Lit Read online

  A chair squeaks and rakes across the linoleum like nails on a chalkboard. The grind has me cringing.

  There wasn’t a chair in the room before.

  The chair bothers me more than the human that plops down on it.

  “Here’s your fucking letter,” Tracy says and throws a piece of paper at my face. It’s folded. It should have been in an envelope, signed, sealed and delivered nicely.

  I take the paper off my face and move it gently aside.

  I hush my voice. “Do I get to write a response?”

  Tracy has to lean in close to hear me. A plum purple dress hangs off her shoulders like she’s being hung up to dry. She’s over-rung and wrinkled. A navy blue stick pins her signature red curls up and away from her neck.

  “Shouldn’t you read it?” She asks the window curtains, my legs, the door, and Onyx’s empty bed. Her eyes shift and scatter. They don’t rest on mine. She’s on edge. We’re both on the ledge.

  I pale, bleeding all my colors. I’m terrified of what’s inside the letter.

  I open the note and it reads in black ink: Stay alive. –H

  I run my fingers over his script. The indention of the ballpoint pen is heavy-handed. My heart swells.

  “Did you read this?” The paper quavers just once. My grip tightens. My fingers curl.

  Her voice is the personification of an eye-roll. “Stay alive, H.”

  “Do I get to write a response now?”

  Tracy pulls the blue stick out of her bun and tosses it on my white sheet covered thighs.

  I flip Hudson’s letter over and scribble to get the pen’s juices flowing. The indentions of Hudson’s words penetrate through like brail.

  The blue stick isn’t the same pen that Hudson used. Tracy’s pen is cheap and gritty. The ink is blue and not a ballpoint. A small tornado of navy spirals across the blank sheet of paper. Pure chaos.

  I write my note with a careful hand. I hold the pen like a paintbrush. My words are not forced. I write clearly.

  Tracy is hypersensitive. Her paranoia is contagious. Her fear is alive—it’s a vibration in the air that’s over my shoulder and under the bed. We’re being watched. Stalked.

  I gaze around.

  The room hasn’t changed besides the addition of a chair and the disappearance of Onyx. His made bed has pressed sheets. The four corners of his pillow are firm and taunt.

  Tracy’s foot bounces up and down on the linoleum. She’s not wearing the gripped hospital socks. The sweat on her foot causes her to slip and slap instead of tap.

  I’m done writing. I’m over my words. Her feet are disgusting.

  I click the pen. The tip springs back in the socket.

  The letter is in my left hand, re-folded with two creases. My handwritten message is right below Hudson’s words.

  The blue pen is in my right hand. I grip the pen with my full palm like a toddler learning how to write with a crayon. Awkward and too firm, I clench it.

  Tracy slips her fingers around my letter like we’re passing a cigarette. It’s a delicate transaction with a soft touch. Her fingers clasp while mine loosen.

  Her eyes fixate on the page between us. She doesn’t see the misdirection.

  When she lifts her head, it’s too late.

  I cock my right elbow parallel to my torso. Tracy’s eyes widen. My arm pitches the pen directly into her pupil. I break through the cornea, smash through the lens, puncture the retina and destroy the optic nerve. The blue pen penetrates her cranial cavity.

  Momentum has me falling on top of her, on top of the pen.

  I click the button in my descent. The tip thrusts out, dispensing cheap blue ink into her once clear cerebrospinal fluid. Only a tint of blue pigment, scarcely visible, minuscule—gone in a moment.

  Tracy and I drop like heavy stones.

  Simultaneously, we hit the ground.

  Before I check for proof of life, I roll.

  Next to Onyx’s bed is a wheeled cart that slides next to his bed to provide a hard surface to eat upon. His book is resting on the cream hard plastic surface.

  I drop the cart, snatch his book, spin back to Tracy and smash the pen in her head as if it were a nail and the book a hammer. The cheap fucking pen breaks and shatters in sections between the book and the floor. Tracy doesn’t move. I fall with my follow-through.

  My letter rests on the linoleum. The ends open. Find me. -A

  9

  You’ll feel me in the fall

  He didn’t even sign his full name. –H, we’ve become only a single letter to each other. Together we’re HA or AH. We’re interjections. I feel interjected—abruptly mentioned, set aside.

