Alli Story Arc – Page 43 – A Piece, of the Sky

Pokemon Tower ghost

Kaan jumped the fence, clearing it without snagging her jeans. She ran across the damp, sloppy ground, grass growing and rotting, in its own earth. Old white trainers hitting the dirt, Kaan ran toward the sinking house in front of her. Already, she could hear music, across the way. The empty windows with hanging shutters, were all alit, for Aspen’s birthday party.

Kaan jogged a little slower, swinging the handle of whiskey, as she walked toward the abandoned house. There was no mailbox; the path’s flagstones had been shifted out of their places long ago. The lawn had been taken back by nature. The door hung ajar. Light streamed out from within.

Inside, around a long table, a dinner party was in full progress, in the rundown kitchen, with the chipped counters. Several bottles of wine, wooden boards stacked with cheese and black olives were heaped for the taking. The kitchen was packed, and the party spilled into the living room, with the sunken floor, rotting rug and dismantled sofa.

Aspen stood by the fridge – which hadn’t been plugged in during this decade – with Dallas, visiting from out of town. The latter had been a Kiwi for a semester and was regaling the awestruck Aspen with tales of Lord of the Rings rolling hills and eating raw kangaroo in Queensland.

In a wife beater and a biker jacket, Kaan was out of place among the yuppie elite, ironically squatting in this ancient clapboard house for a night. She unscrewed the Fireball and took a gulp from the bottle.

“Long day?”

Aspen had somehow sidled up behind her. Furthermore, Aspen had somehow escaped Dallas’s story, an even more incredible feat.

“Ah no, I just thought Bern would be here,” Kaan answered.

“You know Bern is always late,” Aspen said, “Probably got lost on the way here.”

“It is out of the way, don’t you think?”

“No, not out of the way enough,” Aspen replied, taking the whiskey and downed a swig herself.

Confused, Kaan said nothing. Aspen disappeared into the crowd, still holding the bottle.

The tiny boom box on the mantelpiece pumped out its tunes, with the ridiculous background hiss of feedback.

After wandering through the stuffy kitchen, nibbling very strong cheese, with blue spots, Kaan finally made it back outside, and lit a cigarette.

The air was damp, and the lighter kept going out. Just beyond the shadow of the forgotten house, Dallas was already standing there, taking in the moonlight.

Kaan shuffled over and sat down on a misshapen rock. “I left someone back in New York,” Dallas said. Mist rose out of the marsh and floated out to the ocean.

Channeler, Medium, Priestess

Songs:

Jefferson Airplane, “Somebody to Love”

Cosmastly, “BLACK HAVEN BUTCHER”

Cosmastly, “BLOWING RACK$”

INXS, “Need You Tonight”

Related: The Vampire

Mississippi Sky (1)

Kaan walked through the streets in the late afternoon. A light rain was falling. Trash tumbled across the asphalt and collapsed into the gutter. Power lines crisscrossed the sky.

She walked past burned-out houses, the tops of their windows blackened with smoke.

The sky was beige, going orange, as it neared sunset. Kaan allowed her steps to fall in step with the extra weight of the 9mm on her waist, and kept moving forward.

The landscape grew more dilapidated. She passed more burned-out houses, some of the fires more recent, lawns still submerged in fire-hydrant water, water-logged and saturated, the long grass, not mowed in months, poking out of the brackish water, like tufts of hair.

Kaan passed a gnarled, dried-out willow, her way-marker in this area. Xan lived around here, at the edge of the woods, at the edge of night.

Xan’s house, was more of a shack, re-purposed, with faulty wiring and rerouted piping. The one window on the house’s façade loomed like an empty eye socket, a toothless smile.

The ridged, cast-iron door opened as Kaan approached, making her way through the fallen leaves. Xan appeared in the doorway, albino hair unkempt, wearing her usual stained all-white clothes.

Kaan came to the threshold, “Why do you continue to live here?”

Xan just gave her a frightened look. “I offered you space at the shelter; why don’t you live there?” Kaan continued.

Xan was not paying attention, instead looking around Kaan and expectantly at the package Kaan was surely carrying in her black trench coat.

Kaan sighed, “Do you have the money?”

Xan cast her forlorn, sunken eyes in Kaan’s direction, and produced from a soiled satchel a tangled wad of cash.

Kaan took the cash, counted the 100s and pocketed them. From her coat, she produced the package, wrapped in brown paper and duct tape. Heladon, the esper’s drug. Prevented complete identity disintegration – as Xan was clearly suffering from here.

“Here you go,” Kaan said.

Xan grabbed the package, and anger flashed through her eyes, before her face slackened into its standard flat expression.

Kaan, exasperated, turned to go.

“We were all in the same lab once, you know.” Xan said. The cast-iron door closed behind Kaan. The clouds opened, and the wind blew down from the upper atmosphere, in the final minutes of twilight.

a perfect dream