daniel’s shoulders. She carefully picked the small, elbow-shaped noodles off his exterior, leaving behind the slightest trace of sauce. The phone rang, and a sudden heat rose to her chest. She held her breath until she heard her boss leave a message. Something about tomorrow’s shift. She looked down at the sauce on Daniel’s body and licked it off. Her tongue gliding slowly against his clean wood. After cleaning up the rest, Sylvie grabbed Daniel’s strings and brought him to the music shop down the street.
“Did you need any repairs on your bow or just the cello?”
“I don’t have a bow,” she said.
“How do you play your cello then, ma’am?” the boy asked.
“With my hands,” she replied, feigning confidence.
*
The same boy was working at the shop when she picked him up Thursday morning. She thanked him and rushed quickly home with Daniel in the passenger seat. When she returned to her apartment, Sylvie felt an excitement she hadn’t felt in years. She placed Daniel in front of the couch and went to her bathroom. There, she grabbed her favourite toy from the shower, still suctioned to the wall from the last time she’d used it. She wiped it clean, sat down, and stuck the toy to Daniel’s back. She searched online, found a three-hour playlist of cello music, and pressed play before placing him between her thighs. It took a while to find the right angle, but Daniel sang along to the music and Sylvie, eventually, sang too.
The Molotov Cocktail 