  Sitting at a cafeteria table, I eat toast. Each bite lodges in my throat.

  Onyx said I would return, and here I am, at a table by myself. Sealed storm shutters are at my back. I’m sitting at the furthest table to the left. Shiloh and Dahlia sit at the table closest to the door. Willow and Bethann surround Bud, his charismatic demeanor sell them salvation. They lean close to his large frame; they steep in his presence at a table in front of me.

  Ruby sits at the furthest table to the right, deep in thought. She holds her toast up to her lips, but her lips don’t part. Allan, Jasmine, and Wallace sit at the other end of her table. Reed paces behind all the tables like a beta wolf waiting for scrapes from an alpha. No one pays him mind. No one pays me mind. My days in the hospital bed were unmarked in the other contestant’s eyes—they surmised my disappearance to death. I’m glazed over.

  After my follow-through with Tracy, I lost consciousness. When I gained awareness, Tracy wasn’t in the hospital room. I wasn’t in the hospital room. I was back in the dormitory, horizontal on my bunk. Everyone was slumbering. My hand was under my pillow holding the flat feathers to my ear. Normal—except for the innards of the sandwich, an envelope rested between my palm and pillowcase.

  I haven’t opened it yet.

  The cafeteria bell rings.

  Under the cover of the tabletop, I pull the envelope from my waistband. I fold the envelope in half and hold it in a tight grip. The envelope rolls into my palm. No one can see the message.

  Everyone rises from their cafeteria table and leaves. I’m the last assembled and out the door. Our mute existence has each of us shuffling without touching. We meander back to the dormitory.

  No sooner has the door shut—Guardian crashes through saying, “Everyone.”

  His momentum doesn’t falter when he passes by us in a hurried gait down the aisle. No one has the chance to sit, we simply reroute from our respected bunks to the backdoor. That fucking backdoor. I continually neglect to investigate the backdoor. Opportunities don’t arise. Specifically, I don’t rise.

  There are never questions or concerns here. We’re all in a medicated fog, there’s something in the air. That’s the only way to maintain a controlled dose. Nothing else is monitored; water and food rations are unchecked.

  The heavy wooden door swings open without a lock or key. Guardian’s back has the outdoors blocked from view. Sunlight doesn’t shine through. A few crisp leaves trespass through the portal and blow into the dormitory. Two of them are brown. My eyes lock on the vibrant orange leaf.

  Strong wind gusts a stick past the threshold to knock against Guardian’s weighty boot. The stick rocks subtly, almost childlike. The airstream adds a bitter chill.

  Allan, Wallace, and Dahlia walk through the door first.

  Wallace’s authoritative voice filters back from the Arena, “It’s the same.”

  I stop forward progression.

  It can’t be the same. The last time I was in the Arena there were only megalithic stones and a hobbit door. No rooted trees. Simply a rolling prairie existed. Brilliantly colored leaves did not dance in the breeze.

  Some trees have aged into fall. The evidence is present. It’s an entirely different season.

  “Not you o’ Lily,” Guardian says after Willow steps through the door with the intention to run free.

  Ruby
doesn’t hesitate to stop. Bethann whisks by her. Reed softly pushes outside. Once he fits his shoulder’s past Ruby, the rest funnel out. I stand, shuffling my weight from foot to foot in the aisle.

  Ruby and I watch as Guardian shuts our companions in the Arena and leaves the three of us in the dormitory. I can’t help but rationalize that Guardian suspended recess privileges for Ruby and I. Even if I might die, if I’m here to play a game, let’s play. Put me in.

  “Gift,” Guardian’s gruff voice says. He steps towards Ruby, and like a perfect dance partner, she steps back. They go back and forth until Guardian concedes and places a small black and red marble on the floor. Tink, tink. They don’t roll or shift.

  He nods deeply, his shoulders curve inward, subtly bowing. When he leaves, his long strides eat up the ground producing a shift of wind that ruffles the leaves. A brown leaf sweeps itself over the marbles.

  The front door to our dormitory shuts with a slam.

  Ruby doesn’t move when I step forward. There’s no dance between us. My steps are soft and wide around the leaves. I arc until I’m standing next to Ruby by the doorframe.

