Monica picks up a wine bottle from the plastic carton and reads the label – ‘Chateau Saint Veran.’ She looks up at the house; bespoke window shutters, burglar alarm and double spiral Buxus topiaries by the front door. The beam from her mobile phone torch swathes the green glass in stark white light. Monica twists the bottle around to look for the tiny emblem of four arrows pointing anticlockwise around a circle on the bottom left side. Best to be certain that there’s a deposit, no point in carting the bottles around for nothing. The ten empty bottles of ‘Chateau Saint Veran’ chink party sounds against the others as she places them inside her box shaped ‘bag for life.’ Monica takes a pencil and her list out of the small pouch she carries around her middle and adds the house number to her notes on Rue des Tulipes: 23rd April 2020, number 22, ten bottles. For Monica, only harvests of ten and more deserve a mention.

Ten green bottles, Monica chuckles as she pads quietly up the street, opens the boot of her 1993 Ford Fiesta and places her pickings inside, taking care not to clatter the bottles. When the boot is full, she coasts the car twenty metres down the street in neutral. After all, Monica wouldn’t want to wake the neighbours.

It’s a dark but clear night, Venus and a full moon glow in the sky overhead. Monica takes an empty bag, closes the car door and scuttles across to number forty-three. When she sees the fox in the middle of the road she pauses; it freezes and stares. The fox is the size of a small dog. Their eyes lock. He loses interest and slopes off in the direction of the dustbins.

Monica pulls her silicone gloves up, tucks her mousy hair under her beanie and inspects the contents of the recycling box. ‘Macon Lugny,’ and ‘Pouilly Fumé,’ ‘Chablis Prestige 2018,’ – excellent taste and all bottled in Belgium by her favourite supermarket, meaning at least 30 cents deposit back each. She pushes the minor wine bottles aside or removes them to access the depths of the container. Eight bottles from number 44 clatter together in a chain reaction as Monica slots them inside her ‘bag for life.’ Number 52 is a beer drinker, Monica cannot abide that sort, it’s just not worth the effort, all those bottles for so little. She passes it over to rejoice at number 54’s over brimming recycling box; completes the bag and returns it to the car. She treads lightly in rubber soled sneakers. Her grey jacket and navy trousers are equally unobtrusive.

Yellow light suddenly spills out through the windowpanes. Monica blinks but the facade of the house is imprinted on her retina like a chess board. The curtain twitches. Monica scurries past.

Inside number 54, Claire hears the clinking of glass against glass. A light sleeper, her curiosity compels her to rush to the window and peek outside. Since her children left home and she retired from her teaching job, the outside world has taken on more than a passing interest. She sees a stranger pilfering from the recycling containers. The cheek of it. After observing for a few minutes, she realises that it’s a woman. There’s something strangely familiar about her gait. Poor thing, being driven to rummaging through others’ rubbish, she thinks. Wait. The woman is putting stuff into a Ford Fiesta loaded up with shopping bags. A car! Well really! Organised crime in Kraainem! Claire raps on the window.

A groaning noise breaks the silence,’ What are you doing?’ Claire’s husband mutters, ‘I’m trying to sleep.’ He turns over.

Smartphone in hand, Claire takes the stairs two at a time, grabs a coat, unbolts the front door and dashes out into the night. Thank goodness for those Zumba classes, she thinks. As the silver Ford Fiesta rolls past, Claire pushes the camera button, flash! Just in case, she takes a mental note of the registration plate: ‘SS0 203;’ and repeats the combination in her head until she grabs a pen in the hall and scribbles it on a stray car parking ticket.

Phew. So much effort, so early in the day. Claire sits at the dining table sipping filter coffee. She rubs her eyes and yawns. It’s one thing that a person in need is stealing bottles and claiming the deposits back, but in this case the act is pre-meditated and organised. That’s it, organised crime.

Meanwhile, in Rue des Roses, a block further on, Monica’s Ford Fiesta is packed to the roof with thirty-three bags each containing 12 bottles, plus the four extra loose bottles Monica picked up to round the figure up to 400. By Monica’s calculation, that makes 120 euros in deposit back. Some days she is tempted to carry on despite her lack of car space, hiding bottles in a ditch by the park to pick up later, but today she is tired and knows that the glass collection for the adjacent area is scheduled for tomorrow.

Back in the car, a flicker of headlights in the driving mirror causes Monica to sink low in her seat as a people carrier swishes past. Monica engages first gear and drives off, her face low on the steering wheel. She’s home in time for breakfast.

Inside number 54, Claire picks up the telephone and calls the local police station.

