The Memories by the Pier

 

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The Weird Bit in the Cafe

She’d probably get hypothermia before the bus arrived, wouldn’t she? Yep. Typical luck, the Traveller reckoned, for her anyway. Stupid thing wasn’t due for another hour. Water had soaked through leather and nylon ‘till it spread numb between her toes and shrivelled the flesh. It was a heavy wetness, sullen and miserable. The rest of her hadn’t fared much better. She’d wrapped up in a thick, fur-lined coat, jammed her beanie tightly over the thin hair of her crown, and what good had it done her? Nowt. Her fringe clung to her cheeks like a frightened child. All in all, it was a typical Autumn day by the coast; a hidden one, foggy and dreamlike in the hiss of the rain. The bus wasn’t due for another hour.

She blinked water out her eyes; the yellowed scrap of laminate on the side of the pole said the same thing. 17.30. Yeah, that was the time, alright. It would still be the time an hour from now, and if she set her mind on waiting, even more mascara would weep down and sting her eyes. Her hair would drown like a rat. She’d turn up in Norwich looking like a smuggler’s wraith dragged out from under some lonely bit of coastline. Nope, that was not the one. Not for a gig. Because that’s where she was going, wasn’t it? To a gig. That’s what she’d told her parents. So, one hour, now fifty-five minutes; what to do? Back up the mud path? That was just back to the B&B again. Five scraggly-beard strangers laden with backpacks, an ageing vulture who stole up to the rooms at night to make sure you weren’t masturbating. Definitely no. She’d already checked out anyway and being in the same place again might get her All Worked Up, tres tres bad. So, she looked down. Down from the high hill, the town and pier glittered like a forgotten neon jewel. The distant roar of the ocean. She’d been here before, definitely. That’s why she’d come here, wasn’t it? Had taken the detour from the main route, because…well, Mum had taken her here when she was still in pink wellies. There’d been a lovely little café, and they’d sat there and watched large ferries ferrying across the horizon... lovely. Not complicated, was it, when you were little. It might still be there. Perhaps. Fingers crossed eh.

The walk down from the hill was cold and cheerless. Several times she stubbed her toe and yelped, wandering in half-memory down grotty side-alleys and houses faded by time and ocean salt. Gradually the street-lights got brighter, and gaudy little shops began to burrow out from roads that flowed like tributaries to the bay. Occasionally, a car flashed past, glittering. At least someone was about, then. She turned down Blake Street, passing the ruin of South Slope hotel. She made sure to cross to the other side of the road; the old place l had been boarded up ever since she could remember. Not the kind of house to hang around in, tres nasty, all ashen brick and unshaven windows. She twisted her hands a few times to keep the badness out. He might be staying in a place like that (bad fellas in bad places, as any kid knows), but she thought it unlikely. She was going to a gig, she’d told him, a gig in Manchester. It’d be ridiculous, wouldn’t it, Him coming here. All the same, best not to stop by and have a look nor say hello.

People began to trudge from out of the rain, hooded and heavily-cloaked, paying no mind to her or to anything in particular. Grey people on a grey day. Mmmm. She could smell sweets, mixed sharply with chippy vinegar and urine. Jingly little nursery rhymes squealed out from amusement arcades. Set her teeth on edge, to be honest. She kept finding all these little memories, a mental tongue searching out food between teeth. Here was the corner she’d scraped her knee on, the little shop where Dad got the French postcards /why French? she’d asked him, we’re in Norfolk/. The old sign to the pier. Sometimes she forgot things like that. The past, mostly, or the time, what day it was, but somehow big an important too. He couldn’t understand /You’ve got nothing between your ears/ why it was so hard for her to remember everything. So it made her bubbly and happy that everything was coming together for her, at least in a place she knew. A good sign. She looked left and right, and crossed over to the far black of the seafront with a skip in her step. The pier stretched out from between concrete walls, heavy and unlit. Not going that way. But there it was! Just to the right, her old friend, a happy memory of a place, the coffee house, where mum (or was it Dad?) used to take her sometimes. Recognition gripped like a firm hand and led her inside.

