She was ensconced in a tiny dark room not much bigger than she was, and when she turned her chair around to peer up at us from under a green visor, she was enormous. Her eyes were huge in a green face — and in that moment I loved her. She exuded mystery and adventure of the sort I’d longed for but never had.
I was with Azar for most of a year, I think. Through sizzling hot sidewalks and icy wind blowing trash down the street. We became friends, in a way. I sat with him and we would talk, and I learned more from him than I realized. I could understand that the letters on the menu meant phaselus soup, stew, soaked bread, fried eggs with biscuits. I knew that those symbols on signs in the window meant “Help Wanted” or “Contaminated, Enter at Your Own Risk.”
She was ensconced in a tiny dark room not much bigger than she was, and when she turned her chair around to peer up at us from under a green visor, she was enormous. Her eyes were huge in a green face — and in that moment I loved her. She exuded mystery and adventure of the sort I’d longed for but never had.
I stood, up to my elbows in hot water and mused. If I had a birth certificate and flying papers, I could…go. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it certainly had allure.
Walking out into that room was like swimming into the sea of no return. I stopped at the first table I came to and smiled as best I could through my chattering teeth. “What would you like to eat?” I asked.
I got a good, hot meal that evening, plenty of scraps off the plates, and a blanket for the mattress on the floor. I’d put in a hard day’s work, to be sure, but I still had a job, and what’s more, I felt like I’d earned a bit of respect, and that was worth more than anything.
Showandah Terrill is a scifi/fantasy author from Forks, WA.Learn more than you ever wanted to know about her here.