honeydunce

Please enjoy an excerpt from my NanoWrimo endeavor, a fiction story titled “The West Side Streetcar Desire Story.”

1.
There is a bullet hole in the window, and this is how I chose my seat on the bus. Perfect and dangerous. I sink my body against the glass, run a finger down the hairline extending from the fragmented burst. If they shot once, maybe they’ll shoot again. This is all I can think about. It’s 3:30 am.

I’m in the middle of a dare: leave town before your lover wakes up.

I do a quick check—shoe(scrunch and flex toes), back pocket of jeans(dash left hand to ass), and underwear(drag two fingers against the hip elastic). Altogether, three hundred and seventy-five in cash, my license, and one ATM card(though Stella and I had a joint checking account so this piece of plastic is theoretically void to me, invisible square). The ticket purchased will take me halfway to the water. That’s it. That’s all I had. That and a bag filled with only what I wanted(or deemed kind of necessary) to take. I twist the nylon handles around one ankle beneath my seat, turn my coat into a pillow and treat the frayed hoodie as a blanket. My arms fold into the stomach. They feel stupid and empty, birdlike. Also, you should know, I have no idea what I’m doing.

I consider sleeping, but Greyhound bus seats are so damn uncomfortable. I think about the monkey experiment with the surrogate mothers—one cloth and one wire, how they end up starving for the sake of soft touch. The bus seats are like this—a wire embrace with full breast. Just not enough. I’d rather starve. I can’t reel in the absurdity of thought. I’m lonely. Between the few minutes of forced R.E.M., I stare out the window. Maybe the sun will come up soon—it’s hard to tell.

I’m replaying the impending discovery in my head. I tend to dwell in cinema. Stella will roll over and reach for me, wake up and wait and then the silence will make her worry. Will she worry; does Stella worry? I can’t remember. Or Stella will sleep through the night, maybe sleep longer than normal. There will be the afternoon sun coming into the bedroom, a dash of it falling on the clothes I left behind, the floor. She will see this and know. Or Stella will wake around eight like normal, too early. Make coffee. Stand in the kitchen and witness, take some breaths. And nothing.