Comfort Rd - Story - First Draft

Comfort Rd

Based on the Myth of Apollo and Daphne

L. Gamari

What am I doing?

The whole car’s humming, shaking me, or maybe I’m the one who’s shaking. Comfort Road unrolled before me; a black river between the autumn trees all orange, red, yellow, brown. Death for them is beautiful. It could be for me. Is that how this will end? Doubtful. I’ll skid and slam the breaks, some deer or dear-eyed child emerging from the crowded woods, letting out a fatal scream before –

Yo, are you up for this or not? he shouts, obnoxious little shit, from his rolled down window.  There’s laughter in Paul’s voice. This is a joke for him. His car is glossy with expense– some revved up red creature only a year old, tops. Comfort Road is mine. He can’t scare me. Six summers speeding up and down Airport Drive, catering to snappy customers who always have someplace more important to be. He’s got the better car, but I’m the better driver. I grip my fingers tight around the wheel, knuckles burning white. Ready when you are, bitch.

*

Paul Vick never said a word to me before October.  I can’t say I knew who he was either. I can’t say I’m happy I do now. A blonde, forty-dollar haircut mushrooms above his eyes, suburban blue. Entitlement blue. He smiles too easy. His teeth too white; so obviously taken care of long before he had the means to take care of them himself. But this isn’t what bothers me, no. Life isn’t fair, I accept that. I learned long ago not to hold the past against people – it’s what they do now that redeems or mars them. But in the case of Paul Vick, my hatred is inevitable.

It’s four-hundred-level English. A dozen copies of The Bell Jar lay before their owners like abandoned puppies on the flat of their tummies, heads defeated on their paws, exhausted. Hungry. They’re in various conditions – some highlighted and dog-eared, some with the binding still solid with uncracked glue. Mine is stamped: PROPERTY OF ITHACA COLLEGE LIBRARY. A page or two is missing, but I don’t mind. I’ve read it before.

Paul speaks without being called on, but nobody cares. They didn’t want to talk anyway. I just hate these kinds of characters, he says. They’re so depressing. It’s actually annoying how whiney they are. She needs to relax. He’s smiling, self-satisfied, as though this is a breakthrough in the history of literature, nay, the history of all mankind. When she died I was like, you know what? Good riddance! He leans back in his chair, one leg across his knee. His friends chuckle from either side. How can they laugh? What’s wrong with these people? And besides, Esther doesn’t die. Even the Professor doesn’t correct him. An old me might have.

Everybody tunes into the Prof like a radio frequency, fading in and out along an empty stretch of highway cutting through some mountainous land far from here. Somewhere I would rather be. Paul’s picking at his nails. The space in front of him is empty; he didn’t even bring his book today. Leaning in so only he can hear, I ask, Hasn’t anything bad ever happened to you?

His tone rises and drops like a dip in the pavement. Yeeah, he says. Of course.

My stomach lurches. Really? I doubt it, I whisper, pulling back. Why did I whisper? I should have shouted it. I want to scream it. To the class. To the world. Chairs swipe across the linoleum, loud and echoing off the blank walls. Fifty-thousand-a-year to hear some jerk’s verbal vomit? Same old shit. Wasn’t college supposed to be...doesn’t matter anymore. At least this is the last year. Hang in there, Daphne, hang in there. My phone buzzes in my pocket.

D needur ss #
turn elec back oni
will pay u  backbut
they turned off 2day

Somebody runs into me. I’m blocking the door. Sorry, I murmur, my legs carrying me out into the hall. Its screen smudgy and scratched, my eyes hypnotized, but my brain keeps reading, re-reading the message. How could she do this? Is she crazy? There’s a burning in my side. My face is warm. People are starting to stare, eyes wide with the best of human intentions, but all I feel is them looking through me like a mirror. I reflect everything they fear, everything unknown to them. With any luck, I would always be unknown. I’ve got to get out of the building. Get some fresh air.

*

I knew there would be a fight. I should have anticipated what she’d say. I’m a bad daughter. I don’t know what family is. Wiping the wet from my face, I turn the key over and the engine wakes like Lazarus, happy to be useful once more. I wait until the boundary of campus, and light the bowl. The outside air streaming past my windows carries away with it any worry about the smell. Any worry about anything really, fades back behind me with the scenery ticking past, like old cinema film. All I see is what’s up ahead. I choose a road that’s empty, one that’s got a good name.

Comfort Rd reads white letters on green metal. It’s long and protected from cops by woods and harmless hermits, their gardens overgrown. Cruise control set to forty-five, I weave through Ithaca’s countryside. Deep into the back roads, there’s a barn with horses. Sturdy, their souls rippling beneath the surface of their soft bodies. I always stop and say hello. Animals are nice. They’re pure. They haven’t read Plath, and have no concept of depression, but they don’t need to. They know how to listen. They feel things. That’s their way.

I always try to get back before dark. There are no streetlamps and I’m sleepy. I’ve got to be careful. I’ve got to be sneaky. Nobody can know. I would lose everything. Is this really worth it? Is the danger really worth the momentary peace?

Headlights in my rearview. Fuck. A cop? No. Just some dick, with his brights on though he’s less than a car length away. Black and green spots obscure my vision, cellophane circles between me and the world. I tap the breaks, flashing red. Warning him I have no sense of self-preservation. I’d gladly let him hit me. If you’re rear-ended, the guy in back’s always at fault. Am I sober enough for a police report?

He’s pumped up his music, the bass vibrating through the falling night. Come on, not today. Some bored douche in the car his parents bought him, probably the day he turned sixteen. It’s red and as loud and showy as the auto-tuned pop blasting from its speakers. He’s way too close. Don’t fuck with me. I slam the breaks.

