The Dog, The Dragon, And The Rabbit

I dream that I can fly. It happens most nights, and I soar through the air, high above mountains, low down in the valleys between them, just above the surface of crystal blue lakes. I don’t have wings, but in my dreams I can fly.

In life, though, I cannot fly. In life, I hop. I am small and cute and I surely cannot fly. I am the little bunny and I play with other beasts. But that’s enough of that. Let’s get to now.

Let’s get to right now.

Right now I’m halfway through shaving my legs in the shower and I can hear Simon calling from out in the kitchen. We’re going to be late for work and once again it will be my fault. 

“Dude!” he says when I finally lock up the back door and get into the car with him.

“I know, I know,” I say, trying to brush him off. I wasn’t shaving my legs for him, of course. I am the little bunny. Hop, hop, hopping.

***

We arrive late but the drive was pleasant enough and by the time Simon parks the car and we kiss goodbye I know he has already forgiven me and he’s thinking I’lll fuck him or at least suck his dick tonight to make up fro my tardiness. Which I will / won’t / might. 

We go our separate ways and I stand at the lights on the intersection outside Simon’s building and then walk down Main Street until I know that I’m out of view of his office window. That’s when I turn onto the cross street and start walking quickly towards the corner where I want to be — six streets further downtown and two streets closer to China Town. 

On my walk I do the two things that I normally do — (1) check my watch, and (2) think about Simon. My watch says 6:33AM so I should be on time for my transgression. Don’t get me wrong, I let Simon do what he needs. I do. That has always been the truth of it — I’ve never said no. The beauty and irony of it, is that he doesn’t ever really ask or want for much and he surely doesn’t ask or want for anything inappropriate. Simon is a nice guy and well…someone has to come last.

By the time I reach the corner that I need to, I’ve already been through all of the layers of love and guilt and shit and blood. The tears won’t come until after. They never do. I get to the corner and remember how I used to be afraid of strip clubs. That was until Samuel came along. Everything was fine until Samuel came along. But of course everything was also boring until Samuel came along.  The first time I met him has always been a story for another time, but I’ve decided, just now, that I’m going to tell it to you. 

***

It’s easy to fall into the open jaws of a cliche and that’s exactly what I did with Samuel. What I keep doing with Samuel. I still remember when I first saw him. I know I shouldn’t have been there — a strip club in the middle of the morning — but it was the only place I could find that was open where I could order a vodka soda and hide in a dark corner at 10:15AM on a Tuesday. And that’s exactly what I did. The place was empty, for which I was glad, and the music wasn not offensively loud as it often is in the drinking venues that I’ve attended. I nursed my vodka and felt guilty for lying to my boss so that I could leave early. 

I had seen Samuel when I first walked in. He had been sitting at the bar talking to a beautiful blonde who was serving drinks. He was tall and dark haired, with tattoos down his arms and a cocky smile, yet he was dressed like an office worker and he even had a pen protector in his pocket. Still, his clothes fit perfectly and his hair was styled with intent. I had ordered my drink at the other end of the bar, avoiding him because I knew I found him to be right up my alley of attractive and I really didn’t feel like blushing or stumbling over my words considering the morning I’d had. 

I was so lost in my own drama that I didn’t notice Samuel standing in front of me until it was too late. He invited himself to sit down and then it was just the two of us in a strip club, drinking vodka sodas on a Tuesday morning. 

“Samuel Appleberry,” he said, holding out his hand. I shook it and introduced myself similarly. 

He didn’t necessarily do most of the talking but he pretty much asked all of the questions. 

“Are you single?”

I shook my head, sipped my drink. I am the little bunny.

“I haven’t seen you here before. Are you lesbian?”

I shrugged and shook my head again. “Just needed a drink.”

“Rough morning?” 

I nodded.

“Tell me.” This time it wasn’t a question.

I cradled my vodka close in front of my chest and tried to smile. “I don’t think so.” I am the little bunny.

“Yes. You let me sit down and now you have to tell me your story. I’m the ear and you are the mouth. Those are the rules.”

He was so hot and forward and dominant. I knew that he knew that my knickers were soaked through already. I knew that he knew that he had me. I was backed into a corner, literally and figuratively. We fucked that first day and we had fucked everyday since. Correction: Samuel had fucked me. 

He made the rules and I followed them. It was just what I had always wanted. 

All the same, Samuel was a cunt and I never tried to stop him. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. I did try to stop it, I just gave up when it never worked. And so I suppose I had become an enabler by that point. He was my escape hatch and no one really cares too much if their escape hatch often malfunctions, as long as they can still escape. 

We fucked that first day and we had fucked everyday since. 

I am the little bunny.

***

Today the strip club — the Fox Den — is empty. I’m glad. I’m early so I can have a drink in peace before Samuel arrives. The staff know who I am now, they are party to my lie but I get a sense that they enjoy talking to someone who’s not just a desperate guy hoping to win the heart of a woman who takes her clothes off for a living. Carly sees me first. 

“Vodka soda?” she asks, wiping down the bar in front of me. 

I nod and she can tell I’m not up for talking. Carly carefully makes the drink and sets it down on a neatly folded napkin. My phone buzzes with a text. I sense the Dragon but I am wrong. 

Simon: Not feeling too well. Boss sent me home. Can you get an Uber?

