Illustrations by Tara Frawley
by Joseph Lucas
FICTION
CW: Drug use, underrage drug use, addiction, depression, emotional abuse of a minor, fatphobia
nna stormed into the kitchen. It’s gotta be here, she thought. She rummaged through the draws and cupboards; looked in all the nooks and orifices. She searched and searched, but her lucky headband did not return to her. She yearned for it to materialise. In her panic, Anna clumsily bumped the kitchen island, sending her mum’s canister of diazepam into flight. The container hit the ground, leaving a smattering of little white pills scattered across the tiles. Before her mum could notice (although knowing she was comfortably sedated, in a prolonged depression nap), Anna swiftly scooped up the tiny pearls. She looked around, to confirm she had not missed any, and noticed a tip of black plastic sticking out from under the lip of the oven. The headband! She yanked it out with urgency and, as if it were a fresh spring dandelion, blew a puff of air onto it to remove the dust. She slid the headband on; now she was ready. Wait. She opened the fridge, retrieved a fresh 2L bottle of Mountain Dew, unscrewed the lid and skewered the liquid with a metal straw. Now she was ready. The light in Anna’s room was scant. The sun only just splintered through the lace edges of her curtains, which remained drawn at all hours of the day, spilling shards of light onto her desk. Her room was dusty; her lamp, books and shelves had grown a furry skin of thickly gathered dust. Her floorboards served as a memorial to exsanguinated Mountain Dew bottles, thrown carelessly into an unkempt head. A graveyard of green plastic surrounded her.
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