He doesn’t hit me, but veers to the left, stopping on the wrong side of the road. It doesn’t matter, nobody’s out here. That was the point. He rolls down the window, smiling, his teeth all too white. It’s Paul.

Heeeey, he yells across the seat. The music’s still blasting. It’s you! From class, right?

This is really not the place for small talk. Yeah. I raise my voice but keep it flat as the hard, dark tar beneath our vehicles. I expect him to say some bullshit about my driving, but he doesn’t.

So you’ve discovered Comfort, too? His face is stretched in a knowing look. He probably smells the weed.

Dude, you want something? I’m on my way home.

Nah, just saying Hi. What’s your name again? He says everything like he’s cute, and knows it.

I’m not and definitely know it. Daphne, I shout.

Right, cool. My name’s Paul. Paul Vick.

No shit, I think. I just nod my head, put on my most unimpressed smile. Make it obvious I couldn’t care less.

Well, um, okay. See ya in class. He pulls away, back up toward campus. Damn it, I could have said anything - why hadn’t I lied about my name?

*

You okay, Daffy? You seem a little, um, tense. Tubbs’ face is concerned, and deep down, I’m glad. I don’t mean to fill those brown eyes with any worry, but it’s nice when somebody notices. As though we share the same world.

Yeah I’m alright. I ran into that jerk I told you about, the one in my English class.

Oh yeah? What happened?

He drove up behind me while I was cruising. Scared me shitless. Thought he was a pig.

She laughs. I can be so paranoid.

We’re at King’s Cemetery. Gold light in the fading afternoon kisses the carved and crumbling grey stones, filling them with warmth and meaning. Hanging out here was her idea. As children, we both played hide-and-seek among tombstones, not together, but on either ends of New England. Maybe if I’d grown up with a friend like her, things would’ve been different. I love her. She’s the kindest person I know. She doesn’t seem to think so. This makes me love her even more.

So, my Mom tried to blackmail me.

What? She fumbles her coffee, and brown drips onto the picnic blanket.

I know right. Bitch.

Don’t let her get to you.

I shake my head, tug at the clover along the edge of our blanket. She'll ruin my credit.

She's not gonna ruin your credit today. You’ve just got to stay away from her.

I know. It’s just hard. She is – well, she was – the only sane family I’ve got – had. Ugh.

Don’t worry Daffy, it’s all gonna work out.

The rehearsal in her voice stings a little. Isn’t there anybody who’s been through this before? Let’s walk around some more before we go? I stand up, so she can’t say no. The over-courteous thing has its advantages. Being polite, even if it means sacrificing what you want, is built into every middle-class person I’ve ever met. Everyone except Paul. People like Paul.

*

For every thought you have, for every quirk you define yourself by, I believe there are at least one thousand other people who do too. A thousand souls just like you. Originality is a myth. It’s really a good thing though. It means you’re never alone as long as you find those people. That’s my problem, I just haven’t found them yet.

My psychiatrist, Tom Thompson, is giving me his sympathy eyes. He crinkles them at the edges and they go all glassy and sad. My side starts burning again. I’ve been able to hear the blood pulsing in my ears for a week now. I don’t want his damn sympathy. I know it’s depressing already. I want something else. Help. He’s stays silent, waiting.

I think I’m sick.

What makes you think that? He marks the blue legal pad with his pen.

I haven’t been able to sleep, and I’m hungry but nothing tastes good. Remember when my back had that spasmie thing?

He nods.

Yeah, well we never figured out what that was, you know? And I think it could be Listeria. There’s an outbreak at this cantaloupe farm and - His face is blank, I know that means he’s skeptical – I’m a vegetarian so I eat a lot fruit and stuff.  My voice’s small and pained.

What can we do about that? Have you seen the health center?

Yeah, but – they don’t like me very much. They don’t listen.

Have you thought about going to your family doctor? He’s so helpful. I want to puke.

I don’t have a family doctor.

Oh, well what about someone here in Ithaca?

            I sit up in the sunken chair, weighed down by years of unhappy students. This guy really just doesn’t get it. How is that possible? My scholarships pay for the school’s health insurance, I say, I don’t have money for anything. I’m even out of weed, though I won’t tell him that. Nobody can know.

            Your health’s important. You could go and just not pay. I’ve never heard of anyone going into debt because of medical bills. He smiles, so reassuring, so knowing, so helpful.

*

            Comfort Road is blasting past, my speedometer must be hitting eighty. Heart in my throat, I haven’t been this focused, this clear, in a very long time. The red hellion is closing in but still behind. Money isn’t everything. Parents aren’t everything. I feel my face smile but every other nerve is numb. Just make it to the end and it’s all yours. Make it to the end, you can do it, go, go, go! Go ahead! Try to catch me! Catch me if you can!

*

            What, you think you’re too good to talk to me?

            Paul’s leering. How do I keep running into this guy? Is he following me? He’s a corporate tower in the city of everything. I sit in his shadow, plopped on a bench like some homeless woman too tired to keep walking. Sorry, you’re talking to me? I ask.

            Yeah, I’ve been calling your name for like a whole minute. What’re you reading?

            Is he for real? I hold up the book, Self-Help by Lorrie Moore. I wish I could be that funny on purpose. It’s just not my nature. I look for a sense of recognition in his face, in those blue eyes, but no, nothing resonates.

            Cool, he says. Uninterested. Just trying to find a way in. I was wondering if you wanted to study for our midterm –

            It’s an essay, you know that right?

            Oh yeah. He laughs, an odd, forced, bubbly laugh. I don’t have time for this.

            Could you do me a favor? I ask. I’m surprised at my own question. His eyebrows prove he is too.

            Uh, like what?

            Stay off Comfort Road?

            He laughs again. It’s deep, more natural. More cruel. Yeah, right – you serious?

            As a heart attack.

            No way, he says, his lip curling close to his nose. Disgusted.