That’s weird. I usually never hear from him until about lunch time when he has caught up on his work. He seemed fine earlier. I have to respond now so he can forget about me and keep from asking too many more questions. 

Me: You okay honey? I’ll be fine, I’ll figure something out. Let me know if you need anything xxx

The X’s are an overkill but Simon won’t notice that if he’s feeling off, he tends to turn inward. Either way it works.

Simon: I will. Thanks hon. Sorry.

The ‘sorry’ gives me a feeling I won’t hear from him again until he wakes up, which could be many hours later. I might even be able to chuck a sickie and get the entire day off work without alerting anyone. All the lies have become so thick and intertwined that I can’t even see them for myself anymore. Still, I could use a fuck off day. 

As soon as Samuel walks through the door I can tell there’s something wrong. He’s on his phone and he doesn’t look up from it as he gets to the bar. Carly pours him a drink and the three of us say nothing. Samuel is radiating heat, it’s coming off him in waves. I choose not to engage. This very quickly shows itself to be a poor choice.

“You’re not even going to say hi?” he asks with a snap, all narrow eyes and flared nostrils. He was ready for a fight before he walked through the door. I can feel it now — the demon is about to rear its ugly head. The fight begun before I saw his hard face and the two-day scruff of his beard.

I sip my drink. “I’m sorry, I just…you just seemed pissed off. Everything okay?”

Samuel turns and walks to our booth in the back without answering. I follow him. I am the little bunny, hopping along.

As we sit he moves close to me and slides a hand up my inner thigh beneath my skirt and I can feel him tugging at my knickers.

“Not yet baby, please,” I say, pushing him away a little. 

He leans closer and kisses my neck. He smells of cigarettes and something else that I can’t quite place. He doesn’t stop when I ask him to.

“Baby, please…can we wait until we get to the room?” I say it and I know immediately that it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

Samuel lifts his drink to his lips and downs it in seconds. “Could you be any more fucking annoying? Jesus! It’s like you go away, spend a night with him, and then come back as dry and boring as a fucking Ryvita. Do you even know what I give up for you?!”

His tone and anger catch me off guard. He’s talking too loud in a place that’s too small and all I can think is that I need to get out. I finish my vodka as quickly as he did and grab my bag and get away from him. I am the little bunny. Hopping hopping hopping. 

I slam the strip club door open and the daylight is both a blessing and a curse. I feel the warmth of it yet I am afraid to be seen. I go to the only place I know around here — our apartment down the block. The place we have sex. The place we fuck. I know Samuel will find me there and maybe that’s what I’m hoping for. On the way there I get another text from Simon. 

Simon: Baby, I think it’s a stomach thing. How are you feeling?

I really don’t want to reply, but I do. I’m pretty sure it was the pork anyway.

Me: I’m okay so far. But I didn’t have any of the pork from last night. Did you make it home?

I’m walking so fast now that I’m almost running — I want to make sure I beat Samuel there, if that’s where he’s going as well. Simon’s stomach problems are far from my mind but I need to stay on top of whatever is happening to him so I can keep my lies in line.

Simon: I’m home now. Stay away for a few hours. This won’t be pretty. Sorry honey.

I’m relieved. He’s out of it. He’ll stop texting now, I know he will. Simon hates being sick and he hates me seeing him being sick. Things now are turned back in my direction. 

The apartment block looms in front of me. I scan my card and catch the elevator up to our floor. 18.

***

The room is never how we left it. Samuel gets a cleaner to come in every night. It must cost him a fortune. I don’t know why he thinks my pussy is worth that much. It’s strange that he thinks anything of me at all, the way he treats me. I like the degradation during sex but in real life it’s different. In real life it eats away at my soul. 

I toss my bag in a corner and strip off my work clothes so that I’m just in my underwear — a pair of lacy green knickers and a matching bra. I’m freshly waxed and I know I smell good. I figure that maybe when he gets here and sees me he’ll be in a better mood. 

I am wrong.

I hear him come through the door and slam it behind him. There’s clinking in the kitchenette and I drag myself to come out to see him.

“Hey baby,” I say, coming up behind him and wrapping my arms around his chest from behind.

He lets me stay there a moment but then pulls away and I hear him mutter something. I stand where I am in the kitchen, in just my underwear. He sits down on the couch in the living room with a fresh drink. 

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

He says nothing and flicks on the television without the sound. His face is hard, his eyes unblinking. He refuses to meet mine.

I make a drink in the kitchen and join him on the couch. I don’t sit too close. I hope the underwear will please him. I am the little bunny. Hop, hop, hopping.

***

I’m on my knees and he’s inside me. We haven’t spoken a word since being on the couch. I’m half cut but he is drunk. I know he’s not going to get there but I don’t want to stop in case he gets angry. Eventually he pulls out and pushes me face-down into the bed. I hear him collapse behind me. 

I’m about to say something when he bursts into his really mean stuff. I was prepared, but not quite enough.

“Don’t you speak to me you stupid cunt. I’m tired enough as it is. Just shut your mouth and pray that I don’t rat you out at this point.”

I do what he says. I keep quiet. I roll over and try to pull the blanket up to cover myself. It’s pointless. He pulls it away. 

“You have nothing to say? Go on, say what you want to say. Do it!”

I honestly don’t know what I want to say. I have never known. I couldn’t tell him if I wanted to. But that doesn’t stop Samuel.