‘Hello, this is Claire Wrigley, of 54 Rue des Tulipes and I’d like to report a crime,’ she says.

‘Er… Hello Madam. What sort of crime are we talking about?’ The policeman replies.

‘At four o’clock this morning I saw a woman stealing bottles from the recycling bins on Rue des Tulipes.’

‘Bottles you say?’ comes the reply.

‘Yes. Are you taking note?’ Claire says.

‘Madame, technically speaking we’re not talking murder or aggravated violence in any form?

‘Well, no… but it’s theft, and I have the car registration number of the perpetrator,’ Claire interjects.

‘We’ll make a note and get back to you Mrs …. what did you say your name was?’ The policeman asks.

‘W-R-I-G-L-E-Y, 44 Rue des Tulipes,’ Claire’s dictation is interrupted by a dialling tone at the other end of the line.

‘Really!’ Claire slams the receiver down.

Claire lifts the calendar on the back of the kitchen door to check the recycling dates for the month of May. The next glass collection is Friday, 29th May. Five whole weeks away. Then she has an idea. On her laptop Claire consults the website of the waste disposal company. The glass pick-up day is Friday, 24th April for the neighbouring district of Wezembeek-Oppem – tomorrow.

Upon waking, Monica stretches her arms and legs out like a starfish, then sits up and shrugs her shoulders several times to loosen her joints. Out of habit she places her hand in the dent in the bed where Richard used to lie. Monica’s body aches from the constant bending down to place the bottles in the recycling machine of several supermarkets. Even now, the garage is so cluttered with bags and bottles that she leaves the car outside. One more mission this evening and then she can rest for a few weeks. Prior to leaving, she consults her notes and plans her trip, and fills the car with shopping bags.

Upon arrival in Wezembeek-Oppem, Monica parks at the top of Rue des Narcisses and starts at the odd numbers. Number 3 is prime real estate in deposit bottle terms; a strong, spicy ‘Saint Joseph 2019,’ – five times, followed by a full bodied ‘Saint Emilion,’ – tenfold. She doesn’t lock the car as she trudges up and down checking the plastic boxes and filling her bags. Monica places each bag of bottles in the car and walks from house to house checking boxes. As always, she gently lifts unwanted bottles out and places them on the pavement to be able to access any hidden treasures.

A car cruises past, its headlights shine full beam on Monica. She keeps her head down. As usual, Monica sets the car in neutral and allows it to roll further down the street. Suddenly a car cuts in front of Monica’s forcing her to slam her foot on the brake, she presses hard on the pedal, to no avail. She tries to steer away from impact, but the wheel won’t budge. It all happens in an instant. Monica’s Fiesta shunts into the Range Rover and comes to a halt. The sound of bottles rattling rings in Monica’s ears long after the car stops. She rubs her neck.

An urgent tap tapping on her window wakes Monica out of her trance. Due to the mist on the inside, she can’t see who it is and as the window is broken, she opens the door.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Monica steps out of the car.

‘I’m making a citizens’ arrest!’ Claire shouts.

Lights begin to flicker on and off in neighbouring houses, their glare filters out across the street illuminating both the women’s faces.

‘Claire?’ Monica says.

‘Monica?’ Claire says.

‘From Zumba?’ They both say at once.

‘Well I wouldn’t expect this from you?’ Claire says.

‘This? What is this?’ Monica looks up at Claire.

‘Stealing bottles from outside people’s homes.’ Claire prods Monica’s arm.

‘Well I wouldn’t expect you to pull in front of me like that, causing an accident!’ Monica replies.

‘We’ll see what the police have to say about it shall we?’ Claire pulls her smartphone out of her pocket.

A man’s voice cries out from a house, ‘Keep it down out there!’

‘It’s not what you think.’ Monica replies.

‘I know what it looks like.’ Claire looks down her nose at Monica.

‘Since Richard died my life has never been the same,’ Monica wipes a tear from her eye.

‘We all have our burdens to bear,’ Claire replies.

‘I collect the bottles with deposits that people can’t be bothered to return to the supermarket. Each bottle is worth 30 cents. It may not seem much but multiplied by hundreds every week…’ Monica says.

‘And bank the money no doubt!’ Claire says, starting to dial…

‘The money goes to the Belgian Cancer Foundation.’ Monica replies, ‘I can show you receipts.’

‘B-b-b-b….’ Claire stutters, ’I-I-I d-d-don’t know what to say.’ She touches Monica’s arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Look, you weren’t to know.’ Monica, ‘It’s not something I shout from the rooftops.’