  My eyes haven’t left the brown leaf that tents over the marbles. The brown leaf’s crease arches in such a way that I doubt the marbles’ existence. Questions dematerialize off my tongue like a quick dissolve tab. I can’t ask. I stare and hope my eyes speak for themselves.

  Ruby stares at the brown tent too. The dark veins are the wooden frame. The stem is a rope. The cellulose folds over like a tarp.

  Ruby’s eyes are distant. She’s not with me. My eyes aren’t speaking to her; I’m speaking at her.

  I give her the balled-up envelope like a jealous partner. I want her back, even if that means she’s back and angry.

  Ruby unravels and unfolds the wadded-up envelope until it’s flat and she’s able to unseal the flap. Someone else’s saliva preserved its contents closed. Someone else’s penmanship wrote Ruby across the front. Someone else used me as a messenger. Are you going to kill the messenger, Ruby? I smile because I can’t fucking ask. At least Ruby received a proper missive in a sealed envelope.

  The backdoor blasts open. Bethann tumbles inside with Bud falling behind her. I hear screams. I don’t hear anyone speaking words.

  Leaves tumble in like frightened children on Halloween night. Bud spins and forces the door closed against a brutal wind. Panting, he presses his back against the wooden door. He watches Bethann get to her feet. There is no physical contact, but their eyes penetrate. He picked her over Willow. He picks her.

  During the turbulence, Ruby snatched up the marbles, leaving a scattering of crisp leaf shreds. Reds, browns, oranges, and yellows blend into a mosaic.

  Ruby distances herself from me.

  Bud, Bethann and I move back to the bunks, but none of us sit or rest. We have a mouthful of words to spray. We need a safety meeting.

  Allan, Willow, Jasmine, and Dahlia leisurely walk through the backdoor next with grimaces and sour expressions. They leave the backdoor swinging open.

  I hear a groveling voice but can’t differentiate the speaker.

  A few minutes later Reed pushes Shiloh through the backdoor. Reed shuts it behind them. Wallace doesn’t make it back. Angry accusatory eyes land on Shiloh, the ground manipulator. Maybe Wallace had bad footing and slipped, tripped, and fell. It’s a common enough corporate accident. It could be common enough here, given the circumstances.

  From the looks of Reed, it appears Shiloh created the sinkhole beneath Wallace. There is murder in Reed’s eyes, but he can’t touch Shiloh here. There’s no contact in the dormitory. There is no physical contact anywhere but in the Arena.

  Why did Reed bring Shiloh back?

  Reed’s eyes demand Shiloh to go in the corner.

  Shiloh doesn’t because Reed’s eyes don’t speak to him like Bud’s do to Bethann. Shiloh does cautiously move to a new bunk—furthest from the group.

  Whatever transpired in the Arena was exhausting. My fellow contestants take to their bunk to rest. I take the opportunity to shower. When I turn around the corner of the inset wall, I almost run into Willow. Her eyes are glossy. No tears spill. There’s no crying in the dormitory. She skirts around me like a frightened cat.

  It’s the strangest sensation to be living amongst others and not being able to communicate. I wonder how many people in the city feel this way. This lack of knowing one’s neighbor and finding comfort in getting lost amongst the crowd.

  At least I know Willow’s name. I could give a fuck less why she’s about to cry.

  My slippers tap onto white linoleum. There are no curtains on the shower stalls, but there are enough showers that we never cross paths. I enter a stall and turn on the shower. Hot water beats against my shoulders. I steep like loose leaf black tea darkening my insides. My gut is acidic. My skin is red and warm to the touch. I stand in the shower and infuse longer than necessary for the mechanics of cleansing. The hot water doesn’t run out.

  The shower knob squeaks as I turn the shower off. Steam caresses and keeps my body warm. I flap the unwrinkled, crisp white towel around me. My clothes rest on the small bench outside of the shower. I’m reaching for my shirt when I hear a thud on the other side of the stall wall.

  I step back. Every part of me wants to ask, “What was that?”

  Thud.

  This time the noise is sideways, as if someone kicked the side paneling. I shove my head and arms through the appropriate holes. I’m in the aisle staring at the stall next to me. Bethann has her back to me. She’s sitting on the bench with her legs spread eagle. Her left foot kicks the seal between my bench wall and hers. Thud.