The Coffee machine hissed and broiled before she even turned the handle; on opening the door it wailed, coating windows with a thick steam that made the pier, the streets, the world invisible. It was welcome after all the stupid noise from the arcades. More homey. She breathed deeply; ahh, coffee and table wax. Not as good as chippy, pissy ocean popcorn smell, but still familiar. Familiar was good, calmed her down. She stamped her shoes on the faded welcome rug. Psssh. Yeah, right. Like that’d get the water out. Vapour rose off her coyly. She felt lovely blood flowing to her cheeks.

It wasn’t deserted, though on an evening like this you’d’ve thought, wouldn’t you? A few tired shapes like the ones she’d seen outside huddled against chipped radiators with steaming cups of Styrofoam. Hum of background chatter. Weaving in between each of them, a heavy-set blonde woman in her middle age was hurrying back and forth with plates of greasy, steaming food. Yum. She felt her stomach rumble.

‘Table thirteen! Table thirteen, Liv, for God’s sake! Steak and fries, quick as you’re able. Plates away on table twelve. God love me, I never knew anyone lazier. Oh, hell! Don’t let that slip! That’s my uncle’s cup!’ A thin old man with a sallow look was resting with his palms to the counter, crackling out orders from between gnarly yellowed teeth.

‘They’d be clearer quicker if you’d get off that stupid phone of yours,’ Liv snapped back.

‘What? I haven’t time for a breather anymore?’ he snarled. ‘You sort the tables, I sort the counter, that’s the way it’s done. I cleaned the counter, and now I’m having my breather. Christ, it’s not like we’re heaving with people, is it?’

‘Cleaned? What, cleaned?’ scolded Liv. ‘The only thing you’ve been cleaning that counter with is your own blessed arse! Sorry, my love,’ she re-arranged her demeanour for the Traveller. ‘See, here’s a new person, and you went and forgot about her cos you couldn’t drag your head from out of cyber la-la world. We haven’t kept you waiting long, have we?’

The Traveller thought Liv was still pretty pretty. Had Liv been working here when Mum had brought her? No, she didn’t think so. But that was a long time ago, so maybe Liv had changed. Maybe she’d been a kindred spirit, searching out a safe little haven and finding it here. The Traveller gave Liv a quick beam to show she appreciated the attention.

‘Oh, no. Thankyou, though! Your hair looks really really lovely! I’ve just walked in, don’t worry, I’ll sit myself in a corner or something.’ Did she give that compliment out loud? Tres awkward. Fuck she couldn’t stop her thoughts from whizzing. But Liv laughed, maybe she’d found it charming.

‘Find it yourself? Bless me, no! We bring you to the tables, that’s the way it’s always been, here let me take you to one. And thankyou,’ she preened, ‘I’m half-starved for compliments or kind words sometimes.’

She found herself half-dragged into a corner, possibly the only one with a radiator free. One window to her left. Eugh. Grimy. She wiped it with a sleeve, and watched the light play out on the distant water for a while. Behind her, Liv bustled back and forth with a clutter of cups and saucers. She wrapped the coat around her a little more tightly. Jesus, you’d think they could sort the heating out or something. She’d been up and about for days now. She’d had enough of cold, wet places.

‘Ready to order, love?’ Asked the waitress. Her name was Liv, wasn’t it? The Traveller thought so.

‘Hi! I’d like the soup of the day please, with brown bread! Oh, and a cup of tea, too.’ She smiled. /He’d said/ People said she had a good smile, warm and winning and all that.

‘Mackerel broth, darling. That ok with you?’ flip, out came the notebook, Liv’s eyes never left her. ‘It’s locally-caught, everything here is.’ She jerked an ink-stained thumb toward the old man behind the counter. ‘He catches them.’

‘I’m a good catch,’ he boasted. ‘When I was younger, I’d even go out with the boats.’

‘Go out and do nothing,’ the waitress chided gently. ‘He could’ve gone somewhere else, but he was too lazy. Never had the heart for it.’

‘I had plenty of heart for it!’ the old man whined. “You wouldn’t let me leave! Stay here and love me Tim! Don’t you move to Yarnmouth, Tim …fat lot of good that did both of us, I can tell you. Never marry, my dear,’ he jabbed a knuckled finger in her direction. ‘Especially not for love. People who love you rarely do so selflessly. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, though.’

She laughed conspiratorially, half-heartedly. That was presumably what she was supposed to do, though the poor waitress didn’t look too happy about it. Maybe there’d be spit in her broth.

