My Body is a Cage and Other Stories

She parks on the side of the road about a mile and a half away from it. There is the
smallest, faintest trail through the trees that testifies to the pilgrimage of many
break-and-enterers, or maybe just a few using thepath religiously. We get out of the car and I tell
her I’m not sure about it. I can’t get arrested. Thisis my first time out of the country and I don’t
want to be banned from the place she grew up in-
She listens to my panic, looking like the cat that’sabout to eat the canary, leans in so I
can feel hot breath on my neck, and bites gently onmy earlobe.
I know I’ve lost. She twines our fingers and tugsme into the forest.
She’s quiet until we reach the plain. It spreads outbefore us on both sides and at the top,
there are faint shapes. There’s a wire fence rightbefore us, and when she finds no evidence of a
flashlight up on the hill she begins to climb. It’sswift and sure-footed, and I know she’s climbed
many fences in her life. This is my first one. Mylegs shake and I clutch onto the rungs and get a
scrape on my upper thigh when I throw my leg overthe top, but I get there.
“I’m so proud of you,” she tells me, and though itsounds like a joke I know it’s not. We
trek up the plain and once there’s a flash of light,which makes her drop into the grass and pull
me down with her. “Stay flat,” she says, and I feelcold creeping up my spine and inside. We are
on our bellies looking at each other and she’s grinningat me. I don’t know if I want to laugh or
cry. The inside of me feels electrified. After twominutes stuck to the earth, the security guard
has rounded the corner and is heading away from us.“Up,” she says, and then we are at the top
of the hill.
I’ve read about Stonehenge, watched a documentaryor two about European ruins, but it
does no justice to these gray sentries, silent andimmovable. Immense.
“Oh my god.”