‘But your car,’ Claire says. Both women turn to look at the concertinaed bonnet of the Fiesta.

‘That’s why we have insurance,’ Monica reaches inside the car to retrieve the papers.

Monica suddenly finds herself enveloped in an awkward embrace, her arms stretch out by her body, the papers in her hand flutter in the breeze.

‘So sorry,’ Claire crushes Monica’s slight body to her.

One month later. Early morning on Friday 29th May, Claire parks the Range Rover at the top of rue des Tulipes, she hands a ‘bag for life’ to Monica and keeps one for herself.

‘You’ll do the odd numbers?’ Monica asks as she steps out of the car.

‘And I’ll do the evens,’ Claire laughs.

Belgium based writer Sheila Kinsella’s short stories draw inspiration from her Irish upbringing. An avid watcher of people’s behaviour, and blessed with abundant natural curiosity, Sheila lures the reader into a shrewdly observed world via imagery and comedy. Her work has appeared in The Blue Nib Literary Magazine and the Brussels Writers’ Circle anthology ‘Circle 19.’

Image via Pixabay

In the sway of the valley was a paradise, a garden of pleasure not unlike the Garden of Earthly Delights. People lazed on the grass, and in coloured bathers dove into a gleaming pool. There was a thick feeling among us. The dull ache of the sublime. And we never did mind the guards who patrolled, because the grass was very green and the textures so divine.

I felt resistance sliding across the edge of my mind like a third eyelid. Secretly cleaning it of the drugs they gave, and when it was washed I would see, momentarily. I followed the cattle-line of comely, dew-skinned specimens as they trotted along in their patent shoes. By twos we approached the platform to feed. Lab-coated women watched us from all sides, peering over glasses as the queue of glazed eyed wanderers drew infinite patience from their complete lack of appetite.

For the first time I was aware of myself. I was conscious as I approached the platform and sat down to my meal. The drugs were conspicuous, and difficult to avoid. I ferreted copious amounts of powder into my pocket during the flicker of their blinks.

Dinner finishers completed their course in the brothel’s maze, and were encouraged to drink excessively so that the drugs could bloom all the wilder. I found a blonde girl in the corner in a patent leather mini, and seduced her into the back room in order to hide. Almost immediately after shutting ourselves in, a young man burst through the door to join us. It was then that I realised that he too was resisting. I showed him the drugs I had concealed and he nodded to the girl, who had started salivating at the sight of them. I hardly had a moment to think before she buried her face in my hands, consuming such a quantity of powder that her eyes turned ice blue, and she slumped down in the corner.

Occasionally, the guards came in, and the young guy and I had to pretend as if we were having a right old time with the girl on the floor. Somehow, he jimmied a panel out of the wall, and we were able to access the front corridor of the main compound. We remembered this later when we awoke on the grass, sleepy, and touching each other’s hair.

* * *

Again I found myself in the valley. It was a cornucopia of enjoyment–colourful bodies, blissful textures, and breezes honeyed by the blooming. I had never looked to the edge of the valley before, but now I could see a path. It was dirty, indistinct and had bristly shrubs along the way. No wonder our eyes had been repelled from such an unattractive section of the visual field. I crawled and shifted with great stealth! Without anyone noticing, I mounted the winding path, up and up, as it curled around.

A rattle-hiss startled me there, and under the shrubbery a strange spider was poised. Half my size he was–pink and red and yellow and black. His voice was green, and his venom was white. He told me in clicks and crackles (and psychic speech), that Mistress had founded the community below after she had forged a bargain with the Arachanarchons. They hunted once a year, injecting anaesthetising venom into their prey, so that the flesh was made softer and sweeter by the bliss they felt at death. Mistress allowed them to live in freedom in the dense bushland surrounding the valley, upon the condition that they surrender a quantity of their venom on a weekly basis, as a sort of tax.

My mind was so wide at this point, and the spider’s voice so verdant that I scarcely noticed the glint that swished past my ear. I turned, like an animal, my bloodshot eyes burning into the distance where my attackers hid. I couldn’t tell if I was visible or not, but I saw beside me what had darted close. Little tinks and thuds sounded as syringes clattered around me, shot from the guns of the guards. The great spider closed his lazy eyes, and curled into himself like a crab.

I grabbed a handful of syringes, for protection, and darted off into the scrub. It seemed that the guards were not inclined to follow, yet soon I found myself on the other extreme of the ridge, and had to climb down the rock-face in full view of two guards having a cigarette break. I acted as intoxicated as possible, telling them a wild tale about how I had chased a butterfly to the top of the mountain, only to chase it back down again!