            Why not?

            It’s a free country, that’s why not.

            Whatevs. Sorry I asked. I pick up my bag, try to side-step him, but he’s not done yet.

            You think you’re real special or something, don’t you?

            Excuse me?

            Yeah, you think you’re smarter than everybody else. Like you deserve more than everybody –

            You don’t know shit about me. Get outta my way. I don’t want to touch him, but I’ve got to escape.

            Fine, you want it? He moves his body right in front of me, pinning me between his stupid - cologne soaked - fifty dollar polo and the bench. Race me for it.

            Race you? You’re nuts. I meant to yell, but my own voice betrays me. I hate him, but he’s got my attention, and he knows it.

            Yeah, we’ll race for it. Winner gets the road, loser gets a life. He puts one hand on my shoulder, extending the other to shake. That would be you, sweetheart.

Every muscle of my being wants to destroy him. We’ll see about that. Without returning his open palm, I walk away, anger vibrating up my legs, ricocheting off my heart, swamping my brain. Yeah, we’ll see.

*

            How much longer?! I can’t feel anything but the road, swinging around corners and over ragged pot holes. This better be worth it. I’m an atheist but I pray out of habit. Pray out of the lack of any alternative. Pray my tires don’t pop beneath me, when was the last time they were replaced? Almost there, got to be almost there. Paul nearly passed me twice now, but that’s one useful thing about depression – no self-preservation. Each move he makes, I slide my car to match, and whether he was scared of his mommy’s rage should he crash or just his own life, I’ll never know.  I see the lights first, but it doesn’t register. In the speed of everything my brain has slowed.

            Cops. The one time. The. One. Time. Fuck - I smash the pedal - Fuck - My heart screaming in my ears – Fuck - I’m going to puke – Fuck - Paul is slowing down -  pulling over - At least I’m going to win. I’m going to win god-damn-it-all. My bowl, two weeks empty, is still in the car. Still proof of what I really am. I’m screwed no matter what. My scholarships are gone. My future is gone. I am doomed to the oblivion from which I came.

And yet I feel light. Suddenly, unexpectedly, for no good reason at all – I feel free. I close my eyes, breathing it in, the release. No more struggling, no more fighting. No more being different. I will return from where I came. I am going home.

That, of course, explains why I don’t see the tree.

*

            Hello, Daphne Lawrence? I’m Doctor Serling. How are you feeling?

            Hazy, but I don’t tell him that. Stiff. Whiremaye? I try to ask.

            You’re in the hospital. His voice is slow, deliberate, as though he suspects I can’t understand him. We’d like to contact your family. They should be with you right now. We have your home information but we need your permission. Is that okay?

            I move my head to respond, to explain, but nothing happens. I can’t move.

            Just blink once for no, twice for yes, okay? Do you understand?

            I blink twice, hard. I already wonder what tears should mean, because they’re streaming down my face. I know because it’s gotten very hard to see.

            Daphne, don’t cry now, relax. He puts a hand on me. I can’t feel it. You’ve been in an accident. I’m afraid you’ve been paralyzed. Do you understand? Daphne? Daphne, do you understand?  Daphne, can you hear me? Are you listening?

Lucky 21: a mini memoir

“It’s like I’m a piece of cheese and they’re two mice, fighting over me, playing tug-of-war, pulling me apart.”


I had to be about 6 or 7. The psychiatrist, I forget his name now, was impressed. I don’t remember how my Mom and Gram responded, but it’s the first time I ever remember feeling proud of myself. In a year or so, I’d have my very own counselor to listen to my worldview – Glenda (loads of Oz jokes there) would take me out of class and we’d play games in the school cafeteria - but this was a family therapy session.


Today, language is a big part of not only how I see the world, but how I fit into it. 90% of the time, even my close friends simply cannot relate to me - and in many ways, nor I to them. It’s only through writing that I’ve been able to sort through my life, and it’s writing which has given me any hope of a brighter future.


I’ve thought a lot about how I want to execute this short essay. I could – and have – done long, lovely, "heartbreaking" accounts of my experiences, but this time I’ve decided to tell just the facts:


1)       I am lucky beyond all reason.


2)       I was born in December of 1989.


3)       My parents are L. A. G. and A. M. E. Both have a long history of mental illness, including paranoid schizophrenia and manic depressive disorder. They never really had a relationship and never married. I knew the real meaning of “bastard” from a very early age.


4)       I lived with my mother for the first year of my life, at which point she had a psychotic episode and Social Services placed me with my Gram in Adams, Mass.


5)       In Adams, I lived with my Gram and older sister. She was 12 or 13 when I was born. The identity of her father is unknown.


6)       We were poor, but Gram was pretty good at not letting us feel it. Only in retrospect do the constant TV dinners seem at all unusual. The language of the house was a better indicator, Gram was rough. Often angry. She swore so profusely that she’d often make up her own curses. I must have been attracted to her boldness though because I still remember her growling “What do you think I am, a goddamn story teller?!” after what must have been my 100th plea for her attention. It didn’t stop me from asking a 100 and 1 or 100 and 2nd time.


7)       My sister moved out of the house at 16, and had a nervous breakdown at 18. She then married a man who she felt she was helping out. She is currently 35 and often wiggles her way into my life only to use me. “We’re sisters, we’re supposed to hate each other”, she often said. She has helped me too, when she could. It's a double edged sword, and she has her own traumas to attend to. 


8)       I lived with my Gram until I was 9, when she died. Unfortunately, I was present at her death. I have been prescribed Effexor XR by medical professionals at Ithaca College to treat PTSD, anxiety, and depression.


9)       After Gram died, I lived in foster care for a year or so. I hated it. As you can tell by now, I'm trying to spare you deeply emotional details.


