The Purge -- Marge Piercy

 

Beware institutions begun with a purge, beware buildings that require the bones of a victim under the cornerstone, beware undertakings launched with a blood sacrifice, watch out for marriages that start with a divorce.   To break a champagne bottle over the prow of a boat is prodigal but harmless; to break a promise, a friendship much more exciting (champagne doesn't squeal); but doesn't the voyage require a lot of sightseeing and loot to justify the splatter?   Give it up for me, she says, give him up, give her up, look only in my eyes and let me taste my power in their anguish. How much do you love me? Let me count the corpses as my cat brings home mangled mice to arrange on my doormat like hors d'oeuvres.   But you know nobody dies of such executions. Your discarded friends are drinking champagne and singing off key just as if they were happy without you.  One person's garbage is another's new interior decorating scheme. If she is your whole world, how quickly the sun sets now.