#task two.

[ariadneguzman-blog]

Fingers drum nervously atop the table, causing little ripples to appear in the mug of coffee that sits there. She’s half tempted to rub the sleep from her eyes — she’s on duty today, and a late night combined with having to wake up an hour early for her own interrogation is taking a toll on her. “ Sorry, I guess I’m just not used to being on this side of things. ” A half baked joke sits on the tip of her tongue, are you sure I can’t interrogate myself, but dammit, Ariadne, she thinks, take this seriously. It is serious, after all. For someone bright and full of life, such drab occasions seek only to push her in further extremes: it’s clear now, with the sadness in her eyes and the deflation of normal exuberance. Somber, perhaps, is the right word. Like all the joy has been sucked out of the room, even though she still smiles politely.

“ I was out, actually. In one of the cars. On duty, I mean, not taking it for a joyride. ” A tight smile, and then the reminder in her head again to focus. “ Some concerned woman thought she saw teenagers stealing at the Piggly Wiggly, so I volunteered to go over. Stern talking to, learning the lesson that nosy neighbors are always watching. All that stuff. ” She falters, and fingers tap tap tap again as she gets closer to the event hanging over their heads. Over her and her interrogator ( coworker, though perhaps not in that capacity right now ), over the station as a whole, over the street and the block and all of Devil’s knot.

“ They weren’t stealing, by the way. Not that it matte — uh, so, I was pulling out of the parking lot when my radio clicked on, and they say that they want all units reporting. So I — I call in, and, ” It’s clear recollection is painful, and she’s tentative to speak, as if she doesn’t want to remember. “ They say that someone is reporting a missing child. And — and I hate it, because my first thought is just that someone’s kid lost track of time, or road their bike down the wrong street and didn’t come home in time. Because you see a lot of shitty — uh, bad, things as a cop, or ... you know they can happen? But ... something like that, it just never really feels real until you see proof of it. ”

But now isn’t the time for introspection, and her eyes are fixated on her hands, nervously scratching at cuticles. “ So I pulled back into the station and went inside and ... and ... it was real. It wasn’t some ... melodramatic suburban freakout. He’d — he’d been gone for hours at that point. They’d searched themselves, the Goodes had, I mean. And I guess, then, I knew. It ... was real. There was actually a missing kid. ” She switches nervous movements to her coffee mug instead, taking a long gulp of it. “ And that’s been the focus ever since. Trying to find Brian and bring him home. I mean, I don’t get how anyone can look at Linda and David and Beth and not feel sick to their stomach. Seeing something ... incomplete like that. A family without one of their kids. Like a puzzle piece, without, uh ... ” Gesturing is futile, and she places the cup down on the table, and it clinks so loudly she almost jumps. “ I see that, and I just have to fix it. ” A beat, then a correction. She is not a one woman vigilante. “ We do. ”

[katrina-unger]

Destroy what destroys you But I destroy myself; I destroy myself. — Sandra Simonds

➢   T A S K    T W O

                                                                                                November 16, 2018.

She’d had breakups less painful. Another warning letter trembled in Katrina’s hands, the font aggressive in it’s bold type face, it’s capital letters. She knew the colour of an eviction notice-- there had been one on their door last month, but she’d snatched it down before Marzena had gotten home. Kat remembered shoving it deep into the garbage bin, under the tins of wet cat food, the orange peels, a soggy filter coated in coffee grounds. She’d gone to the landlord first, letting blue eyes well with easy tears-- perhaps film school hadn’t of been a waste, she’d begged for another month to get their affairs in order. He consented and the tears had dried up before she left his office. 

Now, there was no back-up plan, there was less money than the month prior and there was no cushion to fall back in. There was nowhere safe for the two of them to land, there were no more doors to knock on, no more untapped wells to beg money from. On a sleepless night, Katrina had worked out their futures, she did it with headphones in as she paced around the five steps that made the circumference of her bedroom. Leonard Cohen crooned in her ear about the taking of Manhattan. Her heart hammered in her chest. Marz would pack up their belongings, the cats and her ceramics; she had a place in Greenpoint with her parents. There was a corner of New York that she was still welcome in, and in that place she’d recover from the blow that this would sledge into their lives.

Katrina had peered into her crystal ball, and every avenue and every hidden special place of the city seemed to roll it’s doors shut on her. It was a magical place, one that they had promised to conquer.  She’d once found a home in the belly of New York and now, it was spitting her out. Her home was not a home, it was just a place to have grown up. There was a job offer, it sat in her email like a plank that she had little desire to walk-- but it was a safety net, suspending across the county in a state that she only knew vaguely about.

Seattle was an awfully far way from home. As a habit, she chewed at the inside of her cheek and as the door opened and Marz sang her greeting to the creatures that lived within the apartment, she tongued at the raw flesh. 

“What’s wrong?”

There was little to be done to hide the way that her eyes welled up, the letter that shook in her hands. Her best friend slowly eased it from her grip, reading the words silently. She wanted desperately to be able to hear what went through her mind-- to piece together what she could do to lessen the blow. For Marz she was certain she’d lay flat over a landmine, but now, as the other girl’s lower lip trembled and she pulled her glasses away from her face, it seemed as though the force would flatten them both.

“We’re going to lose the apartment.” She was speaking calmly, Katrina realized-- and for that she attributed the hundreds of times she had worked this scenario out before.

“We can get another one.”

“I can’t.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to go to Seattle.”

Marz’s features crumbled and Kat raised her arms, curving them around her friend. “I’m gonna come back.”