10)   Summer before 5th grade, my Dad was granted custody. I was a daddy’s girl and loved living with him, mainly because I did whatever I wanted. Later it would look a lot more like neglect than privilege. Only two months together, however, I was accepted to the Milton Hershey School (MHS) in Hershey, PA.


11)   MHS is a completely free, K-12, boarding school for underprivileged children, funded by the chocolate and candy sales of the Hershey Company. Yes, every time you’ve bought a Hershey product, you’ve paid for my education, or the education of someone in even worse circumstances – of which there are many. The environment is a cross between an orphanage and military school. Students live in studenthomes of about 12 or 13 people of the same gender. Kids come from all across the United States and represent an almost unnatural (but amazing! I would even say ideal) microcosm of races, religions, and obstacles, though our poverty and horror stories connect us as a school family. We’re supervised at all times by a set of married, Christian, rule-abiding houseparents. Students do chores, attend Chapel (seeing a theme here? I was never one for religion), and we live according to a merit system. In exchange, the school provides food, clothing, housing, braces, glasses, doctors, education – including a laptop and upwards of $75,000 for college – at no charge whatsoever.  It was both a miracle and a living nightmare for me. It was a necessity.


12)   From 5th through 7th grade, I lived with strict Christian houseparents who I feel I can genuinely say mentally abused us all and set us against each other. They terrified me. I only ever wanted their love (which I thought meant their approval) and it was my own downfall. However,  all my other houseparents were perfectly well meaning people who didn't make me shake with fear, though sometimes squirm with embarrassment.

13)   Academically, I found a home in the classroom at MHS that I didn’t have at C.T. Plunkett Elementary in Adams. I wasn't a "smart kid" until I started going to MHS. It was also my escape from the student home. In 6th grade, I was introduced to reading through the Harry Potter books. They were banned in Eastmore for being full of such blatant Satanism as children being out of bed, and so I had to sneak the books in and read them as quick as I could. I’d just finished Prisoner of Azkaban when my roommate told on me, and I had to stand in front of everyone and promise never to do witchcraft. At least then the books were allowed. Later, when I studied for the SATs in high school, I re-read the whole series and believe my score was directly correlated to that. Not that the SATs, or really any external value system, holds much weight with me these days.


14)   Anyway, besides mathematics, the learning environment there really nurtured me. My teachers liked me, and due to the size of the school, I gained a reputation which got me out of trouble on more than one occasion – to the resentment, it seemed, of my peers. I didn't feel like I had a lot of friends though I wished they would like me. I kept close to only a few people at a time and believed it was better that way, though I regret not reaching out more now. In 8th grade, I started sleeping a lot and feeling disconnected but I dealt with it by keeping a journal.  I now have digitized journal entries from every year since I was 12 years old. I did it just to feel like my life had some cohesion. 


15)   In high school I lost my appetite for books and saw myself stop reading outside of assignments, and then I didn’t even read those. However, no matter what I did, I still got As and Bs (again, outside of math). I was known by the other kids for being four things:


1.       intelligent (in the know-it-all, I make people feel insecure kind of way)
2.       bold (had my moments)
3.       artistic
4.       white as they come (which I got the message meant being out of touch, especially awkward and aggressively emo)


16)   My proudest memory of MHS was earning a “Spartan H” for Varsity Swimming because I knew it was unexpected, even though the sport itself would send me into panic attacks.


17)   I often wonder if the school legitmately prepared me for the world I would find myself living in.


18)   I chose my college for its a) distance from home (far as allowed) and b) writing program. I dreamt that college was where I’d always belonged and I saw it as a utopia filled with “normal, public school people” that actually gave a shit about learning and were as intellectually curious as I was without all the dysfunctional drama. Without the psychosis that gets passed on, sometimes inevitably. I have been utterly disillusioned, but I’ve also learned a lot of important things. I've learned most people - no matter their background - just don't give themselves enough credit. I've learned that we live in a culture designed to make us hate ourselves. I've learned that problems are relative, but even so, they don't define us - our reactions, our choices, are what should define who we are. If we lived by our choices, with our thoughts out in the open, we might realize we have more in common than we ever believed possible.


19)   Spring 2011 I spent the semester abroad where I earned my CELTA which allows me to teach English as a foreign language. This is what I wrote in my final reflection for the course:
     “This course has been a challenge for me, and therefore it has also been an absolute pleasure. Throughout my academic career I have seldom felt challenged, though I always manage to obtain a high grade. I’ve become accustomed to skipping homework and generally procrastinating because my intellectual abilities have outweighed my behavior. I’ve sensed for a long time that I wasn’t really learning much in the classroom – that I was missing a deeper understanding – but for some reason whatever I did was declared ‘good enough’ by my teachers and so I have carried on this way until now.
     In this course, I couldn’t rely on my writing abilities. I couldn’t rely on my memory to sponge up the material and then wring it out during a final exam. I have my own theories about intelligence. One part of it is that everyone has their own sense of intelligence. There are no stupid people, only uninformed or misinformed people. Further, those who excel in the classroom are able to learn in more various ways than the average person. They have visual, auditory, and tactile awareness of the material no matter how it’s presented. These learning styles do not necessarily translate into teaching styles, however. This course has taught me the difference between practice and theory.”


20)   On September 29th of this semester, I had a conference with ZZ Packer as part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers program. The story she read is about a 12 year old Mexican boy named Julian Ellis and his journey through foster care. ZZ really liked it. It was the happiest day of my life – I don’t think she realized it, but her validation of my writing ability was a validation of my life. My only disappointment is my need for that validation. Nevertheless, the connections between my life experiences and the elements of that story are undeniable. The idea that I had gone through shit – all this shit you’ve now read - and now it was worth something – that I have value – it was, it is, like breaking through ice.