‘Set up shop, and now we can’t leave,’ grumbled Tim. ‘Not much money in the winter, just the local crew, and they’re few and far-between themselves. All these lovely old coastal towns, they’re dying out, girl, or tarting themselves up into something else. Neon and candyfloss and that kind of thing, but it doesn’t work. You’re not local, are you? You don’t have the burr.’

‘Just passing through,’ she explained. ‘I used to come here a lot when I was a tiny kid, though. My mum used to take me.’ He was a shrewd one, this one. She’d have to be on her feet, else-but no, it was fine, she would tell him about the gig, how much could he /know already/ find out from one silly little chat anyway?

‘You should have stayed at home,’ Tim moaned. ‘I don’t know why you’d even bother coming, night like this.’

‘You have other people in here,’ the Traveller pointed out.

‘Yeah, but they’ve been here for years. Never be rid of ‘em.’ The murk in his eyes cleared for a second, fixing on hers, and for just a second she caught something there she didn’t like much /recognition, ah so it’s YOU/ but decided it was nothing.

‘Oh, don’t listen to him,’ spat Liv. ‘He’s rotten with misery. What’s everyone going to say?’ she scolded.

Everyone, at least as far as the Traveller could see, was not affected in the slightest. The Grey People carried on eating, drinking and muttering in the same old way, like nothing had happened. They must fight a lot, these two. She’d have to talk them away from the subject of each other; time grew shorter, she grew hungrier.

‘I think I’m ready to order now!’ She gave her Winning Smile again, in the hope of an actual result this time. ‘Soup and tea, if that’s ok?’

‘Soup and tea!’ Exclaimed the old man behind the counter /TIM, his name is Tim/ as a new and important idea suddenly came to him. He’d never looked so alive. ‘Of course! No problem, I’ll fetch it up from out back.’

 

‘Thanks! I used to work in a place like this once, you know,’ she chattered, hoping for a little camaraderie-among-baristas. ‘Well, it was more of a city tea room, really. But the cakes were very good! Do you like making cakes?’

‘Hah! Well, I never knew that about you,’ beamed Tim, exposing a horrid inner layer of jagged grey gums. ‘Nar, I don’t make cakes. That’s her job.’ He glowered in Liv’s direction, then turned abruptly on his heel and scurried straight to the kitchen, rasping a few orders to whoever was out back. Could be elves, for all she knew. Nan used to say that, when someone worked on something you couldn’t see. Oh, it’ll be the elves, love. Oh, her Nana. Nan would’ve known what to do at a time like this, far from home and with no-one to /run/ turn to. She didn’t think there were elves, though. Elves would probably live somewhere tres chic and not so chilly and-dare she say it-grotty. The radiators weren’t even on.

Outside, the sky had shadowed with a great ugly broil of cloud. The ocean flinched away from the shore. Gulls shrieked and wheeled over rooftops bled with light rain. Where had the rain come from? From the wind. Well, where had that come from? Somewhere faraway. Maybe Russia. She thought of glittering gold domes and Faberge eggs, and it made her happy. Out there it was all just England, pretty enough but tres grim, tres…normal. No, not normal, but samey. Go to one town and people thought like the people in another town, even seaside towns like this one /no, not like this one, this one is AWFUL special/. Anyway, she’d like to be in Russia. Breakers frothed around in all that murky ink and then came apart again like a pack of horses routing. Like some great deep secret thing trying to force its way up to the surface of the water. She shivered. Nothing to like about that, hon. There might be, mightn’t there, some places in the world still where warmth and noise and light had never touched. Under the ocean. Had to be.

“It’s no weather to be travelling in,’ remarked the waitress, bringing a steaming bowl to her table. ‘Much less to be wandering out in, my dear.’ She cast a critical eye /a trapper’s eye/ over the untidy mess of the rucksack, the stained and matted appearance of the Traveller

‘Where is it you’re going, anyway? You never did mention.’ She put the bowl down, clunk. The Traveller jolted; the Waitress smiled widely. The Traveller smiled back, her Winning Smile, everyone said so.

‘Oh, I’m off to see a friend of mine! She’s in this band, right, a super great band, and they won’t be staying long, but they’re doing a gig in Norwich and I said I’d come see her. I was hoping I wouldn’t look like this, though.’ The Traveller grinned, holding up sodden wool plain to see. ‘I’m waiting for a bus, see, but I got stuck in rain. Should be an hour tops. I can dry off then!’