They regarded at me strangely but then resumed their conversation, commenting that it was a fantastic day for a picnic. There was an expanse of long grass between the pool dwellers and me. I acted like something they might see–a downy rabbit perhaps. I tickled my whiskers on a dandelion and frolicked back into the flock.

In the water I was safe again, and in a dreamy state of mind I dove, gliding along the length of the pool like a smiling seal. It was under there in moments that were thick with time that I saw him again, and our eyes communicated our resistance.

* * *

I found myself next to him in the corridor with my heart beating fast. Infiltrators had entered the compound. They wore strange white helmets with ink tubes connecting their thoughts with their spine. The ingenious apparatus protected them from the dust that puffed like white flour into the darling sky. My mind kept folding itself like a gigantic map; fold and double and fold. With each crease my mind would skip, and with each spread of map, I would be aware of where I was. Their excited eyes implored us to follow, their weapons cocked in urgency. Mistress had scuttled to the rafters and they had her surrounded. Booms and squeals, clatters and tinks sounded in the distance.

We exited through a series of white tunnels, virgin to my eyes. A train carriage set on a near vertical railway awaited us, hoisting its limp and bedazzled cargo up and out of the valley. Kaleidoscopic spiders as large as unicycles fled in all directions, over hill and over dale. One came right for us! I grabbed a newspaper from an old man who had been reading it, rolled it up into a mean whacking stick, and pelted the arachnid with all my might. Down he fell like a squalling orchid, and I stumbled backward into my silent co-conspirator. Magenta fluid dripped from the paper as the headline caught my eye. “Spider Venom: the Secret Ingredient in Life Saving Vaccine.” We looked at each other and read on.

Although the words jumped backward and forward in the lines, flickering and inverting by turn, an impression of the article’s meaning reached our liquid consciousness. The world was a wasteland, and people’s souls were sinking to their ankles; their sagging life force easily discarded by a careless movement of the foot. They believed the Arachanarchons would bring about heaven on earth! Or at least a semblance of it.

I turned to the old man, who sat listlessly, staring at his empty hands. We could not really communicate. I grasped his face and held it up to my own attempting to make the shape of the spine helmets with my hands. His stare penetrated deep into my eyes, paying no heed to time. Then, he made a gruff face, formed fists and held his wrists together. I looked around me at the long legged beauties with sheening hair as they began to slump. It was an uncharacteristic posture. In horror I felt an intangible sweetness slip from my body as the grey metallic tang of the train carriage became apparent to my nostrils.

It was a coup–an eviction from paradise–to make room for others more powerful than us. To the one who had shared my desire for escape, I turned. “At least now I know my name. What is yours?”

S. K. Balstrup is the author of Spiritual Sensations: Cinematic Religious Experience and Evolving Conceptions of the Sacred (Bloomsbury: 2020) and holds a PhD in Religious Studies from The University of Sydney. After years of academic writing, creative works are slowly emerging from old boxes and drawers, the first of which have been published by The University of Sydney Press and Lunate.

Image via Pixabay

The building with square windows is getting closer.

I have been suspicious of square windows since I measured the one in my bedroom and found the proportions to be inexact. When I told my flatmate, she said: yes, well, they are almost square. I said: we have a word for that.

I have wondered before whether the encroaching building might be a church. It has no spire or steeple, but when I look at it, I think: worship. I pass hours gazing into it and forget everything I am.

I saw someone at the window once. She was looking at me and nodding. The motion was slow and deep, like she was rocking her body back and forth. She rocked for a while, faster and faster, until she hit her head on the glass. Then, the window was empty again.

I have thought for a long time that the figure might be the one moving the building. I sensed it in the way the rocking seemed to happen outside of her. Recently, I have found myself rocking too.

The encroaching building has ivy growing up it. When my flatmate noticed, she squinted and said: that wasn’t there before. We watched the glossy leaves rustle for a time, and when she wanted to look some more, I took her to the window. We rocked together, slowly at first, then faster. The ivy was always there, blooming under the surface the way veins bloom under the skin.

After that, everything was still until New Year’s Eve. With no one to celebrate with, I stood in my bedroom and said: Happy New Year. In response, fireworks burst from the building, lighting up the windows like glistening eyes.

Get back with your rectangles, I wanted to shout. I’ve given you what you want.

Leonie Rowland has an MA in Gothic literature. Her writing has been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, Reflex Press and Horrified. She also has work forthcoming from Dreich, Emerge Literary Journal, TSS Publishing and BlueHouse Journal. You can find her on Twitter @leonie_rowland.

