Pamela is made of (hemlockandhoney) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-08-02 05:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *narrative, pamela isley |
narrative: dc, pamela isley
Who: Pamela Isley
What: Narrative of misadventures and backfiring powers.
Where: Gotham train station, Robinson Park, & a club
When: Tonight.
Warnings: None.
Pamela had thought the city would be glamorous East Coast glitter, but it is not. It burns like metal against the bone, like a broken tooth with a mouthful of ice cream. Its summer, but the pain is cold and dull in her mind. Sweet iron in the air, blood in the mouth, and she can't tell what hurts. Maybe everything… considering what happened in Seattle. She's never going back. She's never going back to that school, never going back to that city.
First night, and she's sick as a dog, fever and a pounding ache in her mind. The incident replays, a movie that she can't turn off. Not even when she closes her eyes. She's the star, the wide-eyed neophyte in an afterschool special. Falling in love with a professor, it sounded like the tagline of a cautionary tale. She grimaces. The pain, sharp and then sweet. Behind her now. Never again. She wants to scream on that bus that drives her into town, she wants to claw her skin off and lie in the cool ground. The bus stinks of diesel exhaust, and she pukes the whole way. Locked in the closet-sized toilet that is crammed all of the way in the back of the bus' aisle, and she heaves for hours. At first, its bile green, and then just dry ache and emptiness that sits deep as a bruise.
Two days later, in a shelter on the south side, she feels better, but not by much. She probably needs a doctor, and she imagines the free clinic as a petri dish of varied infections. Or maybe she just needs to eat. She hasn't eaten since coming to Gotham, but every greasy diner that she walks by.. the smell, it turns her stomach. She settles on tea at a coffee shop across from Robinson Park, spare change pandered for on the curb outside. It is high noon, the sun is beating sharp, and she feels a little bit better. She knows that she can't tolerate the sun, too fair with a propensity for turning too red, but the warmth feels good. She wears a tank top despite the bruises on her arms, her wrists. Bruises where she'd been strapped to that lab table, bruises where he'd readied syringes and got that mad look in his eye like she'd never seen before… and nobody stares at the marks, but Pamela crosses her arms because she can't stop staring at them herself.
She spends the whole day in the park without noticing. The sun goes down while she sits amongst thistle, and she feels incredible. Not just better, but incredible. Her body is warm without the discomfort of fever, she doesn't ache, and even the bruises seem faded, from violet to green. The memory remains under her skin, and she rubs the fine underside of her wrists on a saxicoline community of moss. The rocks would be jagged if not for the moss, and it feels like a balm offered up from the Earth with love. It is well past curfew by the time she leaves the park, and the shelter won't let her in after dark, but she doesn't care. Gotham feels different at night, and she likes it. Maybe she should be scared, but she isn't. She feels a little bit wild, and her parents would hate it, but her parents are dead.
The night is a mimesis. A creative reformatting. A jumble of colors and lights, music that pulses out of patios and car windows and bars in alleyways. Pamela has always felt like nothing, but tonight she feels like everything. Tonight, she is a foison, an outpouring of beauty and senses. Tonight she feels abundant. She feels like the ground and the sky, the trees and the stars. She can feel it all, her skin tingles with it. Energy is mostly unseen, but her tongue sizzles electric in her mouth. She's never been so excited for the night before. She's never been one to stay up late, but now she thinks that she might never want to sleep again. The night is a confluence of pleasure and risk, her heart swells molten with fantasy of a life that she'd only ever read about in romantic paperbacks. Nobody knows her here in Gotham, she can reinvent herself as anybody.
She'll be new. Brand new. Hot off the shelf. She declares freedom from the sadness that spit her out of Seattle. She won't even belong to the city, and she certainly won't belong to any man. She wants to be new. She shoplifts some strawberry lip gloss from a corner bodega, and her heart beats loud in her ears.
The bar that lets her in is small, a hole in the wall dive spot with three dollar house drinks and ladies get in free on thursdays. There is a pitiful dance floor crowded with couples, and the overhead lights blink blue and gold. Its dark in the corners, and nobody asks for her ID.
She's not dressed right. Floral denim shorts and sneakers, she gets a couple of crooked looks, but most ignore her altogether. She squeezes in between strangers, arms above her head. The lights are a hypnotic ocean, dark with undertow. The music is a bluesy rhythm, and somebody passes her a shot that tastes like dangerous koolaid. Grabbed by the waist, and she melts. She feels liquid, everything is warm. Syrup, fluid. Another shot, she sweats.
Just let me motherfucking love you
No curfew, no rules. No money, no worries. Somebody's fingers are latched like fishing hooks in her belt loops. No warning, no clue. Everything presses in close and the fever is back. The lights spasm from blue to green, then red, red, red. Bass rattles up from the floor. It sinks into her bones, she can feel it in her back teeth. A girl slides between her and the other nameless faces. Pretty eyes when the lights go up, then the lights are back down in a sizzling, low burning red. But the girl isn't the only one getting close. Others move in. The music pushes them against her like a wave. Hands, everywhere. The ebb toward her, but don't flow back. Someone breathes on her neck. They're touching her hair.
Give me all of it
I need all of it to myself
It is difficult to get a breath. The bodies are crushing, mosh pit tight. A sea of arms reach for her, blinking colors under the lights. Blue arms, red arms. Fingers spread, begging. Somebody touches her face, crams fingers into her mouth like longing and Pamela wretches away, tries to. It is like snapping out of a dream, and she can't breathe. Her heartbeat is like the hammering of an anvil, it shakes her. She's shaking.
The music scratches, cuts to dead silence. There is nothing but the sound of panting all around her on the dark floor. People are staring at her. The whole bar is staring at her. The DJ is staring at her. The lights burn red, every face is turned her way and it's terrifying. Somebody breaks the silence, whispers that she smells incredible. The crowd murmurs, cohesive. Joined in agreement and the hands on her squeeze tighter when Pamela begins to fight her way off the dance floor.
"Let go of me..." But the words are soft, a frightened whisper. Nobody lets go ,they begin to push closer. Even the people sitting at the bar have gotten off of their barstools to join the developing mob. The pushing crowd quickly turns violent, shoving one another out of the way as a means of getting just a little bit closer to her.
Somebody gets in her face, literally foaming at the mouth, and she screams in utter terror. Its the scream that does it. Some switch gets flipped and all of the scrambling hunger in the crowd just… quiets. A murmur and then nothing. Blank stares on every face, arms down by their sides as if patiently awaiting instruction. A sea of zombies in waiting, their faces eerie in the colorful disco lights.
She backs up slowly, and the crowd parts like a cooperative sea. Each step of hers is hesitant, awaiting the return of rabid obsession and greedy hands. But it doesn't happen, they just stare after her, unmoving. Nobody blinks, and Pamela runs out of the establishment at full speed, not risking a glance behind her.