Retrograde Gatorade | Madeline Riggins

Retrograde Gatorade

Madeline Riggins

You’re meeting a very tall man named Elk in the shower curtain aisle of the local Wal-Mart with your witch friend who think everything is an omen. She’s telling Elk, who is currently draping a particularly flowered shower curtain over his head like a veil, that the roadkill she saw on the highway this morning foretold an accident in her near future, and that a certain planet was in retrograde, so it would be a massive inconvenience.

You have never been able to wrap your head around stars and planetary Gatorade, so you don’t contribute to the conversation. You think about the lizard you saw in the parking lot. You wonder if it has been hit by a car yet, and if you could save it later. Your witch friend is nearly in tears, clutching her iced coffee so tightly that her knuckles pale. Elk is wrapping the shower curtain around his face like he’s going to rob a bank. You wonder if the stars could predict abnormally tall men and shower curtains. Probably. Elk begins to tell your friend that he had a dream last night in which he swallowed a mole rat and birthed a gecko from his nose, which was covered in peanut butter. Your friend explains the symbology of noses and peanut-related goods. It’s an omen, too, she says, and he needs to be cautious. You are still thinking about the lizard. A woman awkwardly hobbles by with her cart. One of the wheels is loose and wobbly and makes the steering difficult. You back out of the way. Your

friend does not. The cart catches on your friend’s ankle and she jumps. Her iced coffee grows wings. It soars, like an angel, up into the air, just a silhouette against the cheap fluorescents. Then it crashes down onto Elk’s head, which is mostly protected by the shower curtain, and spills onto your friend. You blink. The woman driving the cart is picking her jaw up from the floor and dusting it off. “I beg your pardon,” your witchy friend says to the woman. Coffee drips from her brow.

“Would you happen to be an Aquarius, by any chance?” The woman is silent for a moment. “I’m from Canada,” she says. Elk nods wisely. Your friend sighs. You think about the lizard.

Sailor Callisto

Samantha Vigoya