Image via Pixabay

When I think back to my childhood – the earliest part of it, the part I once refused to think about – I still don’t quite understand how I could have gotten here. But at the same time, I recognize things could not possibly have transpired any differently.

It must be because something stops being trauma when it starts being motivation; and because the best way to avoid martyrdom is to stay alive.

*

It’s Match Day.

It’s the day medical students find out where their residencies will be, where their careers will begin, where they will make breakthroughs and witness medical miracles and accidentally kill patients and everything in between.

It is the culmination of 16 years of schooling, and it happens at every medical school in the country, all at the same time; thousands of doctors-to-be, opening a sacred envelope, discovering their futures and lamenting their failures.

I stand with my envelope, alone. All around me are my fellow students, surrounded by family, surrounded by friends, surrounded by the whole world, it seems. I am the calm eye amidst a hurricane of excitement in the room, the center of an orbit, my gravity warping space-time so everyone else is repelled around me into a vast radius.

It has been this way since the first foster home.

It was this way through all of public school, to be honest, and private university, and my top-tier medical school as well. I am a perpetual outcast; I am a pariah. I’ve been alone most of my life, but I have not been lonely. I have, instead, been working towards this, towards this exact moment, towards my destiny.

I know exactly when I decided to be a doctor. It happened in a split-second, in one of those life-changing moments that stick with you and subconsciously guide your every action, evolution disguised as instinct disguised as survival.

I will never forget it. I was a little girl, and I was watching my mother overdose.

*

I know how dramatic that sounds, but it’s not hyperbole. It’s also not what you think. Watching someone overdose isn’t like Pulp Fiction, and it’s not like 8th grade health class would have you believe, either. It’s quiet; deceptively sweet, like the poppies in The Wizard of Oz beckoning Dorothy to lie down and rest.

I was little, like I said, and I shouldn’t remember this, but I do.

I watched her for a bit, lying there, not moving. I think my prepubescent brain expected something to happen, the next link in a logical chain of events, but what I didn’t realize was that her chain was ending. I didn’t realize that the only thing standing between me and that inevitability was a Savior.

I sat there as precious moments ticked away, waiting for her to get up, or die, or seize or vomit or scream or anything. Instead, she just…slept.

The rest of that day is a flurry of motion in my memory: the landlord’s frantic steps when I finally called to say she wouldn’t wake up; police cars pulling up in front of our apartment; the EMTs bustling around our tiny living room, administering Narcan, doing CPR, loading my still-inexplicably-alive-mother into the maw of an ambulance.

There was a social worker, kind but aloof, desensitized to the trauma she glimpsed every day. She was the first in a long line of state-sponsored adults who would decide my life away as the years passed. There were more police officers, asking questions, demanding answers, pumping me full of soda and nervous energy.

Surprisingly, my mother didn’t lose custody; not that day, anyway. The above scenario would repeat more than once before the government decided to take me from the only home I had ever known. It was dysfunctional and depraved, sure, but it was also still my home. Leaving it for an endless string of foster placements was nothing short of life-shattering.

*

What really sticks with me about that day was the belief I had, the certainty which only a child can hold, that life would get better. I remember my conviction that my mother would wake up, that she would recover, that someone would fix everything and give me a future.

Of course, that didn’t – and doesn’t – happen.

Things got steadily worse, and no one came along to give me a future. The next decade-and-a-half was as terrible as you would expect a childhood spent in the foster system to be; but that isn’t what led to my current Hippocratic quest. My calling to medicine did not come from the horror of my youth – except maybe as a grain of sand irritates the oyster until a pearl is finally formed. What my journey did accomplish was to birth my need to rise above the hidden curse in my DNA, the genetic component of addiction that I knew – even in adolescence – would be a risk for me. You see, I could never abide being just another orphan of the opioid epidemic. I have refused, my entire life, to be an academic statistic or a cautionary tale.

I have, instead, always been determined to matter.

*

What I mean to say is, the day my mother overdosed, the day I decided to become a doctor, I witnessed a miracle. While it may only have prolonged what I now understand was never meant to be, Western Medicine managed, in front of my eyes, to bring my mother back to life.

Through a tiny window in an ER hallway, I watched the attending physician administer volts of electricity to her temporarily-stopped heart, and I made a decision: I was going to be a doctor, too. Someday, I was going to provide that hope for a little girl in the future, one who also might believe things would improve, if she just wished hard enough.