21)   21 – my current age – my current stage in life. I’m an oddball case, and I know it. I’ve been both a bookworm and a stoner. I’ve been both a basket case and a leader. A suck up. A rebel. A visionary. A common piece of "white trash". I want to belong, but at the same time, I want to get the hell out. Now, on what might possibly be the brink of a new life – a writer’s life – I’m once again that cheese, tugged between two worlds, part of neither. So what’s a girl to do but go back to the beginning.


Fact number one: I am lucky beyond all reason.


When I was a baby, my mother could have killed me. When I was a child, my Gram’s death and foster care and MHS could have sucked out my soul. When I was a teen, the kids in school and the overwhelming authority of countless rules and policies could have gotten to me. And without MHS I may have never gone to college - at least not a private one that's for sure. When I got to college – that fact alone lucky in itself – I could have given up, and I wanted to many, many times. In Europe I could’ve let my past control my happiness. This semester, I could’ve gone home, done with it all – done with fighting an invisible monster. Be drowned by depression and stress. But I can’t. I can’t because I’m lucky. I have no reasonable, simple, explanation for being here, but I am. So I have to keep going – I owe it to everyone who deserved just as much to be in my place. I owe it to my Gram who gave up her golden years to raise her daughter’s daughters. I owe it to talented friends who just didn’t have enough to finish their degrees. I owe it to myself, because we all need hope, love, and meaning – no matter where we find it. And if I ever do “make it”, then I’ll shed light on this dark world that 90% of even my close friends can hardly imagine, one that has sucked so many worthy minds and hearts into oblivion. 

That’s my discourse, that’s where I’m coming from. That’s my story.


Any questions? Feel less alone? E-mail me: wonderverse42@gmail.com DEFUNCT

Season to Sleep - Story Excerpt

...

Pete is snoring so fucking loud I’m amazed I ever fell asleep. I tighten the moldy blanket around myself on the bare mattress. Water is leaking somewhere by the window, the blinds are bent and cocked. Outside the streetlamp’s orange light gives the room an eerie glow. I turn to the wall. I’d kill for just one of those pillows from the Macy’s. Ray, that colossal asshole, says if I want something I’ve got to earn it myself – including blankets and boots. It’s no use; can’t sleep. Standing up off the floor, blood rushes through my head and things go dark for a second. I stay very still and let it pass.

The linoleum is cold, and spikes like lightning up my legs. The kitchen is small; a bald bulb attracts a moth above the stove. At the round wooden table, my back against the cabinets, I watch soft, orange snow drift outside. Footsteps, and Angie materializes in the kitchen. Her ratty pink and green robe is open, revealing a black thong and tank top. She’s not wearing a bra. Mascara smudged and sparkling across her eyes, like some trailer park sorceress. She might transform into a fire-breathing bird and soar away at any moment.
            Hey Jules, she says. Joining the League of Insomniacs and Serial Killers tonight?
            Guess so.
            Right on. She pours some Cocoa Puffs and wipes off a spoon with her robe. No milk, fuck, she says.
            There’s some beer on the bottom shelf, I offer.
            She considers it, and lets out a laugh. Yeah, why not? You want one?
            Sure.
            Setting down the cans with a hollow tap, blue and brown curls drape over her freckled skin. God, she’s beautiful.
            When do you turn 21? she asks.
            I gulp the brown liquid, almost choking to hold in a cough. Tomorrow, I say.
            She laughs. It comes so easy to her. Liar, she says. You wouldn’t be here if that were true.
            You got me.
            So really, when?
            Four years. Another lie, though not by much. She doesn’t seem to notice.
Heat pours down my throat and sits comfortably in my bones. She is Pete’s older sister, but you’d never know it by looking at them. First off, Pete’s a massive jock with a ruddy face like an alcoholic, and a temper like one too. The only thing me and Pete ever agree on is how much we hate Ray and his fucking car, and his fucking mustache, and his fucking house with its cigar smell that clings to our hair and clothes. The state must be pretty desperate if they’ve got to approve sleezeballs like him.
Angie even crunches her food in a sexy way. Ringlets of color fall along her breasts. I reach out to touch, but my hand only makes it as far as the cereal bowl.
            What happened to your parents? she asks.
            I shrug. Why’s she bringing this up now?
            Come on, Jules, she whispers. Tell me. I want to know.
            I can never resist when she calls me that, and she’s well aware. I never knew my Dad, I say, taking another gulp of beer. I think he’s in Mexico or something.
            What about your Mom?
            I snap the tab off the beer can. I dream about her a lot. Well, not her, her funeral. I dream about her funeral, I say in a lower voice than I mean to.
            She passed?
            Yep, I reply. This isn’t so bad. I drink again.
It comes out of nowhere. A chill; my heart shuddering wildly in my chest. All the blood in my body is trying to get to different places at once. I see cold, blue hands and sightless eyes. A slack mouth with a rivulet of spit. It’s filling my brain. I hold my head, my gut clenching, trying to bury it. Angie is speaking, but I can’t hear her. All I hear is my pulse, pumping in my ears. She’s hugging me, rocking. No, stop. Stop. I don’t hug her back.

Angie waits until the tears dry on my face, and lets me go. Standing up, she bends down and presses her lips to my forehead. So gentle, I close my eyes and breathe in rum and strawberries, only a hint of smoke. Let me love you, Angie, I say. She laughs, but this time it stings. She takes the rest of my beer. I can hear the liquid fizz as it slips down the drain. Don’t grow up too fast, boy, she says. I keep my eyes shut, not wanting to watch as she disappears.

I don’t go back to bed. Shoving on Pete’s boots and coat, I walk out into the snow. Krumph, krumph. Krumph, krumph. Cold January air runs its fingers through my hair and around my neck. I pull out his cigarettes and light one, holding the flame from the wind. Breathe out and up at the sky. The stars look like bowling pins, aligned and teetering. I’ve never been bowling.

