My finger slipped. anyway
WIP WEDNESDAY: Cars Hiss By My Window
A bonus chapter, following the events of the bad ending to People Are Strange
The floors beneath Bosco’s feet caught beneath dragging socks. Creaking hardwood, splintering with age, dark slivers hanging to dark fabric. Had they been this brittle the whole time? She didn’t think they had been. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t like she’d be staying much longer.
She tore a long piece of packing tape from its spool, letting it free with a rip that ached with its finality. The movers would be there any minute, to take her entire life in arms filled with cardboard. Heavy boots on well-loved flooring, carrying memories out of their rightful spot in the attic unit.
It wasn’t so bad, she guessed. Augusta wasn’t for her anymore. It never had been, really, but it felt that way for a time. For one perfect October, Augusta had been hers. Not just hers, but theirs. A shared attic, a shared life together. A whirlwind carried off by the breeze.
Brilliant silvery clouds blanketed the sky, garishly bright in the quiet of the spring afternoon. The movers were just pulling up as she opened the front entrance.
“Attic unit,” she said transactionally, shaking their hands. “Sorry, there isn’t an elevator. I’m leaving most of the furniture, though.”
“Attic, huh?” The woman squinted, a white square name tag reading “DEJA” glinting on her lapel. She huffed, calling to the movers. “Let’s to work, team. I want this place empty by sundown.”
Bosco watched with dull eyes as the team carried her boxes. Up the stairs, down the stairs. Cardboard, plastic, reusable totes. Lined up in the van she’d rented. Every so often, she’d catch a glance inside a box, or of the inside of a clear crate. Her own items looked so foreign to her.
A stand mixer peeked from an ajar box, warping the bottom haphazardly. She blinked hard, as if to keep the memory from returning.
“I’m thinking after this, I’ll make some pumpkin bars, or maybe an apple crisp?”
“Do you want to just spend the whole day baking?”
“Be my guest, just clean up after yourself, and you better come with me to that fair tonight.”
She didn’t like to think about the rest of that day. Her brain had no trouble in reminding her of its ending, of her cataclysmic question, of the wraith’s response. She didn’t like remembering the morning, where Daya had looked at her like an excited puppy, like she couldn’t believe she and Bosco were spending time together.
What she could, remember, was that night. That night, eating baked goods on the floor of a mirror maze. That night, soaring through the skies on some hazardous contraption the fair had set up. That night, overlooking the celebration, in a perfect sprawling festival, on a perfect autumn night.
What’s more, she remembered how the clear skies clouded. How the silence of the drive home was almost louder than her radio. How the door had clicked shut behind her. How the thunder had permeated the floor’s stagnancy. How the rain never truly stopped.
Daya was the best thing that had happened to her in a while. For a time, that feeling was mutual, both in dire need of a companion in their lonely city. Suffocated by the town’s monotony, neither quite having the means to leave. A perfect duo, turned perfect disaster.
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