That stuck with me through the system, through all my schooling. I learned that the only person who was going to give me a future was me; I learned that no one can fix an addict but themselves. And I learned the art of healing, the art of saving a life. I learned how to keep a child’s mother breathing long enough for things, just maybe, to finally turn around.

Because that’s all I ever wanted, the whole time.

Things never did turn around for me – so I turned them around myself. And I am becoming, if you’ll forgive my hubris, one hell of a doctor.

*

Around me, the noise level is nearly unbearable, excitement wafting through the air like smoke, and now the whole room is counting down; counting down to the moment when it has either all been worth it or all been in vain, when that for which you’ve worked so hard will either come to fruition or leave you desperately wanting.

I stare at the envelope, trying to will its contents directly into my brain by osmosis. Even as I watch the large digital clock mounted on the wall, red seconds ticking away the last moments of my youth, I am terrified for the countdown to reach zero. If it WAS all in vain – if all of my work, all of my dedication, all of my soul I’ve poured into this endeavor was for naught – then I haven’t just let myself down. I have let down all the little girls I could have helped down the road, all the parents I could have saved. My years of training would be a meaningless sacrifice, the martyrdom of my childhood without any of the perks of sainthood or fame.

A few seconds left, and I can see all the students around me poised to rip open their envelopes; shoulders raised, fingers tense, looks ranging from exhilaration to apprehension to abject fear. I allow myself, for the briefest of moments, to think about the very slim possibility that the envelope in my hand contains precisely the news for which I’ve been hoping.

The countdown reaches the end, and there is a pause, a second of inaction, like the entire room is not convinced of the validity of the number zero. Then, as if choreographed, there is a frantic burst of energy as hundreds of burgeoning doctors rip away paper to reveal their paths.

Shouts, exaltations, swear words and wails echo from the walls, but I swear I can even hear the silence from individuals whose envelopes contain disappointment. I feel a flash of sympathy; as someone who has been let down so many times, I’m well acquainted with that particular emotion.

Still, I haven’t opened mine, because it’s not like there’s anyone waiting to see what’s inside. A murmur in my head, the voice of my inner monologue, whispers a prayer to a deity in whom I stopped believing long ago.

Please, it begs, let it be U Penn. Please, so it wasn’t all a waste, let it be U Penn.

I take one more moment to wish, with all of my being, and tear into the envelope. I discard it and unfold the paper inside, neat business creases dividing the document into perfect thirds as if it’s normal correspondence, as if it isn’t the most important piece of paper I’ll ever read in my life.

My eyes anxiously dance over the letterhead, the date, the addresses, the electronic signature, searching out the words I’m so hoping to see.

2021 MATCH RESULTS

School Code: 2310089

Applicant Name: Hannah Reynolds

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE MATCHED!

Program Code: 170354

Program Name: Cardiac & Thoracic Surgery

Institution Name: Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

I blink unbelievingly, in awe at what I am seeing. I hear my inner monologue again, a resonant soprano that chatters constantly in my brain, that I always try to ignore, that holds the cumulative power of a lifetime of trauma.

You know what this means, right?

I do.

Revenge.

*

You didn’t think it was altruism, did you?

Oh, you did. That’s so cute.

My calling has been to medicine, yes. My goal is to sanctify life, to save it, to keep mothers and fathers and sister and teachers among the land of the living, sure. That’s what I’ve always wanted.

But, at the end of the day, we are all human. And what is more human than an innate need for justice?

We live in a meritocracy, you see, and I realized at a very young age that nothing commands more respect than a physician. People will see the letters after my name – people will see my alma mater on my curriculum vitae – and they will listen to me. They will trust me. They will believe what I say, and believe I have the purest of intentions in saying it.

No one will remember, however, that Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services ruined my life. No one will remember how they took me away before things could get better, how the social workers and police and judges and foster mothers were a collective force to endure, a Sisyphean boulder on my back as I struggled to grow, to live.

But I remember.

I remember bureaucracy, taking everything from me; I remember impotence, feeling dehumanized by the system. Most of all, I remember helplessness, my omnipresent childhood companion. Now, however – as a U Penn-trained doctor, as a pillar of the community, as the American Dream made incarnate – I will finally have what I never had before.

I will finally have power.

I will have power because knowledge is power. But power corrupts like opioids corrupt like the foster system corrupts, so is it really any wonder that I plan to wield my M.D. like a weapon – my education a switchblade in the scabbard of my mind – for payback, first and foremost?

Growing up in this city of Brotherly Love, I was screwed by both nature and nurture. But now – I will finally be taking my vengeance for both.