“If you want to know the truth, you’re just a cheap slut that was there when I needed something to penetrate. You’re nothing more than a vessel. You’re worthless. Just go back to your pathetic life.”

***

If you’re worried, you shouldn’t be. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. Samuel is as charismatic as he is predictable. I’m already out on the street, back in the awful sunshine and I make sure I’m a couple of blocks away, in China Town, before I book an Uber. I buy a couple of sweet pork buns from a food cart to try and soak up the alcohol. I don’t know where else to go except home. 

I text my boss to say that my husband and I have food poisoning from last night’s dinner, which in itself isn’t a total lie. By the time the Uber drops me off at home the tears have dried up and I’m working on steadying myself; stopping the angry trembling.

Stupid Cunt.

Cheap Slut.

Are they insults or superhero names?

I am the little bunny. I am the Rabbit. I play with the Dragon and the Dog. What made me think I could ever win?

I am the little bunny. I am the Stupid Cunt. I am the Cheap Slut. I surely cannot fly. 

The gate is open so I guess Simon must haver really been in a hurry. Poor thing.

I figure I can sneak in and crawl into the bed in the spare room without having to explain myself until later. I quietly unlock the door and make my way through the kitchen to the hall. My mouth tastes of sweet pork. My hands have started trembling again and I am the little bunny, hopping through my own house, to check on my husband in our bed. I see her hair first — long, blonde and wavy, tumbled perfect down her back. She’s naked and so is Simon and she riding him in our bed. They must not have heard me and they don’t see me. I am frozen in the headlights. I am a little bunny statue. I watch Wavy Blonde move up and down on Simon’s cock. 

I guess the Dog can keep a secret after all. 

Big Black Demon

Today, unfortunately, I am finding it hard to disconnect from reality. Most days it comes as second nature for me, but of course, on the days when bad things happen I tend to find myself rolled up like a sausage in pastry, unable to detach from anything or stop remembering, or thinking, or dwelling. Either way, writing is my usual style of dealing (though, to be fair, I still haven’t written about a fire, unless you count the hell fire in my WIP second novel) and so here is Bradley. And the shittiest day of Bradley’s life.

Maybe if I make Bradley suffer, I won’t have to suffer myself.

Though isn’t it just normal that we suffer ourselves, just like we suffer everything we can get our hands on.

** I apologise for the fact that this short is pretty close to home, and so it might be a little boring. Also I apologise for the title which sounds a little pornographic now that I read it again.

Big Black Demon

Some things were very clear in Bradley’s mind. Some things stuck there — in his mind — like photographs of pure clarity. Crisp and clear.

The cannula in Bradley’s leg was starting to ache. To be fair it had lasted the three days that it was supposed to last, but he was crossing his fingers that it would do him a solid five or six, only because he was out of money, and time, and fucks. As he rolled over in bed, the skin on his outer thigh glowed with the dull heat of a slow-building pain, and the alarm on his phone beeped. Four o’clock in the morning was too early for anyone to be awake, yet there were people who woke much earlier than he did. And they woke at that time everyday. They woke without complaint. They woke in the dark of night. They woke yesterday. They were already awake.

Yesterday Bradley repeated to himself, in the hopes of creating some forward motion. It didn’t work.

Fifteen minutes later his second snooze alarm was going off and the dusty blue haze of dawn was peeking through his curtains. Bradley got up to take a shower. 

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

The bathroom needed a clean; the tiled corners were choked with hair and dust.

The sink needed a scrub as well. 

The kitchen was a mess from last night’s foray into cornbread baking.

The living room was strewn with books and projects and things that should have been long discarded.

There was a dead cockroach in the hall.

There was a burnt out candle on the mantle.

Bradley ignored all of this — he was late as it was. With no time for a coffee on the way out, he grabbed a small bag of grapes and locked the door behind him.

Through the suburbs the going was easy despite the recent storm damage. He hit every light, but they changed quickly and before he knew it he was peeling along the motorway in his canary yellow hatchback, twenty minutes late, but with a kind-of smile on his face — Tuesdays were easy, and he was sure that this one was going to be no different. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Bradley asked Siri to call his brother who had already been at his own job for a few hours. Ryan answered after the first ring.

“Dude! What the fuck? What’s wrong?”

Bradley laughed. “Nothing man, just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, dickhead!”

There was silence and then… “Oh, fuck. Ha! I forgot. Wait, am I forty or forty-one this year?”

Bradley couldn’t help but smile to himself. He and his twin brother Ryan always joked around on their birthday, but this year Ryan had sounded completely surprised, as if he’d actually forgotten their birthday. 

Laughter petered out into civil conversation and then Ryan had to go because apparently science was happening and it couldn’t or wouldn’t be stopped. 

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

There were newly installed electronic road signs in this part of the city. Signs that could project words for traffic advice and missing children and numbers to call if you needed such and such. There were some that showed the speed limit and they changed when conditions changed — slower, faster, lanes closed, lanes opened, lanes flooded, specific limits for certain incidents.

Today the electronic signs were all flashing and though Bradley saw that they were urging him down from 100 to 60 kilometres per hour, he only barely registered it. He was a conscientious driver, and so he braked gradually without thinking about it and brought himself down from 90 to a solid 50 and slowing. The cars in front of him were easily doing 40 while they let merging traffic in from the side.

