At the End of the World, Turn Left by Zhanna Slor

Author:Zhanna Slor [Slor, Zhanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Polis Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ANNA

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CHAPTER TWENTY

Consequences don’t always appear in one fell swoop; sometimes they are jagged, ripping slowly through the course of your everyday life, like dull scissors cutting fabric. One moment, everything is as it always was. And the next? Landslide. I didn’t know this, because I had never really done anything before that might produce adverse side effects. I’d never argued with my parents. I got good grades. I paid my rent on time. But there’s only so much goodness to go around before the world begins to show you its true colors. Before those colors start to rub off on you like too much paint.

In short: things are about to get sticky.

It starts one day towards the end of November. I’m at the door of Fuel, about to buy myself a Fat Vegan sandwich—I’m not a vegan, but occasionally I try to become one for a few days—when I walk almost directly into Abby. She stops about an inch from my face and backs up.

“Whoa. I did not see you there,” she says, in her pleasantly hoarse voice. In her hand is a black coffee thermos, a giant pleather purse with feathers, and a burning cigarette. She leans over and gives me a half-hug. “How is it that I never see you anymore and we live together?”

This is a good question. I’d barely seen her since she tried to burn her clothes in the yard, and my landlord happened to come by and see her. Let’s just say he was not happy. Abby had been lying low ever since. The house had been quiet all around, in fact. “Where you going right now?” I ask.

“Foundation. Ed called in sick,” she says, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Hey. Have you heard from August lately?”

I shake my head no and steal a drag from her cigarette, if only to get it away from the feathers on her purse. When I give it back, I place it in her other hand.

“He hasn’t called me in a while,” Abby whines. “Last I heard he was in Atlanta. He went there to introduce a girl to his mom.”

“Really? That was fast,” I say. “What’s her name?”

“Box.”

“Box? That’s her name?”

“You know train-hoppers,” she shrugs. “They’re always making up new names for themselves.”

“Well, there are names, and then there are inanimate objects.”

Abby does not seem perturbed by this. “It’s no worse than Twigs the Clown,” she tells me. “Remember him?”

A shiver passes through me then, as I remember how I’d made out with him at a bonfire under the bridge. I don’t know why, but I’d felt so dirty afterward, like it had rubbed off on me or something. And I was also pretty dirty, I had to shower as soon as I made it home. “True,” I manage to agree. “Train-hoppers should really come up with a different word for clown; it’s not even in the same genre to juggle swords and spit fire instead of making kids balloon animals.”

“I think the city of Portland would disagree with you,” Abby laughs.

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