Destruction/Construction

Systematic destruction is always fun. She plots out how she will take apart each object, her mind an Instagrammable flat-lay with crisp edges and no screws loose. It begins with small items, like door locks, growing to bicycles and radios and lawnmower engines, whose final pieces stretch like a misshapen panorama. Sometimes, if she’s bored or drunk or itching for a fight, she’ll plot the destruction of all the –archys she can think of. The patriarchy, the monarchy, and although materialism is an –ism rather than an –archy, she’d like to have a go at that too.

There are some things that you can take a hammer to, and others which you can’t. Swinging a crowbar at the head of every white supremacist/misogynist/-ist she meets has long been a fantasy, but to deconstruct one’s way out of jail would be somewhat difficult. This is no longer the age of spoons and tunnels.

But this task at hand would be the emotional equivalent at swinging said crowbar at said misogynist. Even the look of the thing was perfect; cassette against green worktable, screwdrivers and Stanley knives and everything one could possibly need to take years of her life apart.

A more appropriate way of going about this would be to SMASH THE WHOLE BLOODY BOX TO SMITHEREENS, throwing it down concrete stairs and claiming that it had walked into a door. But cassette tapes don’t get bruises, and despite the stereotypes associated with her gender, she would do this properly.

Destruction/Construction

But despite her practice, all of the hours watching demolition companies blowing up apartment blocks, she isn’t quite sure how to start. These tapes formed a link with both of their childhoods, guiltily catchy music which they secretly enjoyed. Music had built a bond between them, one which was now legally broken but still emotionally alive. The memories were still there, whirring, a record stuck to Eighties cheese.

She turns on her desk lamp, lets the light flood in, starts to destroy, skips to the next track.