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Everything was quiet and calm. Traffic was slowing. Bradley braked and braked again. The merging traffic was going too slow. Too slow. There must have been a crash or some kind of incident up ahead. There was no way to tell. Bradley braked once more and saw, in his rear vision — 

The Big Black Demon.

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

The car came up on him quickly but Bradley didn’t think that anything could be wrong, he only worried that perhaps the black car behind him was a little too close. He looked back at the car that was slowing in front of him and that was when The Big Black Demon — 

CRACK! 

The world snapped into darkness.

The impact, at first, felt like forward motion but it changed with rapidity. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Everything was thrown forward. Bradley, his glasses, the car, reality. We, all of us that Bradley knew, moved forward faster than we should have, and then the Big Black Demon was gone, because Bradley had closed his eyes and he was hurtling forward in his yellow hatchback, spiralling towards the traffic in front, spiralling back around again, spinning and flailing inside his car, moving inevitably towards the cement pylon that he couldn’t see; was lucky not to see.

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

Turning and turning. As if he was in a blender. 

Bradley’s glasses flew off his face upon the initial impact, but he didn’t notice. His hands came off the wheel and and dangled out in front of him. His body was thrown to one side and then the other and then back again. The impact on the pylon wasn not as bad as he had anticipated — a dull thud that shook the car and brought him back to life, forcing him to open his eyes. 

Bradley had been sure he was going to die that day. He had been sure that he was going to feel his own death. He had been sure that he was going to experience his own death.

Some things were very unclear in his mind. 

His car had turned a little over 180 degrees in the crash, but if you were to ask Bradley, he would have said the car turned at least two and a half times - 900 degrees. If you were to ask Bradley, he would have said that he shouted out and groaned as the car started to spin, but he didn’t. He made no sound at all. If you were to ask Bradley, he would have said that the Big Black Demon was an SUV or a Utility or a truck of some sort, but it wasn’t. It was a lowered hatchback with custom rims and specialty sticker decals. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Bradley knew that this wasn’t the last time he was going to have to deal with a Big Black Demon.

Pale Pink Sky

    The sea so deep and blind
    Where still the sun must set
    And time itself unwind
    O love, aren’t you tired yet?

    The Faith — Leonard Cohen

 

Pale Pink Sky


If I could be
Something
It would be the
Pale pink sky of afternoon

I would be
The cool wind
Of early evening
And the quiet of dusk’s edge

If I could be
Something
I would be the purpled-blue
Before sunrise

I would be
The rumble of thunder
After lightning and the
Grey behind the trees

If I could be something
I would be you, or him
I would be her
I would be anything

Anything but me

What's Wrong Nothing

What’s Wrong Nothing
 


I think the darkness is following me
Last week I woke in the night
This week I come home in the night
And
The darkness
It is outside the window
And in the rooms where my bulbs have blown
And in the deepening bruise on my thumb
And in the helpless thoughts I have
When I can’t remember not feeling tired
The darkness
It is everywhere

I don’t know if the darkness scares me
But I still look away from it
And keep working
Because I have come to learn that there is no relief
For some of us

For some of us
There is only the unending path of persistence
And that path is paved with the darkness

The darkness that follows

Would you ask me questions through the darkness?
Are you okay?
I wake in the night — I’m fine.
Would you worry at all?
Is everything alright?
I come home in the night — Yes, of course.
Would you see right through my lies?
What’s wrong?
I think the darkness is following me — Nothing.

This Is Not An Exhaustive List

This Is Not An Exhaustive List




    Bye bye baby blue
    I wish you could see the wicked truth

        ~ Glass Animals, The Other Side of Paradise


Anya didn’t want to get out of bed but she knew it was what she was supposed to do, and so she got out. She rolled to the side and hoisted her sleep-heavy arm up to turn off the incessant alarm on her phone. The sun was just starting to filter in through the curtains. Maybe it was going to be a nice day, but who was she to say? She knew she had a good life but that didn’t mean that every day was nice.

She buried her feet in her fluffy slippers. The light in the hallway was on — Jeff always switched it on for her when he left for work — and she flicked it off as she scuffed down the hall, eyeing the door at the end. Locked, she reminded herself. The locked door at the end of the hall.

Anya felt her jaw tighten/clench and took a sharp right-turn into the kitchen where she found the mess from the night before. That was just one of the many things that Jeff pointed out was wrong with her. At the end of the night she never wanted to clean up and though he always urged her — Jeff loved a pristine house — Anya hated being tired and cranky and restless, and then having the added chore of washing the damn dishes. So she never did it. She left them there until the morning, which was when she woke up and immediately regretted having left the mess. It was a vicious cycle that she willingly enabled and she constantly whined at Jeff about Why they couldn’t just hire someone to do that stuff, They had the money.

Just like all the vicious things she enabled within their relationship, probably most of all, the door at the end of the hall. The locked door. But she didn’t want to think about the door right now, she wanted to wash the dishes so that she could relax and make a coffee and a bagel and sit the fuck down. Anya knew her life was nothing but spoils but that never made any difference to how she felt.

What she had — the life, the things, the ease with which it all hurtled towards her whenever she needed it — was much more than the average person could have imagined. Still, she wanted more. Still, she remained unhappy.

