e i g h t
Why do they bother painting the benches on the beachside avenue?
I run my hands along the flat bars of metal. It’s raining, so it’s wet, the flakes of rust coming off on my hands. The water is coming down hard, fast, and I like it so I don’t move. I don’t have a bag or anything and I’m wearing my pocket-less jeans again. I forgot to ask Ruth for detergent and I couldn’t tell Mikaela because she was in a foul mood this morning – she was chain smoking in her pyjamas in the living room and staring at the static on the TV screen. I know it’s because of her parents but I didn’t bother asking. I have nothing to say to her anyway. But I couldn’t stand being in the same room as her so I left. She didn’t stop me or ask where I was going.
Rain is good, rain is nice. It’s cold, warm, impartial, loving, all at the same time. I lean my head back on the bench and close my eyes, feeling the water hit my skin. It’s well past noon but the sky is almost dark, suffocated by clouds. The thunder screams, almost as if daring me to go back inside, almost as if inviting me out to play. I know that as long as I stay here on the bench, I’m safe.
The sea looks beautiful; seductive, like it always is. The water is dark, almost black, the foam a stark white, and it smashes along the shoreline in a way that makes me want to go to it, to be a part of the glory of the whole thing. I don’t, though. I guess the antidepressants are doing their job.
Three cheers for prescription drugs!
I laugh to myself. Nothing’s funny. But I want to show myself that the antidepressants are working. So I laugh some more. I laugh till I can feel the rainwater running down my throat and into my lungs. It’s choking me but I guess that’s a good way to suffocate.
There’s a voice.
“You must be the crazy girl.”
The words are mixed up with the rain. It’s a girl’s voice. I stop laughing, open my eyes.
I recognize her.
“You’re a prostitute,” I say.
She’s as drenched as I am, also unaffected by it. She sits down next to me, a few inches away, and crossed her legs, leaning back on the rusty bench like I am.
“One and the same, eh?”
I don’t say anything. She’s the hooker I saw on the street corner the other night. Only she looks less perfect today, her platinum hair stuck to her head. She’s barefoot. She has tiny, mosquito-bite breasts, covered by a flimsy bikini top, and she’s wearing thin cotton shorts. They’re see-through, and she’s not wearing any underwear. There’s a beaded anklet around her left ankle, but apart from that, she’s not wearing anything else.
We just sit there. After a while, she says, “I get it, you know.”
I spit a little rainwater out of my mouth and rearrange my legs.
“Get what?”
A wave crashes loudly, sending foam high up, higher than any of the others.
“Why you did it. I don’t think you’re crazy, not really.”
I turn to look at her. And I really look at her. There’s water dripping off the end of her upturned nose and she has a pimple on her forehead. Whatever little mascara she must have been wearing is running down her face, and her mouth is slightly open. She has the kind of face you’d expect a modern-day Tinkerbell to have. It’s small, delicate, perfect, and yet I feel like there’s something there which I can’t see.
“People don’t really say that to me,” I tell her.
“I know. That’s why I’m saying it to you.”
