Fun Times

She walked, slowly, loving the heat but also aware that too much could cause a keelover. A car zoomed by, catching her in its headlights for a moment then moving on, a relief every time. She didn't mind walking--most of the time--but she was at the mercy of the crazed inhabitants of this crazed desert city while moving at such a slow and easy-to-snag pace. Sigh. She needed a damn car.

She kicked a rock and turned a corner, heading for "home." Thanks to the byzantine vagaries of apartment leases and penalty clauses, she was still living with her ex-fiancè. She'd felt like such a heel when she'd ended it; he'd been a pleasant fellow, nice to her, good to animals, but she just didn't....feel strongly enough for a wedding to happen. And then, torturously, they had to keep living in the same place, passing like pissed ships in the night going to and from their jobs. And his character changed: he became peevish, contrarian, vindictive, passive aggressive. There was no way to tell if this was a reaction to rejection, or the letting down of the false front of the betrothed. Either way, bullet dodged.

She approached the apartment complex. In one direction was her place, where the love was gone but at least there were kittens; in the other was her best friend's apartment, where she spent far more time than was strictly necessary these days. Her best friends were a pair of sisters; she thought of them as HER sisters, really. She was going to miss them terribly. One, in particular, thought she was making a huge mistake, traveling across the entire country to go live with some random dude she'd never laid eyes on, and told her at every opportunity that she was gonna end up in a ditch somewhere bleeding profusely and why don't you just stay here with us and meet a nice guy? She meant well, she knew, but her mind was made up. She had to get out of this place, even if just for the adventure; she knew she needed a change, and so did he. Life was just too damn short and brutish to waste big hunks of it not being with the people that made you happy. And, twisted though it may be, they made each other happy, even though so far it was only through his purloined work cellphone.

She'd been to a funeral last week. A really good friend, a friend since junior high, had been tortured and killed for being gay. She hated people, hated them with a white hot passion. She cheerfully and unrepentantly harbored elaborate and gruesome revenge fantasies. Civilization gripped her to the extent that action was unlikely, but in the privacy of her own head, she knew that most people needed a little bit of killing in a world where such things could happen to the good and the blameless. Of course there would be a whole new set of venal and vindictive and stupid people in the far frozen north. But at least they hadn't wronged her yet. Down here, they had too much to answer for. It was time to get out. Clean slates were well and good, but you still wind up wincing at the sound of the scraping chalk.

She turned the key, walked in, tripped over three kittens, passed the ex stretched out on his precious couch without a word, entered her room, closed the door, and collapsed face first on the bed. She loved to lie on her stomach and feel her arms and neck and muscles stretch and relax. She wished he was here. But, then he'd melt. So, yeah, waiting a few weeks will have to do. She fell asleep, kittens climbing her long hair.