Shannon Frost Greenstein is the author of “More.”, a forthcoming poetry collection from Wild Pressed Books. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine, and a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy. Follow her at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @mrsgreenstein.

Image via Pixabay

Rashmi leaned into the thick perspex of the tunnel, her body bending to its curve. Outside the wind tugged at the grass and tore it horizontally. She longed to be that grass.

Everyone else she knew had moved on. They had learned to live with this new life, like hamsters in plastic tube houses or rats in a laboratory maze, but she couldn’t let go.

A loose slate on the building opposite shook free and clattered off the top of the enclosed walkway. No-one batted an eyelid. Finally, a voice broke her reverie.

‘There you are!’

Rashmi turned towards her sister. Eloise was standing, hands on hips and head tilted to one side, a pose familiar to Rashmi from earliest memory.

‘I’ve been waiting an absolute age. Eventually gave up our table and came looking for you.’ She tugged at Rashmi’s arm. ‘I should’ve known you’d be wind watching again. Come on, I’m starving.’

Rashmi trailed after her sister down the long winding tunnel towards the mall. Outside, a bird was careening towards the left wall, its wings scattered and useless and its beak open in impotent protest. Eloise glanced over as Rashmi’s eyes followed its final path. A smear of feather dust decorated the exterior for a matter of seconds before the currents lifted and carried the particles clear. No trace remained.

‘Dunno how those beggars still get out there.’ Eloise rapped her knuckles on the perspex. ‘Just as well it’s made of sturdy stuff.’

Rashmi had stopped again.

‘Jesus wummin!’ Eloise pulled again at her sister’s sleeve and hauled her towards the colourful noise of the food court.

‘Don’t you ever miss it?’ They had placed their order and Rashmi was circling her glass of soda and lime round its damp outline on the paper tablecloth.

‘Hmm?’

‘The wind. Don’t you ever miss standing at the seaside, the salt air blowing your head clear of thoughts. Or breezes cooling the sun on your bare skin in summer?’

Eloise lifted one of the laminated menus from its holder and used it to fan herself.

‘You live in the past Rashmi. Do I miss spending an hour getting ready then within seconds of stepping outside having the style ripped out my hair and my make-up smeared by streaming eyes? Do I miss dodging airborne litter and flying debris? Do I miss projectile bird-shit on good outfits?’ She set the menu on the table and looked her sister in the eye. ‘What do you think?

‘Trouble is, your memories are rose-tinted.’

‘At least we were…connected.’

Eloise’s waved hand took in the perspex warren beyond the food court. ‘How much more connected could we be?’

‘Not that kind of…’

‘Chicken pesto panini?’ The waiter dropped the plate on the table without waiting for a response.

‘That’ll be m…’

‘And brie and cranberry on wholemeal.’ He deposited the second dish and left. The sisters swapped plates.

‘So, Mum rang last night…’ Eloise barely broke for breath, a mouthful of food pouched in her cheek. Rashmi took a sip of her soda and resigned herself to another lunch with her sister.

The foreman looked pointedly at his watch as Rashmi returned to her station at the depot.

‘I’ll make it up at the end of the day.’ She made a face at his retreating back.

In the changing room, she opened her locker and retrieved her uniform. As she pulled the overalls up over her boots and slid her arms into the sleeves, she stared at the photo taped to the inside of the door: two sisters in matching bathing costumes, knee deep in waves that stretched all the way back to the sky. They were grinning as the breeze tangled their salt-straggled bobs.

‘Rose tinted.’ She shoved the locker shut and pocketed her key-card.

Pete was standing by the truck, stabbing a finger at one of the hand-held devices as she approached.

‘Thought you were a no-show.’

‘Sister. Lunch. Phone call from Mum.’ She stuck out a hand for the device.

‘Lucky we got you back at all then.’ He patted the cab. ‘Loaders are done. It’s all yours.’

‘Cheers Pete.’ She clambered up the three metal bars on the side of the wagon and settled into the driver’s seat. One of the depot floor runners heaved the door closed behind her, its hefty locking mechanism slamming into place with a resounding clunk. She set the device into its port on the dashboard and considered today’s route.

‘Ya beauty. Coast here I come.’ Rashmi slid the key-card into the ignition slot and mock saluted Pete through the cabin window as the truck roared into life and began gliding along the iron track towards the exit. The siren howled throughout the depot and the floor runners retreated to their kiosks before the great doors slid open to the howling winds.

