CW: sexual content and harassment
by Anne Savage
You look out the window and say, “It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?” But we don’t know yet just how bad it’s going to be. The snow started three hours ago. Someone had punched the sky in the nose and now it has two black eyes. In the dark glass of the pharmacy automatic sliding door, we can see our pale, timid faces reflected. As you and I deliberate, we stand just far enough away from the door’s sensor so that it won’t discern our presence. It was foolish of you to venture out here in the first place, but you had to go to the pharmacy because you had to buy cranberry juice. You had to buy cranberry juice because you have a UTI. You’ve been pissing every hour. It feels like magma and is the color of Coca Cola. As you walked from our house to the pharmacy, you ignored the twinges. Meanwhile, the snow accumulated on your eyelashes and melted down your cheeks. Between your numb top lip and your nostrils was pure snot slick. After you arrived at the pharmacy, purchased the cranberry juice, crumpled the receipt in the pocket of your thrifted coat with the seventies faux fox fur lining, you called me. My tips were dismal tonight. Do you know how truly desperate a person has to be to sing karaoke at ten o’clock on a Thursday night during a blizzard? I stashed the bills in my push-up bra (the one with a strap held in place with a safety pin), then I scraped an inch of stubborn ice off my car’s windshield with a debit card attached to an account with a balance of negative twenty eight dollars. I drove to you. You say, “It’s just going to get worse.” We decide to run for it. Then we are in the car, snowmelt running in rivulets down the cracked leather seats. I left the engine running. The movement from the windshield wipers is frantic but the rhythm of the sound comforts me. The dust from the blasting heater smells nostalgic. I leave the pharmacy parking lot with my left hand lolling on the lower half of the wheel. You hold my right hand, rubbing warmth and circulation back into the chapped pink skin (I want to be too devilmay-care to wear gloves). fh 28
art | Michelle Zhang
