Herring

Goodbye, fishy

Ridiculous. f*****g ridiculous.

~

I've had my fun, you can continue telling this oh so wonderful story of yours. Ciao.

You s**t-faced prick, you come back here right this instant!

…

He's gone isn't he. Fine. I'll pick up where he left off.

~

I ran.

Picking up the pieces of what I could, I bolted to the nearest stall. Unbelievable. So much for a lucky charm. Life had left me unable to bother with the petrifying embarrassment I should've felt. Picking away at the shards of glass stuck in my behind, the only thought that came to mind was how much sitting would hurt for the rest of the week.

“Goodbye fishy. You did nothing wrong”

In hindsight, I must really question my sanity and thought process, because why would anyone bring fish for luck, aren't they smelly omens or something? Should've brought a four leaf clover instead.

Flushing the poor marine life down the toilet, I steeled my resolve to complete my journey to that damned class. Leaning on the door to determine whether the vicious mass of people have finally gone to their respective classes, I step out the door after confirming their footsteps are no more. Creeping towards the designated classroom, I just hoped I'd go unnoticed upon my arrival. I had arrived late to class and the professor was sure to inform me of that fact.

The door announced my presence, drowning all my hopes of a quiet entry. A long, theatrical creak that seemed to last an eternity echoed throughout the room. Sixty-seven heads swiveled towards the origin of the noise. Once again, I was the center of attention. f**k.

Fuck

Yeah I said f**k in my head too at the time. f**k.

Professor Aldaine, his name, didn't care to glance at my mediocre existence. The marker squeaked against the surface of the whiteboard with patient, deliberate strokes.

Professor Aldeine: "What are you?"

Deia: “Uh— uhm, uh— I…”

Stuttering like I had been paid to put on that performance. Holy s**t I'm an i***t.

Deia: “I don't quite follow.”

Professor Aldeine: “You're late.”

Deia: "I— yes. I'm aware."

Professor Aldaine: "Oh are you?"

Still not looking.

Professor Aldeine: "Enlighten me then. What was it that kept a well deserving princess like you?"

He said in a tone so mockingly I wish I could've crawled into a hole and died right then and there.

Don't say fish. Don't you dare say fish. Don't you f*****g dare say fish.

Deia: "I uh— had a... personal emergency of sorts."

Professor Aldeine: "A. personal. emergency. of. sorts.”

Steering his gaze towards me, putting his glasses slightly down from his face

Professor Aldeine: "At 9:03 in the morning."

Deia: "Y— yes sir."

Professor Aldeine: "Go sit your arse down missy. You'd best never be late like this again.”

Quiet laughter skittered across the room like loose change dropped on a tile.

If there really is a god, he should f*****g kill me now.

I scurried along to an empty seat not too close but not too far from the front of the classroom.

The chair received me with a mean sort of indifference, the way furniture does when it has witnessed too much human suffering to care about yours specifically. Why the f**k though, the chair could've played nice. My ass still hurt from the broken glass.

Professor Aldaine's voice filled the room again, resuming the class I had so graciously interrupted.

That went f*****g well huh.

Smirks and quiet chuckles filled the air with glances pointed at my direction. They knew. My whole fishy situation was probably already a hot topic. I started drawing circles hoping to distract myself. Aldaine probably talked about something that was important. I really couldn't case less. I swore I would never bring fish anywhere ever again. You'd think that would be common sense right? I'm hilarious, I know. Four leaf clovers are a super odourless and probably a more effective alternative. s**t dude.

Not much happened after, thank god. Class ended the way most things do — without ceremony. Picked up my things and exited the room pronto. Walking back into the hallway, swallowing me like it had never spat me out in the first place. It still felt fresh, like it had just happened.

God I hate this place already.

My ride home was uneventful, yay. I rode home, watching Seattle do its usual thing — be grey and unbothered, with the chilling winds serving as a reminder of lord knows what.

The apartment greeted me the way it always did, quiet and faithfully. Dropping my bag by the door, I f****d-off my shoes. You heard me. I felt the specific relief of a person returning to the only place on earth that didn't require anything from her. Except maybe laundry. The kettle went on first — a ritual more than a want. While it worked, I tip-toed to the bookshelf and dragged a finger along the spines with no intention of pulling anything out. Just checking. Just touching things. I do that sometimes. Rearranged two that had been fractionally out of order since Tuesday, straightened Aldy, a stubborn little cactus on my windowsill that I had named professor Aldeine. Yeah I just named the little guy. Decided that was enough productivity for the afternoon.

Tea made — something floral, something that smelled like a mood board —

~

Nah man I'm tired, you can tell this part of the story. It's too boring.

…

You called?

Yeah you s**t-head. I'm clocking out.

You do know what comes next right?

Yeah but that isn't until after tomorrow. I'll decide when to make my grand entry in describing the fuckery that's afoot.

As you command my queen.

Screw you.

