Not even when the fat man pinches me hard under the chin and shoves me forward with his knee, do I cry. I hold my hand out, pockmarked with burns, for the form and then proceed to fill it, sitting at the small desk allocated to me, while he sits opposite, smoking a cigarette. He blows the smoke upward, then at me, upward, at me, and never sideways. I dare not swat the smoky breath from around me, and try to hold my own so it doesn’t fill my lungs with incurable, blooming cancer.
When we exit the building the heat is intense. I squint my eyes against it, as the fat man prods my back with his thick fingers, rootling in his breast pocket for another cigarette. The sun burns my head as he lights another one, and I imagine the heat of the sun igniting his cigarette so it blows up in his fat, sweaty red face. I don’t cry when he hails a taxi, and the car stops in front of us. The exhaust pipe adds to the heat that sits on us like a shroud. When I touch the door handle to pull it open it scorches my fingers, but when I enter the car I am greeted with a cooling, yet ominous breath of circulated air-conditioned air. The driver glances behind at me with red-rimmed eyes, and the fat man gives him curt directions from the passenger seat.
I see the mirages in the road ahead of us, immense pools of waving water that disappear as we approach them. I see the intensity of the heat rising up above sandy stones and far-away mountain ridges, and there are invisible cracks in the taxi where hot air blows in, mixing with the cool air inside. The fat man smokes again, and I feel like I am choking, trying to breathe out only and not in.
When we arrive, he pays the taxi driver, who glances at me again, questions in his eyes, but who, upon seeing the thick wad of banknotes the fat man holds out to him, swerves off before we can shut our doors properly.
I stand still while the fat man lights yet another cigarette, and we wait by the side of the empty road. We wait and I don’t cry. I bite my lip, I don’t cry. He has a heavy hand resting on my shoulder, it feels like the right side of my body will collapse under the weight of it, leaving my left half standing, cross section of my insides spilling out and bare for the world to see. What world? There is nobody here. Only barren desert, a few huts in the distance, and the leaning, rusty pole of the bus stop we are standing next to.
Is this what insanity looks like?
A woman exits the hut nearest us, and squints through the sun at us. Her head is covered with a cloth and a hat, shielding her face from the sun. Throwing it into shadow. Her eyes glitter through her squint. The fat man avoids eye contact with her, but we look at each other. I try to plead to her with my eyes. My entire body still as a statue, my eyes beseeching. Can humans communicate this way? She looks at me for a long time. I realise there is a basket under her arm, filled with reeds. She turns, quickly, suddenly, and walks right back into the hut.
Then we see the bus trundling up the lane. Far away, yet. We see it before we hear it, emerging from the giant mirage puddle in a dip in the road.
The fat man lights another cigarette, and I begin to cry as the bus approaches ever closer. I hear the dim rumble of its engine, which turns into a roar, and the sweat finally begins to bead in little jewels along my hairline.
This was Day Two of my Short Story Challenge. The why of which is outlined here, and the challenge of which is outlined here.
O’Henry, also known as William Sydney Porter, said of the short story writing process: “Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.” That is what I shall do.
Ocean Bream 