  Bud is in the shower. They’re both naked and fucking themselves for the other to watch. Bethann is three fingers deep inside herself; her thumb rubs against her clit. Bud gives his weight to the white wall. His body is slick and steaming.

  They both have no idea I’m here.

  I stay.

  Bud’s pumps speed up. His fingers tighten around his dick while Bethann matches his pace. My hand slides beneath my shirt. I palm my warm breast and watch Bud strain closer to release. He leans further out of the hot water’s spray so that when he orgasms, his load streams out onto Bethann’s right foot and thigh.

  His smile is an advertisement.

  Bud finishes his shower with no movement or compassion towards Bethann. His semen dries like a white gelatinous substance on Bethann’s creamy skin. Her movements dawdle and dwindle, yet she continues her ministrations. Petting herself, building the sensual apex—her orgasm is mental.

  Bud doesn’t turn the water off, he grabs a towel, wraps it around his waist and leaves. His expression is stoic when he walks past Bethann. His upper lip curls when he passes me. There’s no shame.

  After he leaves, Bethann becomes languid, her fingers slip out.

  10

  Paranoia

  At the next meal, I watch it happen like an extra in an action film. The tension is scripted. Explosions are imminent.

  Reed casually slips the lip of his empty tray under Shiloh’s tray, which holds a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

  Reed’s wrist flicks upwards—detonation. Shiloh’s tray flips. The subsequent bowl of macaroni and cheese reaches great heights before plummeting. The bowl spins. Macaroni blasts out. Grain shrapnel and full elbows land on top of Shiloh. A snapped elbow hangs on his nose before dropping to his thighs.

  Shiloh can’t retaliate.

  Reed rarely sits, he paces like a caged animal.

  Whatever is in the air system is only edging Reed’s natural personality. His norm is being highly medicated. Being in an antidepressant fog is just another day for Reed. He took Shiloh’s meal now. He’ll take Shiloh’s meal later. Shiloh may never eat off a tray again. Shiloh shouldn’t have fucked with Wallace.

  Whatever happened in the Arena, Reed is holding the grudge close to arms.

  Cheddar orange sauce sticks and gooes off Shiloh’s cheek. His hands rest in his lap. Macaroni elbow
s scatter around him. Shiloh had one, maybe two bites before Reed walked over with his red tray and used it like a spatula to flip Shiloh’s tray and the bowl of macaroni and cheese over.

  The red trays clatter against the white table like the scattering of a poorly constructed Jenga tower. One red tray slips and drops to the floor.

  Shiloh doesn’t move, then all at once he’s up and sliding across the table’s surface like it’s the hood of a 1969 Dodge Charger.

  Reed doesn’t twitch. His face remains over-botoxed stiff. He stands tall behind his decisions.

  Shiloh’s feet land sounding filled with cement. Shiloh’s steps echo in the cafeteria. High schools are incredibly cavernous.

  He’s within an inch from Reed.

  Then suddenly, Shiloh stops, as if he ran headfirst into a sliding glass door. He’s clutches his head. His right hand pulls away from his ear. Red covers his palm. Vibrant red. Fire hydrant red like the tray left discarded on the table.

  There’s no noise.

  We’re all frozen.

  I sit with my hand around my fork. When Reed flipped Shiloh’s tray, I had just stabbed a macaroni. There hasn’t been enough time for me to bring my fork to my mouth before Shiloh slid across the table.

  Shiloh’s eyes drip red. His bloodied tears fall across his cheeks like wet nail polish. Red drools out the corners of his mouth and snots down his nose. Then he falls sideways, stiff like a shot animal.

  The cafeteria bell rings.

  We’re still frozen except for Reed. He turns and walks out of the cafeteria. His slippers don’t make any noise.

  The cafeteria bell rings a second time. It’s never rang a second time. There hasn’t been a need.

  The rest of us rise as one and leave Shiloh behind.

  In the dormitory Dahlia is fidgety like an addict, and Shiloh’s her dealer. She doesn’t know what to do now. Her connection split. Her large brown eyes are saucers of suspicion. Without him, will she be as strong? Will she be grounded?