Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose, @ 2019-11-23 18:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | *forum, alex white, audrey carpenter, billy kaufman, tandy bowen |
Narrative, public
It was the middle of the night. Not the darkest hour before dawn kind of middle, reserved for dead sleep and the kind of activities that could be described as nefarious on a good day. The true middle, midnight. The reason she knew that was the clock on the wall, as Billie Eilish pounded out of speakers and the bar was super, super empty and the doors locked. She was there - and then she wasn't. Black. Full on deep black, the kind that didn't have depth and shapes and shadows and texture, nothing that suggested anything behind the black. Just black and plummeting and it felt like getting twisted inside out, for one really gross second like her eyelashes were scraping against her eyeballs and her fingernails were inside her fingers and Tandy opened her mouth, not to scream but because her throat felt like fire.
And then, cold air. Cold cold air, after the artificial heat of the bar turned high because hello, moderate perk of non-supervision. It chased in on the ebbing panic of getting stuck in the black Inside which Tandy knew in nightmares more than she knew in real practical life anymore and shivered up the vertebrae of her spine and reverberated there like a strung chord largely due to the fact she was dressed for the bar, not outside. Her cell phone was crammed in her pocket and she was on damp grass that was bleeding wet through the knees of her jeans, and her jaw was aching with the strain of keeping her teeth from rattling as she dug in to find it and when she could, it was disappointments all around because nada on the cell service. No bars. Not even bars, it blared sharply into light, action and then the entire thing went abruptly dead.
She could hear the faint buzz of road traffic and got to her feet and started walking. There was nothing else to do, Tandy-girl. Stand on your own feet, put them in front of each other and ignore the numbing wash of panic, shock, whatever it was threatening to churn up her throat. She walked until the woods gave way to the interstate, and from there, she could see the lights of the Neighborhood. Some people awake, still. And people still stopped cars in the technical middle of the night for young, blond girls.
She hitched. To the center of town and when she stopped there, in the crummy diner that was always open that smelled a particular way, cured with coffee and cigarette smoke and maybe fifty years of inattention and poor service, she knew. Why the black had felt like forever. Why it had been the middle of the night and not.
"Hi, Repose." She wasn't crying, even a little. Her nose was running, from the cold and she borrowed someone's cell, in exchange for buying them a slice of pie, which okay, thank you permanent fear of not being liquid at all times. She logged in, and she posted, and she thought about the trailer and she figured coffee really couldn't hurt
[Public]
so fun fact, a guy named sam will both a) pick up hitchhikers and b) won't try anything sleezy on the way into town. good job, sam. i recommend his service.
hi repose.