She had been ecstatic when she finally secured a transit post; this was as close as you could get to being outside on your own since the great winds began. Once on the open rail, she clipped her music box in place and voice-selected a favourite indie band. The cabin filled with the sound of twanging guitars and a decent gruff melody, and she smiled as Eloise’s accusation of her living in the past resurfaced.

‘Stuff it.’ She rattled the gear stick to the beat and sang along with gusto. The journey ahead would take her through the beautiful rolling hills of Kenville County and terminate at the pristine coastline of West Brand, previously a popular seaside resort.

The immense bulk of the truck thrummed along the monorail network requiring only the occasional input on the gear stick or brake from its driver. Cities and towns came and went. In the gaps between lay open landscapes, the blasted scrub narrating the prevailing wind direction. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of the coast: sand bulked in the far end of its curves and rocks undercut by waves thrown out by forceful currents.

Rashmi remembered the freedom of childhood summers. Wind breaks and parasols were secured with the simple heft of her father’s hand. You could build sandcastles that lasted until the careless step of a stranger caved the ramparts. You could sit on a towel with the breeze lifting your hair from shoulders sticky with sunblock. When you got bored, you could run with abandon into the rippling cool of a welcoming sea. The level surface would take your weight gladly and, as it gently lifted you up and down, you could raise a sleepy smile towards the heat of the sun.

The last family holiday to the seaside – in fact, outdoors – had been the year before the ban. The wind break had been torn from her father’s hands and vanished up and away like an overgrown kite. Grit had filled their eyes, noses, mouths, making the picnic inedible. The sea had hurled forbidding waves onto the damp sand, forcing the family high into the shelter of the dunes’ stinging grasses.

The following year, they joined the other families in the domed enclosures of Midpoint Parks.

Beach trips had been outlawed for nigh on ten years now, but she had never forgotten the feeling of those now distant outings.

The grey blocks and tube network of West Brand rose quickly on the horizon and the rail drew the truck closer to the crystal shimmer of the sea. Rashmi dropped through the gears until the truck glided to a halt within the concrete confines of the depot. Doors clanged shut behind her and floor runners emerged from their kiosks like cockroaches into a night-time kitchen. The forklifts buzzed round the back doors of the truck, carrying away the treasure to be hoarded in bays before onward distribution to the enclosed malls.

She clambered out the cabin and passed the device to the waiting clerk.

‘Lovely day out there.’ She pointed beyond the steel grey wall towards the beach.

‘Is it?’ The clerk didn’t look up, just clicked the device from the truck into a second one hanging from his belt and uploaded the data.

‘Anything to take back?’

‘Yeah. You’ve time for a coffee if you want.’ The clerk nodded to the staff canteen on the mezzanine.

‘Cool.’

Rashmi took the elevator to the upper deck and swiped her card in the door lock. She collected a coffee, wandered over to the viewing pane, and watched as the floor runners emptied and reloaded her truck. Grey overalls, grey walls, grey base, grey vehicle. She glanced up at the light tubes overhead and caught the slightest glimmer of blue sky.

When they had finished, the foreman waved up at her and Rashmi returned to the truck. He handed her the updated device and she recorded its receipt with a squiggly signature on the screen held out by the foreman.

‘Cheers, Paul.’

‘No bother. Probably see you tomorrow.’

‘Aye, no doubt.’ Rashmi once again scaled the steps to her cab. Once again, she slotted the reconfigured device into its slot on the dashboard. Once again, she waved goodbye to the foreman and listened to the siren wail as the cockroaches ran for shelter.

But this time she unclipped her seatbelt, manually overrode the sealed door of her cabin and descended the three silver rungs to the depot floor. This time, as the doors slid open at the end of the warehouse, she ran towards the daylight, beyond the prison of the compound and into the elements.

Paul hammered on the reinforced glass of his kiosk, his warning shouts trapped within the protective shell. In panic, he hit the emergency button, but she was too far ahead, the doors juddering together too slowly to prevent her escape. For a second, Paul watched as the winds devoured the solitary figure standing beyond the gap. He heard a primal howl break from Rashmi as the blast of the wind struck her face, ripped at her hair, clothes, skin.

By the time the doors clamped shut, she had gone.

Hybrid writer-scientist, Sheila most enjoys turning idle thoughts into short narratives and illustrative doodles. Her work has been published in Postbox, Edwin Morgan 100 Anthology, Cabinet of Heed, Causeway, Ellipsis Zine, Flashback Fiction, Bangor Literary Journal, Poetic Republic, and 2019 Morton Writing Competition. Her intermittently hyperactive Twitter account is @MAHenry20.

Image via Pixabay