 I turn left down the street for no particular reason. Garbage spills out over the bins. Wrapping paper and broken ornaments blow and glisten. One house on the street’s already taken down their decorations, their home is all naked and exposed in the night lights. It’s better that way. They’ve got nothing to hide. This holiday garbage, it’s just a distraction. It isn’t real. I see the comfort in it though – the comfort in something warm and beautiful when the world is so cold and shitty.

I haven’t thought about Mom for a long time. I get those nightmares when I’m unconscious, but in the waking world, she never crosses my mind. Who has time to remember things that don’t even exist anymore? Who’s to say they ever did? Fuck, I haven’t thought about Gabe for a long time. It’s like remembering a movie you saw once, years ago. That’s not your life. Just a plot, rehearsed and rehearsed. Ask me if I have a brother, I could say no, and it wouldn’t feel like a lie. That’s terrible, isn’t it? I’m a terrible brother, a terrible son. He’s been searching –

You know what? No. Time to give up the fantasy. I don’t know where he went; just that he never came back. I wish he had gone to prison, at least then there would be a record of him. Grow up Julian. No one’s coming to the rescue.

All the way down to the filter, I flick the cigarette into the snow. Don’t be a victim. I turn the corner and familiar headlights make spots in my eyes. A billow of toxic smoke rolls out as he puts down his window. It’s Ray. Want a lift home? he says. I imagine his filthy mustache on Angie’s neck and I feel sick. Why doesn’t she move out on her own? She’s old enough. Ray blinks his eyes hard at me, impatiently. Normally I’d say no, but Pete’s coat isn’t as warm as it looks. Parking, he puts out his cigar but misses the ashtray. I leave him cursing at the quarter-size circle burned into his fake leather seats. Tonight wasn’t a total loss.
...

Sun Rises

Please, do not tell me our love
is like the glow of some eternal
moon; a cold, hard rock
light years from here
where we lay in the summer grass
with the crickets and dirt under our nails and bare feet.

And do not compare
what we feel for each other
to infernos or licking candles,
matches flicked and sparkling in the night;

But allow the embers from our campfire to smoke and smolder,
burning our marshmallows black as the sun rises.

-L. Gamari

Unicorn at the Glue Factory

✨️

“How is she doing?”

“Fine, I guess.”

Eva’s curls glinted in the sunlight falling unto her desk.  She folded her hands, weaving together thin pale fingers, each tipped with flawless strokes of ruby red polish. “Why only a guess, Paxton?” She cleared her throat, “I mean, you’re her father; why don’t you ask her how she’s feeling?” She looked him over; beneath the thick ridge of his glasses, Paxton’s eyes were lined and puffy with the bruised purple of sleeplessness. His hair was becoming more salt than pepper. Yet, even in his age, he pulsed with the forbidding venerability. “Kacie just doesn’t…” His shoulders lifted as though it hurt to breathe, “She doesn’t laugh anymore, not for over a year now. Ever since Angie…”

“Let’s not talk about her, okay?” Paxton looked away, ashamed that he could still be so sentimental. It was Angie's choice to leave. There wasn't anything he could have done. The things he's had to tell himself to get any sleep at night...

Eva stood and walked around her desk, heels clicking below a crisp, white lab coat. Laying her hand on his arm, he looked up into her eyes: one brown, one green. She was like magic to him. “Everything is going to be all right. Kacie lost her mother at a younger age than most. She just needs to get comfortable. How about letting me spend some time, alone, with her today? I’ll give her a tour…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Eva.”

“Don’t worry” Eve whispered, bending low to Paxton’s ear, “I will be discrete.”

Paxton pushed up from his chair, an unsteady hand reached out to the desk, knocking over some pens and a brass nameplate which fell to the floor with a thunk. Eva grasped his arms, “Are you okay?” “Sorry about that”, he wasn’t looking at her. Eva tilted his stubbled chin upward, and kissed him. Pulling back, she said, “Just give me today.”

“If Kacie gives you any problems, call me. I’ll probably be in my office.”

As the door clicked behind him, Eva picked up the nameplate. In the window light, her eyes, almonds laced with waves of mascara, reflected back from the polished golden angles of her name: Eva Darian, Chief Adhesive Scientist.  

~ * ~

Kacie sat in an uncomfortable chair in the florescent lit hallway of her father’s workplace, face hidden behind the covers of a book. The peeling sticker on her sweater read “Kacie Phillips” in cutesy black ink above bright blue “Hello! My name is”. Thoughtful little hearts dotting each of the three “I”s. To the dismay of the secretary however, green crayon, similar to the one tucked behind Kacie’s left ear, scrawled out “Bitch” in the remaining white space.

Eva clicked across the linoleum, nodding politely to the now relived secretary. Kacie didn’t look up. “Hi Kacie. Welcome to United Adhesive”, Eva smiled, Kacie ignored her. “Whatcha reading?” Kacie turned the page, Eva cleared her throat. “I want to take you on a tour today, would you like that?” Without reaching the end, the young girl turned the page again. Not one to be dismissed, especially by a middle schooler, Eva leaned close to the back of Kacie’s book. “Listen, you should give me a chance. It might even be fun. It’s important that you’re open to new things. It’s best for you, and your father.”

Staring at the book now, Kacie’s fingers began to crinkle the edge of the pages, from behind the hard covers she growled, “You might be my dad’s girlfriend, but don’t ever expect to be my mom”. Eva’s lips pursed, her back straightened. Snatching the book from Kacie’s hands, she shut it with an echoing slap. “I want you to come with me. I have something to show you.” Kacie’s face went red; her arms folded close to her chest with a stubbornness that reminded Eva of Paxton. Eva’s voice softened, lowered so even the secretary couldn’t hear, “Kacie, can you keep a secret?”