The special order stainless steel bagel toaster hummed a buzzing tune on the kitchen bench alongside the coffee machine, who gurgled and spluttered until he released a thin but creamy stream of espresso into Anya’s silver cup; Anya had decided that she wasn’t going to wash the dishes this morning. Maybe Jeff would finally crack and they could hire someone.

With her feet up on the porch railing and the bagel smeared with cream cheese resting on her lap under the mottled light beneath the palms, Anya wasted away the morning. She had worked before — she had vague memories of diners and gas stations and supermarkets — but she couldn’t really remember what it had been like. She knew that Jeff got up every morning at sparrow’s fart and returned home every evening well after dark, but what he did in between was a mystery to her. Banking, she sometimes thought. Or hedge funds? Whatever they were. Or maybe, just like, investments? All of those words sounded as if they shouldn’t be coming out of her mouth at all. Whatever actual work she had once done seemed to be gone from her mind completely.

Her work now was to keep her mouth shut. She liked to think of herself as a silent partner who had no input and also didn’t really know what a silent partner was.

She had it made. She always wanted more and longed for something else, but she never said it out loud, because she had made it. She never did anything about her unhappiness because she had made. That was the best way to keep what you already had and to get more of the things you liked.

The new iPad with the shiny copper case that she hadn’t powered up.

The refurbished study that she never used. It was filled with an arrangement of lovely indoor plant that she didn’t tend to.

The set of chrome cookware that hadn’t seen a drop of oil or butter.

Anya lazed in her chair on the porch and let her bagel go stale in the morning sun. The golden palms rustled above her in the breeze.

She woke to the sound of a motor and looked up to see the motorcycle postman pulling into the bottom of the driveway. Jeff was going to spit chips when he saw those gouges in the front turf. Anya smiled quietly to herself. A bee in Jeff’s bonnet usually proved to be a cherry on her pie of amusement. He’d get angry and distracted and leave her alone for a while and she could pretty much do whatever she wanted without supervision.

But of course, not the locked door at the end of the hall. Never The Door.

The postman got partly off his motorcycle and leant over towards the slot of the box. Anya called down to him and shuffled across the porch, still in her pajamas, completely aware that the hard nipples on her small breasts were obvious to anyone who was looking.

Anya waved and the postman waved back. There was a moment where they just looked at each other — she with a curious eye, he with eyes behind dark lenses; eyes that couldn’t be read. That moment lasted a lifetime. And then it was over and then Anya was standing aside as the postman came up the steps of her porch and past her to the golden palms, where he gently ran his glove-clad fingers over their fronds and said nothing. 

Anya ached with anticipation. She stayed where she was, next to the steps. “Is there mail for me?”

The eye-less postman turned and smiled. He held out a wedge of letters and junk mail towards her. Anya took a few steps over to him and knew he was looking at her nipples. She was immediately wet. She thought about the gouges in the lawn and that was when the sky started to darken. The morning sun disappeared, the clouds rolled in, too quickly, but the postman on her porch didn’t move an inch.

“I think it might rain,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “You could come in for tea?”

He said nothing. He stood still, with his gloved hand on the porch railing next to the palms.

Anya felt herself falter. Normally this part was easy for her. Normally she breezed through this part like the adulterer she was.  “I’m sorry,” she said, wringing her hands together despite herself. “You’ve probably got a lot of mail to deliver. I’m sorry I held you up.”

“I’ll come in for tea,” he said, his voice even and deep.

Anya smiled. “Oh. Okay.” She felt a rush of blood to her fingertips and earlobes. This was the shit she lived for.

Inside he was not as she had expected. The thunder and the rain came down and Anya worried that she had perhaps done something wrong this time. The postman with no eyes finally took off his sunglasses and he was blind. The marjority of his eyes were white and milky and Anya immediately regretted her judgement.

“You’re looking for the key,” he said, quietly.

Anya was confused. “No? No, I mean, I don’t think so.”

The blind postman cocked his head slightly and seemed to ponder a moment. “Yes. You look for the key. And I have it.”

Anya didn’t know what he was talking about. “No, I’m sorry. I think you might have the wrong person.”

“The right person would say that. Please, he —”

He held out a small enveloped with ‘Anya’ written on the front.

She took it and watched him walk back out the door and down to his still running motorcycle. No tea was to be had, after all that. Anya stood and considered for a long moment. She didn’t get mail. She never got mail, as it were. The mail was always for Jeff.

The envelope was brown and lumpy and heavy. Anya turned it over and over in her hand listening to the postman’s words inside her head — You’re looking for the key.

Was she? Anya thought she was only looking for ways to be a cunt; she wasn;t looking for a key as far as she could think of. She had everything she needed. She had only really let the postman in because she was hopeful he wanted to fuck her, but all he had done was given her an envelope which she was guessing had a key inside. Anya continued to turn it over in her hands, feeling it’s weight, not quite ready to open it just yet, still thinking about the solid postman with the unreadable blind eyes, wondering how he would have felt between her thighs.

She closed and locked the front door. She was feeling a little tousled — the whole situation seemed off somehow. It was just as she was turning back to the kitchen that Anya felt her eyes slip down the hallway, to the locked door at the end of it.

*****

The box was obvious. The box couldn’t be ignored.

