A fan hummed back and forth from the foot of the bed, but it didn’t help.
Sweat still glazed my thighs like wet hams, and the clock said it was 2:55 AM. The children are our future. But they’re not going to have a future if these heat waves don’t stop. I stared at the ceiling. Streetlight filtered through the thin curtains, casting different shades of shadow against it. Concentric circles, like a yellow eye. Sneering.
I needed a cigarette.
Verona snored as I squeeked the balcony door open. She lived at the edge of the desert where everything was new. The lampposts. The street signs. None of the buildings could have been older than me. Jagged mountains loomed in the distance, and I pulled out a smoke. Welcome to Your New Home.
Someone laughed from down the street. Cigarette tar and mucus congealed in the back of my throat as a group of college students stumbled up the sidewalk. One of the kids tripped, almost falling headfirst against the single car that was parked on the street, some sort of dark sedan. I gargled my phlegm, spitting it off the balcony. None of the students noticed it whack against the bush below.
I sighed, taking another drag of my cigarette, and something glinted in the side-view mirror of the parked car. What was that? The windows were too reflective to see much of anything. It was like someone had driven the vehicle through a car wash, then circled back and did it again. An outline of a shadow sat in the driver’s seat. Who bothers to wash their car in the desert? Something flashed inside the vehicle again.
“Fuck,” I dropped my cigarette. It had gone past the butt, burning my finger. As I pressed the wound to my lips, the dark sedan started its engine, speeding off into the night.
Amity’s white sports bra pressed into my chest. “Promise you won’t tell Nathan?” she asked with a trembling lip. I tried to tell her, “I promise,” but my mouth wouldn’t move, and my hands were just as useless. Dead weight. She grabbed them for me, placing them on her lower back as she went in for the kiss.
My phone buzzed. Amity ignored it as she spread her lips apart against mine. I let her in. She tasted like a sour strawberry, and I wanted to move my hands lower but they were still frozen. My phone buzzed again. Louder.
It woke me up.
Sunlight washed through the curtains in Verona’s room, and I rubbed my eyes. The dream was over. My phone continued droning from the nightstand.
Have you heard from Nathan? the message read. It was from Clair, or maybe it was Spit. I didn’t really care. I placed the phone back down, brushing my tongue over the scar on my lip. Fuck Nathan.
Music pulsed from the other room, the kind that didn’t have any words, and my legs were restless. I needed a Xanax, maybe a Vicodin. Several dead leaves fell from the rotting lilies as I checked the nightstand drawer. Nothing. I got up to try the kitchen.
An open bottle of whiskey sat on the counter with a label that read Hypnotiq. I didn’t know what that meant, but I helped myself anyway. A container of pills sat behind it. How did Verona function on this diet? To be fair, I didn’t know how I functioned on this diet, but I also wasn’t a full time student.
The door to Verona's studio swung open. “Good morning!” she beamed, walking over to me for a kiss. “How’d you sleep? Any good dreams?”
Promise you won’t tell Nathan? Amity’s voice echoed in my head. I took another swig of alcohol. Was it still considered a dream if it was technically more of a memory? Something in the bottle tasted like strawberry, and I shook my head.
“Well I did,” she said, taking the bottle from my hand. “We were in this nest right? A bunch of us. Like baby birds or something.” She gulped down a shot like it was water. “I wanted to get up and try to fly, because…obviously.” Bubbles rocketed up the bottle as she took another swig. “But as soon as I stepped onto the branch, this giant hawk came and scooped one of us up. It was like I knew them, but I didn’t. You know?”
My stomach churned, and I nodded along, eyeing the bottle. “Maybe we should get something to eat.”
“Sure,” she said. “We can stop somewhere before the party.”
Shit. The party. I forgot
Verona didn’t notice my hesitation. “I just need to finish this piece for class then I’m all yours.” She danced back towards her studio, where the pulsing, ambient noise started up again. My phone vibrated again. Hey man have you seen Nathan?
“So, you’re the mysterious Kurt, right?” Some spindly girl I’d never met spoke at me. “The one from the painting.” Her face and neck looked like a plastic bag someone had sucked all the air out of. Why did I have to come to this party? I had to pee.
“Uhh, yeah. That’s what Verona tells me.” I said. The girl laughed in a really weird way, and her neck looked like it was going to tear open. We were all packed together in the living room of someone’s house. I remembered Verona’s dream. It was like I knew them, but I didn’t. A band set up their instruments in front of us all.
“Wow. You must be excited,” bag girl said, tugging on my sleeve. “That painting of you is going to be the best piece at the exhibition. I can already tell. Everyone in class can already tell.”
Shit. The art show. I forgot.
My bladder was ballooning against my stomach, and I tried getting Verona’s attention but she was too busy talking to someone else. “I even have my own piece that I’m going to submit for the show,” the spindly girl continued.
A clash of cymbals cut her off, and someone with a guitar started shouting at us. “Are we having a good time?” His head was covered by a large beanie even though it was way too hot.
The noises coming from their instruments made the liquid in my stomach slosh, and my urethra pulsed like I was holding a pin in it. Several people in the crowd pushed up against me, trying to get closer to the front. I tugged on Verona’s arm to get her attention
“I’m going to find a bathroom,” I shouted.
She cupped a hand to her ear. “What?”
I pointed in the vague direction of where I thought a bathroom would be, and began pushing my way through the herd of people. The back of the house wasn’t as packed, but none of the doors I checked would open. They all had crystal handles, but I couldn’t tell if they were real or not. I pay more taxes than anyone in this city! But all crime does is goes up, up, up. I gave up, following a faint breeze to the front porch.
I lit a cigarette, looking for a well shaded spot where no one could see me. Two guys wearing silk ties stood nearby talking about school or something. I couldn’t tell. The new seismic system we tested can detect p-waves before even a dag could, one of them said to the other. A girl sat on the steps below them, crying into some dress that looked like it belonged in a kids movie. What was I doing here?
Drips of piss squeezed through my closed off tract and were absorbed by my boxers. Shit. I stumbled past the sobbing girl, across a dead lawn, and towards a large tree next to the neighbor’s house. Smoke stung my eye as I held my cigarette in my mouth in order to unzip my jeans. Flowing free, my urine smelled like spoiled asparagus. I leaned my head back, relaxing the rest of my body as it splashed back against my bare ankles.
As I stood, shaking the last bit out, a beam of light shot over me. Shit. The neighbor? I zipped up, before turning around, but when I did there was no angry homeowner. It was just the headlights of some car parked up the street. I ignored it, flicking my cigarette into the neighbor's garden and heading back towards the party.
The headlights followed. They crept along with me as I walked. I turned around to face the spotless sedan as it inched down the road beside me. Who keeps a car this clean in the desert? Vague shadows outlined the windows, but it was too dark to see anything else. Was this the same car from last night? Someone shouted my name from the porch.
“Kurt?” I turned to see Verona. “Oh, there you are,” she said, stepping off the porch. “Coming back inside soon?” As she crossed the lawn over to me, the headlights swept away from my body, and the dark sedan disappeared down the street.