Daphne and Paulo
By: Svetlana Smith
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Sexism, Harassment, Greek Mythology

Daphne and Paulo

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

At night ivy winds around my legs, up to my throat, and around my head, pushing itself into my eyes, my ears, my mouth. My legs root to the ground, and my arms reach up to the sky, trailing leaves in the breeze. I feel free as I sway gently, listening to the creaking in my boughs and the birdsong around my head.

‘I’m becoming a tree,’ I tell Maria over coffee at lunchtime as we’re surrounded by the gentle chattering and clinking of other customers eating lunch.

‘Don’t be silly, Daphne,’ she says.

Every day, I trudge to the office, where my boss sits too close to me. He lets his arm brush against mine in meetings and stares at my chest. I wear looser clothes, I arrange scarves to loop and disguise, nothing works. His eyes drift downwards whenever he speaks to me.

‘Did you see that?’ I question Maria.

‘What?’ she asks.

Last week he sent me to H.R. for wearing a baggy dress. ‘Unprofessional,’ he called it. ‘Everyone else wears suits, why can’t you?’

‘It’s a reasonable request,’ Diana says, typing without looking at her computer. ‘That dress is a bit, um, informal, isn’t it? Just get a nice suit like everyone else does.’

‘I feel uncomfortable around him,’ I tell her.

‘Would you like to make a complaint?’ she looks at me sharply. ‘Is he bothering you?’

What should I say? No one else sees anything, maybe it is just me. I go back to wearing suits.

That night my feet root into the ground, my arms fling outwards, and my skin turns rough and craggy. The wind brushes against my leaves, whispering solutions, ideas, and comfort.

‘I’m getting a new job,’ I tell Maria.

‘Why?’ she asks, frantically tapping away at another spreadsheet.

‘Paulo is creepy.’ I stare straight ahead, typing, sorting, filtering, saving.

‘That again? He’s hot, sweetie, thinks he’s a god. Act like you enjoy it, and he’ll leave you alone soon enough.’

The same afternoon he brushes past me in the kitchen, rubbing himself up against me as he reaches for a mug from the cupboard.

I turn to complain, but the kitchen is full. Maybe it was a mistake. He smirks at me. It wasn’t a mistake.

‘It was a mistake,’ says Maria, sipping coffee in our favourite cafe. ‘You’re reading too much into it.’

I hear the sound of leaves fluttering, my arms become stiff, and my toes become roots. I crack my branches back into elbows and force the coffee down.

As soon as I get back to the office, I upload my cv to all the job sites I can find and apply for a position in my local pub.

As I fall asleep, the ivy pushes in all the way to my stomach, winding itself around, into my veins, and out of my fingertips. I am more tree than woman, and, when I wake, my bark snags on my jumper, leaving fluff on my fingertips. My hair rustles like leaves.

I’m standing in the kitchen later that day, waiting for my turn at the water heater, when Paulo touches my arm. ‘Daphne,’ he says. ‘You look lovely in that top.’

The ivy in my stomach rips itself free. It jumps out of my mouth, wraps itself around his neck, tighter and tighter, running down his legs, up over his head, in through his eye sockets, out through his ears. His mouth pops open in alarm until that too is smothered by a strand, pushing inwards and downwards, through his legs, out through his feet, rooting him to the floor.

‘Who left this old tree stump here?’ Diana asks and has Postroom remove him to the carpark.

The last time I looked, he was still there, rooted to the spot, while Diana’s hound breaks branches off him to play fetch.

‘I’m not a tree anymore,’ I tell Maria at lunch.

‘That’s nice, sweetie,’ she says and tucks into her sandwich.

Perhaps I will get another job after all.

Svetlana 2020

It never felt right that Daphne had to turn herself into a tree when Apollo was the problem

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