《Broken Bottles》


 Dirty Car Seats

    She''d never let them get anywhere near that, of course. She slowly trudged over to the caravan''s steps, hearing the faint jingle of her keys elude her as she shuffled around the contents of her bag along the way. Her hands, stiffened from the cold, stung for it.


    She just stared in quiet exasperation as they all went fluttering to the ground. The wind stopped, grasping instead at any residual heat, and pulled it out as it left. She would clean it up later. She¡¯d need to clean those boots later too, she thought to herself, or they could stain, and she had to look less dirty - not clean - but more approachable.


    She''d have to pay the landlord even more this month if ''her heating problems were proving simply too difficult of a task for her to effectively resolve by herself ''. That''s what they said last time, looking down their noses through thickly-rimmed glasses as their jowls bounced at her. They looked like they wanted her to freeze so that they wouldn''t have to pay for any repairs, that they wanted her to then melt away, open up a spot for someone else, wash into a gutter and rid the caravan site of her scum. She decided to spend the rest of her evening under the covers.


    Discarded clothing strewn over the top of it all, a multitude of colours slowly turning beige. She stepped her way through it all, gingerly, and sat down on her bed with a creak. Single-sized, not double. Usually, she''s out at this time, working, but tonight she felt much safer indoors. It''s cold at this time anyway. Usually, it doesn''t stop her, but last night she felt a danger, suddenly, as she was leaning against the brick wall.


    Her radar just sent her danger, as if a bright red sign had flashed up for a second over her eyes, a warning. The shock kicked in an irresponsible instinct. Run. Scream even. Take off your heel and use it as a knife. Something else told her to be careful. Turn back, keep breathing, in and out. She felt there was nothing left to breathe, the icy air seeming to barely fill her lungs as they felt constricted. Nothing happened that night. There was no loud crack of a gunshot, her body hitting the ground, a dropped knife, muttered speech behind her. But she knew she had avoided something.


    Looking at it always gave her a strange feeling. She longed to go back to those times, but she still wouldn''t know how to escape it, there seemed to be no way out. If you could be transported back in time, you''d change something. But everything was so uncontrollable, even in hindsight.


    Everything then was so insignificant, like worlds apart. She looked at it each day. A tinge of brightness came from the photograph when she caught a glance of it - a caring and idealistic girl, still within her. The harsh world had scratched her for those last six years, biting. But it had not penetrated the skin, and she would never let it come inside. That didn''t make it stop.