‘Plenty of chances here in the warm,’ smiled the Waitress /LivLivLiv/, that same smile, that unchanging smile.

‘Yeah, I know, I’m all steamy with moisture.’ She dug a spoon into the piping yellow broth. Mmm. Creamy. A bit smoky too, but tres amounts of veg and pepper, that made up for it.

‘Not many places open this time of year,’ observed Tim wryly. ‘Lucky for you to find somewhere in the warm while you could. Wait things out a while. Dead towns all along here, you know.’ He seemed sad, but sounded hungry. ‘Empty and barren.’ What was this, poetry? It put her ill at ease. She wished Tim would shut up and let her finish her soup. Around her, the grey people grew quieter, like they’d started paying attention. Ignore it. Keep eating, nope, this soup was getting finished /NOPE/ she wouldn’t leave her plate empty. Rude, that.

‘I’ve seen a lot of towns like that,’ she nodded. All along the way had been littered with towns like this one, hadn’t it? When you were hiking on your own, you got to see the shape of places and the shadows they cast. He’d thrown all her things in /other stuff/ the bin. Very long shadows from home right now. Maybe that was why it rained here so much. Climate change. Her fault /nope/again. Enough of that! She was off to a gig, she’d said so. Lilly would be there. Everything was bien, tres bien.

‘Here, you’re not on the run, are you?’ The old man sniffed, as if trying to catch a scent.

‘Watch your mouth, Tim! It’s not her fault even if she is running away, poor thing.’

‘Um, excuse me, I’m not really a runa-‘

‘Runaways have it better,’ grumbled Tim. ‘At least you’re going somewhere, even if it’s nowhere at all. Why can’t I run away like her?’

‘You can’t get out. Neither of us can,’ replied his sister sadly. ‘We’re much too old, we’ve left all our youth behind us. Use it while you can, girl,’ she breathed heavily, as if stifling a sob. Melodramatic much? The Traveller sat up. Alright, this was definitely not the one. Too close to the bone.

‘You won’t be young and fair forever; oh no. Life catches up with people who lay their tracks too deep too early. Where did you say you were going?’

‘To see a gig,’ she replied uncertainly. ‘I’m seeing a friend of mine, I told you.’

‘A friend of yours!’ The woman cast a hand over her brow. ‘God, I wish I had friends of mine! A friend of yours!’

‘A friend of hers,’ agreed Tim, rubbing vigorously at a chipped mug with a filthy dishcloth.

‘A friend of hers, a friend of hers,’ murmured the grey shapes around the tables. Sighing, they were sighing really, this couldn’t be happening, no /IT’S HIM/ not again.

‘That’s right, a friend of mine. Glad we’ve cleared that one up, eh?’ she gave the Winning Smile again. Nothing to feel winning about. She didn’t feel anything, much. She was floating on the loosest of tethers, not connected, not engaging. Sicky, tired, and cold, she was all of those, but she couldn’t remember the date, or the band she was seeing, little things that were huge and important at the same time. The grey people had barely moved from their chairs, had not even turned around, but they’d chanted her name, she was sure of it. Had that really happened? Did it matter? If you can’t trust your thoughts, trust your feelings Nan had said, and the feel of the place had turned rotten. Polluted earth. Cold that bit, seemed to bleed around her and into her every second she stayed. He had made her feel like that sometimes. It was Him, wasn’t it, messing with her head again, it had to be. Like when Dad used to mess with the thermostats back home, turning them all the way up then asking her are you warm enough in your room, chuck? Playing games with her. This was just another game, after all. She wouldn’t let it frighten her. She wouldn’t. She’d sit here, finish her tea, and walk out with a friendly smile. She would walk out. Never leave straightaway, though, oh no. That’d be dangerous.

The sound of shattered crockery, Tim’s swearing.

‘Tim!’ snapped the waitress. ‘Not in front of the guest!’

‘It was an accident,’ moaned the old man. ‘I keep telling you, I’m in no fit state to run things any more. We’ll have to pass the business on.’

‘We can’t pass the business on,’ she retorted. ‘What family’ve we got left? Charlie in Newport’s moved on, your Uncle Al’s dead. We might as well get used to it.’

