Conflagration

XLII

Dynamite stumbled up the hill with one hand over her nose and the other outstretched. A long bruise was already forming around her neck and dried blood lined the back of her fingers in brown streaks.

Jasmine was standing over the kitchen sink when she wandered into the cabin from the porch door. She was holding a lighter in one hand and a spoon in the opposite. The two made eye contact and after she saw the state she was in Jasmine smiled. Her purple gums sparkled under the glow of the light fixture overhead.

Dynamite wandered into the hallway and found the bathroom. Her fingers danced along the edge of the mirror over the sink until she found the lever that released it and revealed the medicine cabinet behind. Inside was an assortment of half empty prescription bottles. Beside this was a spool of floss and an old razor set. Its handle slightly rusted.

She found cotton swabs in a plastic baggy and pressed them against her nostrils until they were soaked through. She then replaced them and held a swath of toilet paper over the middle of her face until the bleeding stopped.

She tossed the bloody mess into the trash bin beside the toilet and closed the cabinet. As she did this she caught herself in the mirror. There was a smear of gore over her face stretching from cheek to chin. The entirety of her neck had gone blue. She spent the next few minutes looking at her face.

"All this time you thought you were free of that life. That you'd escaped" She wet a hand towel and wiped it across her face. The bloody smear remained.

"But you ain't gone nowhere. And you ain't never gunna get out."

When she was finished she walked out of the bathroom and looked left. The door at the end of the hall was open. She stepped towards it. The girl had inched towards the bed in the night but besides this she looked as if she had barely moved. An old and partially torn quilt had been tossed over her body but most of it had slid off onto the floor. Dynamite could smell urine through the drying blood in her nostrils and saw a yellowing patch on the blanket's surface.

The eyes. Two coal black chasms above cheeks the color of bone.

The girl's head was angled towards the ground. Life was draining from her flesh. Like a dwindling fire in a distant landscape. Dried drool coated the corners of her lips.

Jasmine pushed her aside and walked into the room. The syringe in her right hand was filled halfway with heroin. She bent over the girl and began searching her arm for a vein.

Dynamite turned and went back to the medicine cabinet. She took a razor from the shaving kit and tucked in into her shirt cuff. Jasmine was still working when she came out of the bathroom.

"Wait," she said.

Jasmine turned and hissed. "Don't come no closer."

Dynamite crossed the room and yanked the syringe out of her hand before she had a chance to react.

"I ain't tryin to stop you. But I ain't gunna watch you keep tearin her arm up." She nudged Jasmine away and knelt beside the girl.

"You ain't done this to yourself before." She waited for a response from Jasmine but none came. "It's alright. I can tell. You gotta loosen it up first. Let it come to the surface itself."

Dynamite placed her left hand against the girl's shoulder and bent her arm until the inside of their elbows were pressed against each other. She then massaged the girl's skin there, rubbing her thumb clockwise over the bruising puncture wounds.

She looked at the girls face and saw that nothing had change. Still the same empty and unconscious stare. She dug deeper with her thumb, her nail now sinking into her skin.

The girl's eyes fluttered. Her head turned slightly towards her.

I know there's somethin left in there. Maybe just enough.

Look at me.

The girl did. Her eyes were glazed but fixed on her own.

Dynamite could smell Jasmine's breath close behind. She could sense her watching. Her back was arched over their arms so that Jasmine could not see the injection.

But if I spill this anywhere but her arm you're gunna see the puddle. You may be dumber than hell but I bet you'd snuff that out.

Dynamite glided the syringe over one of the puncture wounds, ripping off one of the scabs that had formed there. A small bead of blood emerged. She then looked back up at the girl and winked.

In one uninterrupted motion Dynamite buried the needle in her own arm and suppressed the plunger. It broke through the fabric of her shirt seamlessly and entered her body. That familiar pain. Like a child's mouth returning to the nipple. The girl watched her as she worked. Her eyes now slightly less distant.

When she was finished she lowered her wrist to the floor and shook it until the razor blade she'd lifted from the bathroom fell between the girl's legs. Dynamite then grabbed her knees and brought her thighs together, hiding the blade from view.

"You keep leavin her like this she's liable to freeze." She grabbed the quilt and slung it over her body.

"Wait," Jasmine said. She rounded her and pulled the blanket down to reveal the girl's arm. The bead of blood there had grown and smeared as the quilt grazed it. Jasmine scowled and looked around, avoiding eye contact.

"You satisfied?"

No response.

"I'm talkin to you."

Jasmine sneered and showed her gums. "I already told you he don't want you up here."

Dynamite smiled and turned back towards the hallway.

"If he catches you up here he'll kill you. He don't want to see you no more. I don't want to neither."

She crossed through the kitchen and back out onto the porch.

"Yeah," she told herself as she looked down at the campsite below. The syringe was still in her hand and she let it drop onto the wood and crushed it with her shoe. "You ain't gunna have to worry about that no more."

She began to descend the hill and felt the warmth wash over her. A blanket of her own. And as she waded through the dew soaked grass, she felt the soles of her feet leave the earth, and her body ascend into the morning air, somewhere just inches off the ground.