There you have it folks, I'll be your narrator once more for the time being. Happy to have you. Let's savour what little peace is left shall we?

~

She folded herself into the oversized chair by the window with a particular bonelessness. A sketchbook found its way to her lap. She drew nothing meaningful. Small things. A hand. Aldy. The stripe of light on the wall rendered badly in pencil.

This is fine. I am fine. Today was fine.

She almost believed it.

Sleep arrived without much negotiation — she was horizontal on the couch for approximately four minutes before it took her. She dreamed of nothing she would remember.

The alarm was unkind, as alarms are professionally obligated to be.

Night shift. Right.

She moved through preparation with the mechanical efficiency of someone who had done this enough times that her body handled it while her mind stood elsewhere. Uniform retrieved from the back of the wardrobe. Hair sorted into something that technically counted as neat. Eating a granola bar standing over the sink in the dark, because sitting down would have made it feel like a meal, and meals implied she had time for them. Quite the young lady don't you think.

Keys. Bag. Shoes — the comfortable ones, not the ones that looked better.

She stepped out into the Seattle dark, with a rain, persistent and indifferent.

Clock in. Survive. Clock out. Repeat. I've got this.

The convenience store announced her arrival with a beep that no one cared to acknowledge. Kezia was stationed behind the counter, halfway through a bag of chips she technically wasn't supposed to be eating on shift.

Kezia: "You look like shit."

Deia: "Thanks I had a fish tank up my ass for breakfast"

Kezia: "Explains why you smell like s**t?"

Deia: "f**k you"

They both chuckle as they shimmy into their various stations. Kezia slid the chips beneath the counter with the smooth practice of someone who had done it a hundred times before a manager-shaped shadow fell across the floor.

Mr. Cocksucker moved through the store the way bad weather moves — announcing itself slightly too late to be useful. Yes we'll be calling him Mr. Cocksucker in honor of our sweetest Deia. She personally requested I address him as such as his real name is all but important. He was a compact, humourless man with t**s for days.

Cocksucker: "Nira. You're three minutes, forty-seven seconds late."

Deia: "Awfully specific there.”

Cocksucker: “I'm a very busy man and as of such, I must be very timely especially with stupid ungrateful little wretches like you.”

Deia: “Guessing that's how long you lasted in her before she left you…" whispering under her breath.

The store dropped dead silent. Everyone trying to stifle any noise from escaping their lips, doing their very best to hold in their laughter.

Cocksucker: “What was that?”

Acting like nothing had happened, everyone turned to their own business, facing away from the scene.

Cocksucker: “That'll be a cut from your paycheck, for whatever that was.”

Deia: “Yes sire”

He stopped for a moment, looking at her the way people look at something they're deciding whether to step over or around. He finally decided to take his leave in the direction he came. Kezia waited precisely four seconds.

Kezia: “Domain expansion of three minutes and sixty-seven seconds.” A reference so niche you'd need thousands of hours of online screentime.

Deia: "Don't even!" As they both try their best not to attract cocksucker with their laugh.

She settled herself and got to work.

The shift passed the way they always did — in that specific sequence of slowness that only retail possesses, one where the clock appears to be moving backwards and the fluorescent lighting begins to feel personal. She restocked. She scanned. She smiled at people who didn't look at her while she did it. She cleaned the section by the fridges that someone had rendered inexplicably sticky.

Fuck whoever did this oh my god.

She clocked out just before midnight and rode her bike two miles to her second job. Yes, our poor hardworking Deia works two night shifts just to make ends meet. As she covers her rent and personal living expenses, she has to pull at least this much weight. Tasking but not in the least bit far too overwhelming for our strong, independent mommy Deia. She can probably feel my sarcasm.

The warehouse was loud and cold and indifferent to both of these qualities. Inventory night — boxes counted, sorted, shifted, stacked. The kind of work that required a body and discouraged a mind, which was either a mercy or an insult depending on the hour. Her shoulders felt it first, then her lower back, then everything in the general category of legs. She said nothing about any of it. Nobody here was interested in a conversation, understandably so. By two in the morning the last pallet was where it needed to be and she was where she needed to be, which was outside, in the cold, on her bike, headed home.

The apartment received her without comment.

She didn't turn on the lights. Didn't need to. She moved through the dark by memory alone — bag by the door, shoes off, body horizontal on the bed with a coordination that barely qualified as intentional.

The ceiling was up there somewhere.

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Tuesday means Cocksucker again. Tuesday means school. Tuesday means—

She pulled the duvet over her face.

Tomorrow is tomorrow's problem. f**k tomorrow.

The rain was still going. Of course it was. This was Seattle and the rain had no particular interest in her schedule. She closed her eyes.

Sleep, to its credit, didn't make her wait. Sleep takes her, as she draws unknowingly to her unforgiving fate.

The point of no return,

upon which once crossed,

visible not is the other side,

the cruelest part of its design.