Tim turned his beady little gaze on the Traveller. Here it came. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any experience behind a counter, have you?

Inevitable /trapped/, the call to stay behind, to wait. They always wanted her to wait.

‘Yes! A little!’ she replied. She mustn’t let her mind wander, that was- oh, but she’d been a nit! Careless, stupid little thing! Acting on impulse, drifting back into memory…that was how they got you. That was how He got you. Crawling in through the open, careless to the present.

‘I’m honestly not the person you want to run a business though,’ she told him conversationally. ‘I can barely run my life! Or run, full-stop! I get all sweaty under my pits, I’m totally a good for nothing smoker! A ha! Is there a bill, or can I pay upfront?’

‘You want the bill already?’ Tim scratched his head. A thin layer of scalp peeled down to the juts of his shoulders. ‘What’s your hurry? Come on, stay, finish your tea. The bus isn’t for another hour, that’s what you said. There’ll be other buses, any case. What’s another hour or two? What’s a week?’ He cackled. Hell of a good joke. She’d be here forever. ‘Go on, finish your tea.’

‘I couldn’t. I’m really full!’ she yelped.

‘Suit yourself,’ the old man scowled. Moisture billowed from the kettle behind him. Hot and thick and heavy. It was getting hard to breathe. Staggering to her feet, she got out her wallet and walked toward the counter calmly, the ten-pound note already in her hand. Tim’s scowl sat firmly on his face. Of the Waitress /Liv?/ there was no sign; she’d been swallowed by the gloom.

Cold fingers grabbed her. She wheeled around into a face grey and rotten. Black eyes flickered wetly over her body. No, more than wet. Sodden. Jesus, the flesh was almost welded to the cuff of his coat.

‘You haven’t even talked with us yet,’ it rasped. ‘Stay! Have a chat! Wait a while! He’s coming for you!’ She tore away from it with a cry, sloughing off dead water as one of its fingernails burst.

‘Get away from me!’

Another set of nails raked across her back, then scrabbled towards her chest. Her left nipple. They were going to pinch her. Pinch her like He did.

‘Are you sure you won’t stay, my dear?’ The waitress, back again, her voice low and deep and cold. Hair hung lank and unlovely across her brow. ‘Tea too cold? Soup not right? Needs more salt, doesn’t it? Neeeeds more salt, you ungrateful little brat!

‘That’s young girls for you these days,’ Gerrard sneered drily. His face was peeling now, right to/no disguises/ the skull. ‘A little rough-and-tumble and they go off moaning to the shelter. No conviction. No morality. No discipline. In my day, women stood by their man. Alright, they looked a little rough and most of ‘em died in childbirth, but you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette. Could do you an omelette actually, if you wait. Doubt you even have the patience.’

‘Don’t be such a cynic, Tim!’ snapped the corpse-waitress. ‘This is no lost cause. We can help her!’ She offered an appalling smile. ‘All you need is time, you know. We don’t often get many couples in here, oh and you will be a lovely young couple at that, remember how His hair used to look, it’s so thick and black and full-

She grabbed on steely finger by the joint, and bent back savagely /snapcracklepop/. A howl of pain. She tore free. Behind her, a snarling noise.

She slapped the money on the counter. There were rules after all. Had to stick to your principles. Tim watched her without much interest. Honestly it was hard to tell what he watched her with; he didn’t even have eyes anymore. To think she thought it was dandruff. He was still cleaning something with the rag.

‘Now, see what you’ve gone and done? Everything’s turned awful. It’s gone the way of the town. Wouldn’t it just have been easier to play along? That way I might at least have kept the face.’

It was so ghastly! So ridiculous! She giggled hysterically, scared out her wits.

‘You should’ve stayed scary. Don’t be funny like that! I’ll know you’re not real.’

‘Real enough,’ he snarled. ‘Real enough for Him, too. He made me. For you. Stay. Wait for Him.’

She felt another giggle bubbling. ‘I’m pretty sure He didn’t. Send you, I mean. Look at you! Your face is hanging off by a few scraps of meat and you’re cleaning crockery! He’d never do that, d’you see, He never did have a sense of humour!’

The Tim-thing flinched. The bowl it had been cleaning fell to the floor and shattered on hitting the tiles.