Anya bit the inside of her cheek and stared at it. The thing looked heavy where it sat, not quite in the middle of the previously locked room. Rectangular and solid and edged with a thick rim of drilled copper plate. There was a padlock on it and when Anya finally lurched forward and let her teeth disengage from the soft interior skin of her cheek, she only found that the box was, indeed, locked. She tried the key that had opened the door but it didn’t even fit into the padlock.

So much for that.

She was in the room, but now she needed to get into the box.

She looked around the room she had never been in. It was plain, painted in the same cream as the walls in the rest of their house, but in one corner there was a tall filing cabinet, taller than her and a little dusty on the top. She walked over to it and found it was locked as well. After a little searching, she found the key stuck with blue-tack to the rear edge. Amateur.

The top drawer squealed on its rails as she pulled it out. On tip toes she was barely able to see inside, so she lifted out a handful of papers. She flicked through a couple of pages — they seemed to be instruction manuals and warranty forms from a company called EasyLife. As she rifled, a small card fell from the papers. Anya picked it up.

Your unit comes preloaded with memories and preferences that are suited to your lifestyle and tastes — no need for long and bothersome setup sequences — our new XP units are plug and play :)

Anya didn’t care about this computer stuff, she wanted to know what was in the box. She needed to know.

In the second drawer she found more paperwork, tons of it. She flicked through, looking and looking, and then, at the very bottom of the metal cabinet drawer, she saw it.

A tiny gold card. A gold key was stuck to it with red wax.

Enjoy. That was all it said.

Anya snatched it up greedily and hurried back to the box.

The key worked, of course, and she swung open the lid. She found herself.

She found herself. Paper pale skin. Dull, lifeless, fragile. It was Anya — crumpled, naked, inside a box.

She found herself. Inside the box was Anya. At least, another Anya. She took a step back and realised she was holding her breath. Her heart was jungle drums inside her chest. She reached out her hand and touched the Other Anya. The skin was cold but soft — it felt real. Was it real?

There was a warning label on the inside of lid. With one eye on the Other Anya, she read it out-loud to herself, hoping the act would wake her from the apparent dream she was having.

!WARNING! Warm unit for at least thirty (30) days before use. If unit is engaged without sufficient warming we cannot guarantee a desirable interaction. Insufficient warming may result in some, if not all, of the following potentially undesirable unit traits:

    •    Crankiness
    •    Subjugation
    •    Screaming
    •    Obsession
    •    Infidelity
    •    Scratching
    •    Gluttony
    •    Denial
    •    Independence
    •    Hysteria
    •    Sarcasm
    •    Obesity
    •    Laziness
    •    Impatience
    •    Ambition

**Please note — This is not an exhaustive list and any other potentially undesirable unit traits that may occur due to insufficient warming time are regrettable. EasyLife is unable take any responsibility for potentially undesirable unit traits however we do offer twenty-four hour replacement should units become unmanageable due to potentially undesirable unit traits. Remember to enjoy your purchase.
    Anya looked at the Other Anya in the box in the previously locked room and bit the inside of her cheek. She wondered if Jeff had waited. If he had waited for her to ‘warm sufficiently’.

    She figured Probably Not.

Little One

          what follows is not a very good poem ...




Little One


Thinking that yours is the only
Heart that can be broken
You don’t know the half of it, Little One.
All your vines
As far as they have grown, and
The others
In which they are tangled

How much damage would there be
Should
You choose to leave
You couldn’t fathom, Little one

Will
You find a way to un-break those hearts

All of those bloody, delicate hearts
Or will
You be just how I imagine;
Helpless;
Useless;
Lost.

What will you do when
You realise
That this world wasn’t built for you, Little One.
What will you do

Thinking that this pain is yours alone
You don’t know
Anything.
You are weak and un-marked

All of the lies you tell
Will come back.

All of the skin you touch
Will suffer.

All of the time you take
Will be lost.

I wonder if you will survive this storm
Or prove to be
Another victim

What will you do when the time comes for ending
How will you un-break all of those hearts
How will you fix all of your damage

Little One, what will become of you?

 

Dirt

 the fire was there uninvited. the fire barged in and took things that were mine. the fire took me.

i write. i write because it heals me. i write because i have to write.




Dirt


Marla Holiday was one of those girls who was so awful that she had to get up early just to maintain her level of awful, and Rani knew it. Rani knew it because she had to wake up earlier to try and avoid Marla Holiday’s wrath reign of awful.

Today it was a mud-smeared sanitary pad stuck to the door of her locker. Rani carefully peeled it off and walked the ten terrible feet to the trash can to dispose of it. James Prentice and Stevie Gregson snickered and pointed, but it was no matter, Rani had become accustomed to her current life at St John’s college; the days passed, the fires were lit, they burned, and when there was nothing left but ash, Marla Holiday started another fire.

Rani supposed the bitch just simply wanted to watch the world burn.

And so it did. Like a phoenix. Over and over, and Rani was the one who felt the heat most of all. She returned to her locker, stashed her lunch, retrieved her poetry notes for English and kept her head low on the way to form class — a muddy pad was going to be hilarious for the rest of the school and she hadn’t washed her hair in two days, so the whole dirty thing was bound to show up again.

Rani didn’t wish to be popular, or even liked. Rani wished to be like the nerds, that she could fit in with them, but the books she liked were mostly horror comics and obscure essays or monologues in third person. The nerds seemed to think she was so backwards that she was mainstream. She had tried but the  wall was apparently too high for her to get inside Nerd World.