~ * ~

Next to Eva’s tapping heels, Kacie shuffled, stepping on the white tails of her baggy jeans. As they walked, Eva would point out an old picture along the corridor on the left, or some kind of bottle on a pedestal under glass to the right, but they didn’t stop. “Adhesive’s are everywhere, and have been since the times of the ancient Sumerians.” Without turning to face her, Eva asked, “Did you know that even hairspray is an adhesive?” and without waiting for a reply, Eva began to list all kinds of sticky substances, “Tape, stickers, post-it notes, labels, stamps!” She smiled, her voice becoming more breathless and excited as they reached a stairwell, “Hot glue, super glue, glue sticks, glitter glue. Glue for every need, made of a variety of compounds. You’ve got beeswax glue, plant cellulous glue, animal hide glue….”

“Animal hide glue?” Kacie looked like she might be a little ill.

“Yes.” Eva’s smile seemed to whiten as it widened, “In China they have Ejiao – donkey hide glue. It’s used in medicine to stop bleeding. And then there’s Isinglass, a fish bladder glue, used to…”

“Stop! Please, you’re making me sick.” Kacie grabbed her stomach dramatically.

The spark faded from Eva’s eyes, “Well, since the 20^th century, most adhesives are synthetic.” Kacie relaxed, but Eva’s body seemed to absorb her repulsion. “We’re here”.

            They stood before a heavy unmarked door. Even from the hallway, Kacie could make out the faint sent of barn and…was it strawberries? Anything that didn’t smell like glue was instantly amplified one hundred fold. Eva swiped her ID badge and the door unlocked with a tiny beep. Walking into the dim room, hay crinkled and slipped beneath their feet. One half of the room was set up as a laboratory, while in the other –

            “What the hell is that?” Kacie said, just a little too loud.

            “Hush, it’s the secret I wanted to show you.” Eva took Kacie’s hand, who distractedly let her. Leading the wide eyed girl to the pen, Eva whispered, “Isn’t it amazing?” Kacie just stared. Eva gave her hand a little squeeze, “Hey, watch your language, okay?” Kacie tugged back and put both hands on the fence before her, “It’s really….ugly.” The animal was shaped like a donkey, a dirty matte gray with bristles instead of hair. The teeth were big and bucked, with drool globbing from its lips. Its cloven hooves were covered in muck and looked hardly able to hold it up on its knobby legs. In fact, the whole animal looked like just bones and skin, with a deformed, white lump on the center of its head.

            “So what, exactly, is so special about this thing?”

            “Don’t you want to pet it?”

            Kacie scrunched up her nose, “Not really. What is it?”

            “In China, they call it a Quilin. In Japan, a Kirin.”

            “Isn’t that where you’re from?”

            “Close enough.” Eva bent down, the edge of her pressed lab coat just inches off the floor. “Do you know what this is, Kacie?” She shook her head. “It’s a unicorn”.

            Silence crept between them. Kacie stared deep into Eva’s face, as if she could find truth there. A sideways glance at the beast, and back at Eva, Kacie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re so full of it”, she said, pushing her away. Eva caught her balance on the fence and pulled herself up. “It’s the truth.”

            “Where’s its horn? White hair? Lazer eyes? Shouldn’t there be rainbows coming out of its ass or something?”

            “Kacie!” Eva scolded.

 “Yeah, where’s the ma-gic Ev-a?! I’m 12 years old! Just how stupid do you think I am?”

“Kacie, I am telling you the truth!”

“Just wait until my dad hears this one”, enlightenment glowed from Kacie’s face, “he’ll never stay with you now, not after he knows you’re a psycho.” With a flying crunch of hay and a slamming door, Kacie was gone to find her father’s office, leaving Eva alone in the dim of her defeat with an ugly, drooling unicorn.

~  * ~

Paxton was not happy. One hand on his daughter’s shoulder, his eyes were flooded with disappointment and Eva began to drown within them. “What have you done?”

“I didn’t realize she wouldn’t believe me.”

“That’s not the point Eva. This was not meant for her.” Kacie started to squirm under his grip. “Dad, let’s get out of here. She’s obviously insane.”

Paxton looked down on his daughter. So much like her mother, Angie, yet full of more anger than he’d seen in most men. Eva was still beautiful, even in the shadows. She seemed to be constantly risking things for him – her job, her reputation, her sanity. He owed her something for that. “She is not insane, Kacie. Eva is telling you the truth.” Kacie’s mouth gaped as though she’d been slapped in the face, “You’re taking her side?”

“No, not her side; our side. It really is a unicorn. And it might just save us all.” Paxton sighed; rather than having a heavy weight lift from his shoulders, more seemed to pile on.

“What do you mean?”

“This—unicorn—is very sick. It’s dying. We are going to see if any of its abilities can be retained in…another form.”

“Abilities? So it is magic?”

“No, not quite.” Paxton kneeled down in the hay, as Eva rolled over a chair. “Thank you dear”. Eva put her hand on his shoulder, and spoke “Maybe it would be better if you knew how it got here, first. I brought it home with me, from India….”

“I thought you were from China?”

“Close enough.”

“Not really, there’s kinda a big difference…”

Eva’s voice was exasperated, “Well I'm not there anymore. I had to run away, and there's nothing for me to go back to. I'm here now." Upset but undeterred, she snapped, "Do you want to know why there’s a unicorn in a glue factory, or not?”  In Kacie’s silence, she continued.

“In India, as a small girl, I was a bookworm too. I loved fantasy and myths, and my father encouraged me to dream. My mother, however, was not so appeasing. She felt I would never be married or successful if I kept shutting myself away with my stories. When my father died, she enrolled me in a private school, and I never went home again.”

Feigning boredom, Kacie yawned widely, “And what does that have to do with Unicorns?”