‘You’re mine,’ she snarled, then wheeled around to face the rest of them. ‘And that goes for the rest of you! Whatever you are, wherever you’re from, you don’t belong to Him. You’re just using Him to frighten me! You want to know what I think?’ She asked, conversationally, giving them her Winning Smile, ‘I think I’ve dreamed you all up! Pretty sure of it, anyway! You’re too funny to be bad! You know what’s funnier? I’m standing in a café somewhere in front of a whole load of people going spare! I might’ve even broken someone’s fingers!’

‘Stop it,’ they whined as a chorus. ‘Stay. Wait!’

‘Wait and do what?’ she laughed. ‘Have a game of Scrabble? Be real, Tim-can I call you Tim? -your fingers’d fall off. You’re my bad dream, I can do what I want with you. Even if you’re not, even if you’re real-well, same difference. I’ll be off now. From Him, how ridiculous. I mean you’re not exactly romantic, are you? You can’t woo people with corpses.’

‘Do you remember all the candles He lit for you?’ replied the voice of the waitress from somewhere in the shadows, soft and wheedling. ‘Not all of it hurt you, I’m sure of that. Going out for a curry on a wet Friday evening like this one. Taking you across country to some quiet little pub in winter. It’s just your friends, really. Some of them see you quite a bit too often. As for the rest, well-men are just like that at that age, aren’t they? You were lucky to have found him. Do you really think anyone else would want you, looking like you do? You’re skin’s too pale. Your belly’s too big. You have a Roman nose. You should be grateful.’

No. Not that. Not shame again. She wouldn’t. Listen.

‘Go back to him,’ the rotten Waitress sighed. Go back, or stay here. He’ll find you either way.’

‘And he’ll be angry.’ Bone fingers closed sharply around her throat. Tim! She’d forgotten. Screaming, she jarred her elbow sharply backward, felt something soft give way.

‘Going to the beach! Sand between my toes! Riding my bike through the leaves with Paula!’ she yelled.

At this there came a great cry of general outrage. Good. Old stuff, childish stuff. They /He/ didn’t like it when you brought that up. It was older than them. Simpler too, more stupid. No silly rules or tricks to play. A small tear in their seam. She moved, reluctantly at first, then with more confidence as the /incantation/ sound of her own voice gave her strength.

‘Sand! Bikes! Leaves! Paula! Mum! Dad! Grass! Trees! Open sky! Let me past!’

Shadows moved around her; she tore free of them. A dozen dreary voices clamoured at her. Come back. Boring. Old parlour trick. She raised her voice, and with the power in her words she barely heard them. They seemed far away; every passing second made them weaker. Pathetic, really. She got to the threshold in time for one final, dismal wail from the Waitress /couldn’t remember her name, wouldn’t be tipping anyway/.

Why don’t you wait? Was it the tea? Why can’t you just get it? If you’d only wait, we’d explain…’

She breathed in rain and spray. Icy air, sea air, free air. Refreshing. Not like that horrid, horrid chill in the café. Hmm. What to do? She could hear the clink of cups, voices raised in concern. Could smell coffee burning. Warm and inviting, the radio was playing a weird local jingle (something about buying sheds? Who wrote songs about that, even for money?). She did not turn round. She’d had a meltdown /it wasn’t a dream/ in an ordinary shop in an ordinary little street. Definitely, and no surprise too; she’d been running on fear, getting her brain all ragged. Every night a different rented bed, waiting for her phone to glow blue, waiting for Him to call, her secret little worm burrowing away in her brain and her tummy, making her all sorts of sick. All she had to do, see, was turn around, and they’d be in there, ordinary fellas staring right back at her, staring at the Mad Girl, but solid, real, not sinister. Maybe even concerned. Helpful. She did not turn round.

Something turned the handle with a smart klik. The sound of her feet slapping against the pavement. She must’ve just decided to run, then. Smart gal.

 

Once she’d put enough distance /nothing following/ behind her, she slowed down to a walk. Back into the slow wet, blood-taste of terror still fresh in her mouth, but each step took her further from the danger, closer to /hope/ safety. It was only spitting it down, now. When she came to the final incline of the hill, the Traveller raised her head skyward. For the first time that day she saw the pretty white-red silhouette of the sun, tinctured like blushing flesh across a small tatter of sky. It felt lush and warm on her face. Tres bon. She’d probably be alright, eventually.

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