Chains

Chapter 1: The Sting

I drag my fingers through my silky pale rose colored hair, green eyes fixed on the cross walk sign waiting for the light to change and the slush of people I'm mobbed into moves. I can feel the slack in my tie holding my bun up threatening to come lose, so I crane my neck so that it is straight and proper without too much motion. A few shorter layers that frame my cheeks have come free already and a bad habit of mine is to twine my hair around my finger while strangers press uncomfortably behind me crowding the corner. I'm urged forward as we move like a swarm of fish across the road to the other side. I can feel someone who's too inappropriately pressed behind me breathing hot breath on the naked nape of my neck. I can feel him jut against me when I try to gain distance like a pair of flats that is a size too big and the extra space slaps at my heels each step. Finally I surge forward yearning for freedom and to break free from the blobby monster and break through the congestion making my way toward Macy's.

Everyone steals these moments by emerging from their homes after being cooped up for the hopelessly long winter. Colors finally begin to paint against the sky above the skylines and warm rays of light dips its fingers through the spines of the buildings. Spring is in the air. We all mimic the flowers that are still hidden beneath the flat and muddy colors of the city, we angle our faces to the sun which has been hidden behind a veil of gray like a face behind a paper fan. We want to soak up as much vitamin C as we can and I feel the light burn against my exposed skin. Yesterday when I passed this way the store was still in muted colors reflecting the sludge outside but today it is bursting with pink. I stare in awe at the window display. Flamingo's the size of the entire span of the window towers on each side of the entrance to the door all adorned and anatomy made up of pink roses! If these are fake, whoever fabricated the material made it look as realistic as possible. Hanging above their crowns are real flowers that dangle in tight tangles and it renews the stores vigor. I imagine the workers tirelessly staying through all hours of the night to prepare the store for spring.

I brush the left strand behind my ear and begin my shameless hunting. It's been awhile since I binged for myself and after yesterday's messy blood and stitches night at the hospital I felt I needed to wipe the memory clean with something material. I thumb through the sales rack, I look at the new lines on the outer edges of the store, I even gravitate towards the jewelry. Black pearl earrings. Ino told me once that my complexion was fair, so soft pastels of pinks and whites would best accent me. But I found emeralds didn't contrast against the hue of my eye color, and soft yellows also seemed to flatter me. What did she know? She was always wearing crop tops that cut off just under the lines that silhouetted her breasts and shorts that clung too tightly to her ass. I assess a bright red sweater that would free my shoulders from its grip and add it to my basket. I swipe my right stray strand behind my ear and inspect a rose gold ring that appeals to my depth of symmetry. The gold is like filigree that curves gracefully in sharp patterns and arches that eventually build up to its center which dawns a black pearl that gleams a soft shade of gray when it hits the light and bleeds to deep black like the depths of a sea. A smatter of diamonds adorn random patterns like stars. Five on the left side of the pearl, three on the right. This will match my earrings.

With a single bag slung around my arm I wander to my usual spot which has become my favorite place to frequent for coffee. I sit at the high table crossing my legs over one another arresting the fabric of my skirt to keep it from coming loose. I pull out the book from my purse and jot down little notes. What no one tells you in medical school is that although yes you are saving lives there are more bad days that outweigh the good one does. It's getting harder and harder to find the slips of those good moments and the more gore filled ones blot out that and remain in your head like scars. I've woken up numerous times in a sheen of sweat and nightmares of the faces I couldn't save laid there on the table like a cold dead slab of meat as if they're waiting for me to stitch up the pieces of their broken body. One of my coworkers suggested I start writing down the good. It's a sparse entry but a little girl came in with a flesh eating virus after she went into lake water with a small open wound no more the size of my pinky's tip. The bacteria entered that small entry point and within hours she got severely sick and in no more than eight hours later her leg began to blacken. We were able to extract the bacteria and eradicate any other threats. Had she been another hour later, she would have lost her entire leg up to her calf.