Form was chaos as usual. Mr Harrington was a drunk (Rani assumed) and he always turned up late and dishevelled looking like he could use a gallon of cool water and a full English breakfast. He was also, ironically, British. Just like every other day, today was the same. Rani took her seat up the front — she prayed every night for a back-of-the-room seat but it never presented itself — and tried to get herself in order. The day was going to be rough; back to back physics followed by a calculus class that would most likely break her.

Rani watched the class and Mr Harrington but no one spoke to her and no one even seemed to look at her, and that was the gruesome beauty of being an invisible beacon. She was hidden until she was seen, and when she was seen, everyone saw.

Marla Holiday sat up the back of form and always spoke at the top of her voice. She was the too-loud blonde-coloured mean-girl centre of her posse. She was everything that Rani didn’t like about high school, but what was there to be done about that? The conversation was audible from here to there. The weekend and the parties and the oh my god how gross is Mr Harrington, and then —

“It’s like she lives in a fucking forest though, right?”

Marla Holiday’s band of bitches cawed their agreement and Rani could feel her oily teenager face growing a warm scarlet.

“I mean, does she even shower? It’s as if she wants to look like that.”

Rani did her best to not listen and started going over her poetry notes with her head down.

“You’d think her parents would do the kind thing and just take her outside and hose her down.”

There was another wave of approving caws from the bitch-band and then Mr Harrington called form class to attention. “Another great week ahead of us ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a rough voice as he dropped an aspirin into his tea cup. It fizzed and Rani watched him rubbing his temples.

The response was muffled disagreement. No one really wanted to be there — especially not Harrington — but they endured it together and Rani watched as he sat down to ignore them like he did each morning.

Marla Holiday wasn’t done though. “I hope she cleans it.”

Rani stopped writing and closed her eyes. She had the sick feeling she knew where this was going.

From the back of the room, everyone could hear Marla Holiday. “I bet it’s all hairy and wild. I bet it fucking stinks.”

The snickering erupted into laughter from more people than Rani cared to notice. This seemed to rouse Mr Harrington from his haze.

“Calm down, calm down ladies. Sit down and please, prep for your classes. Ms Holiday, I have no doubt that your weekend anecdotes are nothing but inspiring, but could you keep the noise to a minimum?”

“That’s not my main concern, Mr H. I mean the weekend. I’m just worried that some people in our form are really letting their standards of personal hygiene slip to an all time low.”

Mr Harrington frowned, looked around, and then looked down at his suit and vest ensemble. It was crumpled but clean. He looked back up, confused.

Marla laughed mockingly. “Not you, Mr H.”

Rani froze. Was Marla Fucking Holiday going to actually call her out and name her in front of the whole form?

Rani gripped her pen and stared straight ahead at Mr Harrington. She didn’t trust herself to look back at Marla Holiday without bursting into tears.

“It just makes me a bit uncomfortable when certain students don’t have the decency to turn up to school in a satisfactory state. I mean, a little bit of coverall can go a long way, do you know what I mean Mr H?”

Rani felt the world tighten around her. Her already fast heartbeat was speeding up.

The rock was small, but it shot up from the turtle tank in the corner of the classroom and hurtled with surprising speed towards Marla Holiday’s left cheek. She shrieked as she fell back and her band of bitches sprung out away from her, as if they didn’t want to get any scream on them.

Rani watched as Marla scrambled awkwardly back to her feet, holding a hand to her face. “What the fuck was that?”

A couple of the boys laughed. “Maybe it came from the dirty fish market up front.”

Rani felt the pen in her hand snap, just as the turtle tank exploded in a burst of glass that shot out in all directions. The dirt and rocks from it’s bottom rained down on the surprised class of students. Utter panic set in. Girls were screaming, boys were yelling, Rani herself closed her eyes against the flying dirt and, along with a few others, made for the door. Out in the hall, and to her relief, the bell rang and the rest of the school bustled her along as she attempted to brush dirt out of her hair and simultaneously disappear.

Half way through her physics double, the school secretary came and called her to the nurses station. Rani apparently didn’t have a choice — all students from her form were being medically assessed and sent home. Rani found herself in the small group whose parents weren’t home and so when called, hadn’t given permission; they were to stay at school, safe and sound.

Mr Harrington didn’t seem too pleased to be out in the sunshine — he had his wayfarers on and was greedily sucking on an iced latte from the caf — but after several cawing protests from Marla Holiday, he had agreed to let them sit out on the bleachers to study. Principal Carter had insisted that they not return to classes due to their traumatisation, as he called it.

Rani watched my Harrington lounging on the bench just down from her, with one leg crossed over the other. In a strange way, he was perhaps the only thing closest to a friend that she had at school. Of course they didn’t talk or bond or anything, but he was her English teacher as well as her form teacher and he always graded her fairly, leaving helpful and insightful notes on her work in scratchy fountain-pen ink. Rani pretended to study, but she watched Mr Harrington and the sweat that slowly started to bead on his face while she took a rare moment of enjoyment from not having to be on the look out for the next bitch attack.

