Crack
Who: Rhiannon (and a text to Tasha at the end) What: Hearing Things When: Present, Afternoon Where: Las Vegas Warnings: Language
Rhiannon’s world was often noisy, but deep conversations accounted for a surprisingly small percentage of it.
At the gym where she earned her paychecks, a steady stream of hip hop was punctuated by weights colliding with metal racks, athletes grunting through their workouts, bodies striking punching bags, and hydro flasks clinking on the brushed concrete floor. There was little in the way of full dialogue unless a trainer was giving instructions. The athletes often disappeared into inner worlds, their internal monologue dwindling to what was absolutely necessary: counting reps and screaming expletives. Nobody was talking about their feelings.
When Rhiannon wasn’t working with a client, she stuck buds in her ears and went running on one of the neighborhood routes they’d established as quarter-, half-, and full-mile intervals for HIIT workouts. Outside, the soundscape that punctuated her playlist was equally absent of emotional content; she heard vehicles, bass, the automated voice of intersection timers, and an occasional aircraft. It was rare for Rhiannon to overhear a conversation. Those few, brief hours of daylight when the hunter was awake and not required to hyper-focus on her surroundings were sacred, so it was mildly irritating when, as she waited for a walk-sign to turn on, a woman intruded.
“...Every day you come home and the first thing you do is go upstairs and change into ‘comfy clothes.’ You disappear for twenty minutes. When you come back down, you sit on the couch. Meanwhile, I’ve been working since I walked in the door. I got the kids started on their homework, made dinner, unloaded the dishwasher, fed the dogs, and I’m still wearing a dress and heels! But you didn’t notice because you’re in your own world…’
Domestic bliss. Rhiannon upped the volume on her earbuds.
When the light changed, she started running again. The woman tailed behind her, still engaged in an imaginary argument with her husband. Her voice faded into the background as Rhiannon cut through a side street and emerged near the strip. There, as she wove through clusters of tourists, she caught snatches of other conversations.
‘I’m starving.’
‘We’re gonna be late.’
‘Why am I like this?’
‘What time is it?’
‘Ugh that guy smells.’
‘This is so embarrassing.’
‘We should’ve stayed in the hotel room.’
The fragments were loud, an insistent backing track for her music. Rhiannon gave her head a shake, the way she might if a gnat flew too close to her ear, but the rise and fall of human observations kept going and it synced up perfectly with her close encounters with other people, until eventually she was too distracted to keep running. Rhiannon came to an uneasy stop. She snatched out her earbuds and looked at the other faces on the sidewalk.
‘I need a drink.’
‘...Go to your place, no face, no case, ninety-nine percent tint in a blacked-out Wraith..’
‘Did we pass it?’
‘That ass tho...’
Their mouths weren’t moving. Rhiannon’s eyebrows knit together with confusion. She wiped a sheen of sweat off her forehead and tried to ignore her own inner voice, the one marveling over the muscle ache in her quads and a sudden wave of heaviness that made it feel as if she’d run a lot faster, and a lot farther, than a few looping miles in fifty-degree weather. The brunette balled up her fists and knocked them against the outside of her sore thighs, trying to loosen up the muscles. Something wasn’t right. She didn't feel right. She took out her phone and stared at it, her thumb hovering on the lock screen.
A kid on a skateboard jumped off his wheels at the last instant and plowed into her. The two of them collapsed in a tangle of limbs and craniums. Without thinking about it, she put out a hand to brace herself for contact with the concrete, which was the cardinal sin of falling down. Her palm took the brunt of the blow and pain knifed into her wrist. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Rhiannon seethed, shoving at him to get off her. “Watch where you’re going.” She sat up.
“Are you okay?” asked a woman kindly. ‘It’s these smart phones. No one’s looking where they’re going.’
Rhiannon brushed her off and picked up the phone. Miraculously the screen wasn’t cracked, but she couldn’t say the same about her rapidly swelling wrist, which she tucked against her abdomen. She gritted her teeth to stop a nervous chatter from starting, reminding herself to breathe, breathe-it-doesn't-mean-anything-breathe, and typed a one-handed text to Tasha.