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墨書 Inktalez
The wind seeping through the cracks of the ATM felt like blades, cutting into the icy tear tracks on my neck.
In the warm yellow glow of the convenience store, the clerk was wiping the glass. As the cloth brushed against my reflection in the window, he deliberately pressed harder.
I counted the last three coins in the pocket of my cotton jacket. The jagged edges of the coins dug into my palm, reminiscent of a cake nibbled by a mouse.
"Get lost," the clerk suddenly pushed open the glass door, and the smell of disinfectant mixed with the aroma of Oden hit my face.
The mop handle in his hand jabbed at my knee, and dirty water from the plastic bucket splashed onto my snow boots, causing the icy surface to immediately frost over with salt.
I stumbled back, my lower back colliding with the sharp edge of a fire hydrant, a dull pain exploding along my spine.
Under the streetlight, the windshield wipers of a black car suddenly moved. The passenger window slid down a crack, revealing a middle-aged man with a cigarette dangling from his fingers resting on the window ledge, sparks flickering to illuminate the gold watch on his wrist.
"Where are you off to, little sister?" The smell of smoke mixed with the sickly sweetness of car air freshener wafted out, like rotten oranges soaked in formaldehyde. I clenched my frozen knuckles, my nails digging into scabbed palms.
As a charm hanging from the rearview mirror brushed against my ear, the musty smell of leather from the car seat made me feel nauseous. The man reached to adjust the temperature of the air conditioning, revealing half of a dark green tattoo on his wrist—a shedding snake.
"Aren't your parents worried this late?" His voice rumbled as his Adam's apple bobbed, blending with a radio love song. His fingers suddenly covered my knee. The vent hummed loudly, dispersing the sour scent of sweat from his neck.
In an instant, as I slammed open the car door, my down jacket whipped against it, bursting into a cloud of gray-white fluff.
The grip he had on my ponytail sent tingles through my scalp; the tearing pain reminded me of hair yanked out by my stepfather in the attic.
The thin ice on the asphalt road made me slip beneath my shoes. When light reflected off his gold watch flashed into my eyes, I felt around for pieces of broken bricks in the roadside greenery.
The shape of blood droplets on the snow resembled an enamel doll I had shattered as a child.
As he cursed while clutching his forehead, I ran wildly with a bloodied brick in hand, hearing the crisp sound of his gold watch clattering against the curb.
The convenience store clerk held up a phone to record, the flash flickering like an eternal lamp at a funeral.
A homeless man under the bridge rolled over, wrapping himself in newspapers, while an empty bottle was kicked into the frozen river surface.
I curled up behind a damp billboard, listening to the sobs of the undercurrents beneath the ice.
The phone screen was cracked like a spider's web, the three digits "110" glowing with an eerie blue light in the darkness.
As I pressed the call button, fireworks suddenly exploded across the river, their explosive sound drowning out the operator's inquiries.
"Nice to see you again." The female officer taking notes handed me a paper cup, steam rising from the hot water blurred her badge on her chest.
Her pen paused over the inquiry record, ink dripping through the character for "obscene."
"You said the driver pulled your hair. Do you have any evidence?" I looked down at my reflection in the paper cup, ripples shattering the bruise at the corner of my mouth.
The fluorescent lamp in the mediation room buzzed, and yellow-brown herbal stains seeped through the bandage on the man's wrist.
He smiled as he pushed a plastic bag toward me, KFC grease spreading across the transparent packaging.
"It was a misunderstanding; just calming my sister down." The savory smell of fries mixed with the blood scent from his sleeve, and dark red scabs clung to the edge of the paper bag.
The sound of the female officer closing her folder startled sparrows outside, and mediation documents fluttered down onto a table stained with tea.
As I tore apart the mediation document, paper fell like snow onto shiny leather shoes. The man's bent-over action to pick up the paper caused his neck fat to stack in three folds, and the reflection from his gold watch illuminated age spots behind his ear.
"Your student ID looks nice." His fingertip brushed against the edge of my pants pocket, his breath carrying the bitter taste of nicotine from a patch. I burst through the glass door and heard laughter erupting from the mediation room, shattering a bing ling under the eaves.
The red cross light box at the pharmacy on the street corner resembled a wound. As I counted price tags for contraceptive pills on the shelf, a clerk stood on a stool changing promotional posters, and plastic rope snapped my shopping basket's handle.
"Do you want a pregnancy test?" She tapped her nails against the glass of the counter. "Student ID gets you twenty percent off."
The yogurt in the freezer exhaled cold air, sending chills through my wrist where a bruise lay, making me shiver.
My mother suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle, the fringe of her cashmere shawl brushing against a row of vitamin bottles, knocking them over.
When her freshly done crystal nails gripped my wrist, I heard the sound of a medicine box hitting the floor, like a mouse gnawing on wood in an attic.
"Got some skills now?" She tugged me toward the door, her high heels crunching the fallen pills into powder that mixed with the slushy snow.
Across the street, a black car rolled down its window. A man leaned out, biting on a mint cigarette and waved at us, smoke curling into a perfect heart shape.
My mother suddenly released my hand, and I stumbled into a pile of snow, hearing her sweet voice on the phone with my stepfather: "Honey, our girl has learned how to extort." Snowflakes melted into my collar, trickling down my spine to my coccyx, colder than the rain leaking from the attic.
As I was pushed into the backseat of the car, the man tossed me a mink coat.
The smell of animal fat enveloped me, and the new amulet hanging from the passenger mirror pressed uncomfortably against my neck.
The radio switched to a midnight emotional hotline, where a female host was reading a confession letter from a cheating husband.
The man hummed as he turned the steering wheel, his gold watch and watch band scraping against the gear shift, producing a crisp sound like coins dropping into a purse.
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