That was until she remembered she was on a forced study break with Marla Holiday, James Prentice, and a few other not so influential kids — Courtney da Silva was a quiet bookworm, but so detached there wasn’t a way in hell she was going to talk to Rani or Marla Holiday or anyone else who even looked in her direction. Toby Carter was the Principal’s son and he was kind of an odd case in Rani’s opinion. The kid was (obviously) never caught doing anything wrong, but at the same time Rani suspected that he quite often was doing the wrong thing.

He seemed intelligent and wary but he hardly ever spoke or interacted, despite his father’s enthusiasm regarding his potential to be registered into the study body council. Toby seemed to have no intention of joining the council, but there didn’t appear to be a rift between he and his father about it. Rani wondered if that was perhaps merely the facade they had created/built up. If so, they had done a fucking good job.

Toby had a novel open on his lap on the other side of the bleachers and he was pretending to read it, a mirror of her own pretence. She watched him, and he watched Marla Holiday flirt unabashedly with James Prentice down on the grass. Marla Holiday’s cheek was cut a little from the rock and there was bruising starting to purple the surrounding skin. Mr Harrington sipped his iced latte now, and Courtney da Silva was genuinely reading her H.P. Lovecraft (Rani had noted it’s black and gold cover earlier and made a promise to herself to buy a copy just because it looked so damn cool). It felt like the six of them were in a bubble, at the school, but not really there — they had created their own little reality.

Rani was relaxing, she was drifting, watching her peers and her teacher and the glistening summer-day world. She felt as good as she could remember feeling for a solid year and that was exactly the moment that Marla Holiday’s echoing taunt rang out across the football field, across the bleachers, across the calm that had fallen — the lovely calm that Rani had almost fallen right down into.

“She’s just so fucking dirty. Dirty Rani. I mean look at the bitch, she’s dirt!”

It was loud. Too loud.

Mr Harrington hadn’t really stirred, but Courtney da Silva had looked up from her novel with wide eyes and James Prentice appeared red faced and embarrassed next to Marla Holiday. Rani didn’t look at Toby Carter — her eyes were fixed on the small sunlit vision of Marla Holiday out on the perfect green grass, dancing and twirling under the perfect blue sky.

Marla Holiday was laughing.

She was laughing and it was echoing around the football field and Rani was feeling that thing again. Her heartbeat hastening, he blood pumping hard and hot, the world tightening around her.

The dust from between the blades of grass on the field drifted up. Rani watched them, perplexed as the other kids and Mr Harrington up on the bleachers, but Marla Holiday and James Prentice were less perplexed than they were scared. James called out. It was a kind of shout-scream, but the dust was thick in the air almost immediately and it sounded like he was choking.

Rani wanted to be calm but everything around her was buzzing. The air, the feelings, the earth. The dust in the air, the rocks from between the blades of grass — she could feel them — she was reaching out and touching them. She was inside James Prentice’s throat, she was swarming around Marla Holiday’s perfect blonde hair.

Marla Holiday was screaming now. What the fuck. What the fuck. But Rani didn’t care. She was standing up, but the people on the bleachers — Mr Harrington and Courtney da Silver and Toby Carter, they were standing up, backing away from her — Rani felt something rising up inside her. She closed her eyes and felt it hot and brewing, coming from a place she hadn’t known was inside of her.

The mud came then, from out on the edge of the lake that sat alongside St John’s College. Rani felt it thick and wet and coming like a wave. It was heavy, but when she lifted her hands into the air it came more easily — she called it her. The mud hit Marla Holiday and James Prentice from behind and they didn’t have a chance. The two of them fell forward, slicked with mud and dirt. They were no longer laughing. Rani wondered if maybe she was laughing.

There was a shadow next to her and she knew it was Mr Harrington. Stop, he was saying. Stop, please. And Rani could hear it, she could feel him approaching her, but she lifted her hand again and the dust and mud flew up between them and he was gone.

Dirty Rani.

Rani was immense. She was indestructible.

She lifted both her hands and felt the world break open underneath her. The rocks and dirt and mud flew upward and Marla Holiday was still screaming through the mess of it. All Rani had to do was tilt her head and the mess started to swirl around. It was becoming a storm. A dirty brown storm.

Dirty Rani.
She brought her hands down with force and everything, every rock and stone and fragment of earth, everything hit the football field and the bleachers. For once Rani felt louder than Marla Holiday. It wasn’t her voice; it was her bidding.

Toby Carter and Courtney da Silva were trying to run away with Mr Harrington. To get as far as they could from Rani. She turned to look at them and through the thick brown air she was sure that they were laughing. She would stop them laughing. She would stop them forever.

Dirty Rani.

She lifted her hands again and Marla Holiday continued to scream through the thicket of dust and rocks and dirt.

Rani thought of Moses as she brought her hands together and then separated them again, calling the earth to her, calling it back away.

Everyone was shouting. James Prentice had his hands over his eyes and was scrambling away, back towards the bleachers. Marla Holiday was still on the ground, face down, screaming into the dirt. Rani laughed.

She had a clear line of sight to Marla Holiday and so she walked slowly towards her. The far off voices of Mr Harrington and Toby Carter and Courtney da Silva were telling her to stop and please no and no don’t. Rani heard them but all she could do was laugh at how small they were; how weak and behind her they were.

Marla Holiday lifted her dirt-caked face from the ground and let out a pitiful sob.

Rani smiled.

Dirty Rani.