“My final term, I snuck out with friends during a particularly starry night. There was a clearing, almost like a mirage. That’s where we saw them for the first time.” Eva shifted, her face suddenly losing any trace of its usual joy. “We all walked together, toward the beasts. They had long horns, dusk-blue hair. We touched them and they seemed to hum, like a cat purring. For weeks afterward, my friends and I would sneak out of our beds and walk with them in the moonlight. Once, I stumbled and cut open my knee. One of the animals walked toward me, and licked the wound. I was healed. We told no one. Or at least, I told no one.” Eva’s voice lowered, “Then, one night, as we were leaving the grounds – I was spotted. The others ran ahead, while I was disciplined and sent back to bed. I waited for over an hour to leave again. When I finally got to the clearing, everyone was gone.”

“Gone?”

“They were never seen again.”

Kacie’s eyes were wide and horrified. Paxton got out of his chair, his voice wary, “We’re not telling you this to scare you dear. We need you to know the truth. Are you okay?”

Kacie swallowed, his voice shaky, “What about the unicorns?”

“I do not know. Police began to ask questions. No one would believe me, I knew that. Having no family to hold me back, I escaped India, and tried to forget.”

“Then where did you get the unicorn?” Kacie looked over at the pen, scrunching up her nose, “You are pretty sure it’s a unicorn, aren’t you?”

“My mother died last year, the same time as Angie - your mother." Eva's face was clearly pained. "I went back to India, but I did not go to her funeral. I went back to the clearing. This is what I found”, her hand waved toward the beast, “It was tiny, small enough to sneak through customs. I wanted answers; I wanted to know that…it wasn’t my fault.”

“Okay. So why is it so ugly?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s deformed, abandoned by its herd. Maybe it was all the testing. But we have reason, good reason, to believe there is magic within it yet.”

Kacie stood straighter, her face mimicking bravery, “and I can help.”

Paxton shook his head, “No.”

“What do you mean, No?” Her hands and lip trembled.

“This is not a job for young girls, Kacie.” Eva soothed.

Pulling away, disgusted, “What’s going to happen to it?” Vats of boiling water; lime, an underground laboratory in a glue factory—recognition rose like the morning sun on Kacie’s face. “Why is it here?”

“We’ve been studying it, Kacie. We’ve analyzed its hair, its horn, hooves, tail. No magical properties, no different from a cow or a donkey.”

Paxton seethed at Eva, “This is not the time, enough stories today, Eva”

“She’s old enough to know, Paxton!”

“She is not your daughter!” Paxton heaved, his age pushing him back into the chair.

Eva’s face was stony, lips pursed. “Maybe not, but this could affect her future, Paxton. Her’s children’s children’s future. If we are successful, we could save the world.”

Kacie stepped close to her father, and hugged him, “Dad, I want to know.”

Her father nodded, “It’s just like any other animal, except that it hasn’t got any blood. It’s all bone, and skin, no real body. That’s why it’s here, now, for a final test.” Paxton held her at arm’s length, frantically searching her eyes with his, “It’s dying anyway, Kacie, can’t you see? It’s a necessary evil. Maybe the adhesive it makes will heal broken bones, or maybe even….hearts, memories. Something metaphysical. A whole new element, capable of sticking two liquids to each other….Do you understand?”

“You’re going to turn the unicorn into glue?”

“Yes.”

Kacie wanted to cry, but couldn’t. Ugly as it was, she wanted the beast to be real. To be real, it needed to stay alive. Perhaps it had just been a disappointment to its mother, like she had been. Maybe its mother had tucked it in for bed, and then gone off into no-man’s-land to kill itself, like her mother had. Abandoned, unwanted, maybe she should be made into glue too.

“There’s no way I can stop it, is there?”

“No, Kacie, this is how it must be.”

“Can I at least pet it first?”

Tears welled in Eva’s eyes, “Sure.” It was just as bristly and smelly as it looked, and she got drool on her hand even when she touched its back – but did that really mean it had to die?

Paxton took Kacie back upstairs while Eva completed the process of turning the unicorn into glue. In his office, Kacie didn’t put her feet up on the desk as usual, or pull down any of his books. She sat silently, obediently, quiet tears dripping from her nose.

“It’ll be okay.” Paxton said. “This could really change everything.”

“What if it isn’t a unicorn, Dad. What if it’s just an animal?”

Paxton removed his glasses, setting them on the desk with a light click. “There is something definitely, different, about this animal. We need to see how that can help us.”

“So nothing has a purpose unless it benefits you?”

“That’s not what I said, Kacie.”

“And if it works? What then.”

“Then we find others.”

Kacie slumped in her chair. She couldn’t stop her mom from dying, she couldn’t stop the unicorn from dying, and deep down in her middle school heart, she knew she would never be able to stop herself from dying too. No magic in all the world could stop that. Maybe one day she would just disappear - like Eva's school friends. The way her mother had wanted to go. If no one had found her body, that's how it would have seemed. Paxton’s cell vibrated on the desk. “It’s ready.”

Back in the secret laboratory, the room was empty except for what looked to Kacie like an oversized crock pot. The air itself was sticky, and overwhelming. “You can be the first to look inside, if you want” Eva said, pointing to the small ladder beside the pot. Kacie climbed the ladder and looked down - here was the hope of her father, of Eva, the future of adhesives and the world – Kacie started to laugh.

“What is it?” Paxton asked, holding tight to Eva’s hand.

“Is it a plasma? Is it shifting states of matter? Does it look like magic?” Eva called.

Descending the ladder, Kacie chuckled, “Look for yourself.”

“Where are you going?” Paxton called out as she walked to the door, but Kacie just laughed, echoing all down the hallway.

Together, Eva and Paxton examined the shimmering and sticky mess, tears falling down their faces and mixing with the giant vat of simple, useless, glitter glue.