Senses

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Senses

By Plot Roach

The smells of fried chicken, fresh cut grass and clean laundry mingled in her nostrils, making her twitch with pleasure before she woke up. She cracked one eye open and sighed, the dream was gone and reality barged in like an irate landlord.

Mary rolled off of her back and onto her hands and knees, using the side of the building to pull herself up into a standing position. She hacked a few coughs and spat the results onto the concrete, testing the wind to make sure it would not blow back on her. She gathered her bundles together, the bag of clothes she slept upon and the tattered sleeping bag she used as a cover, and added them to the rickety shopping cart which held the rest of her belongings.

Another day in Hell, she thought, pushing the cart down the alleyway and into the street beyond. She waited for the red light in order to cross the street and headed down the library. The sun beat down on her, making her sweat in her layers of clothing and causing her head to itch. She paused at the entrance of the library to make sure that all of her things were secure in her wire frame shopping cart before she entered the building and headed for the bathroom.

She parked her cart in the handicapped stall and filled a big plastic mixing bowl with fresh warm water, taking it back into the bathroom stall with her. She fished out a sliver of soap and an old washcloth and began to bathe. She kept an ear out for anyone entering the bathroom. If they heard the sloshing of the water and knew what she was doing, they would call security. All she needed was security to chase her out in the middle of her morning bath and quite possibly ban her from her last haven in this city.

Once she had dried herself off, she changed into her last set of clean clothes. She would have to scrounge more quarters soon if she wanted to use the Laundromat. Otherwise she would have to rinse her clothes in the water fountain at night like the rest of the city’s bums. A flash of pain rippled across her chest and she stood silent for a while with her hand against the metal door of the bathroom stall. Just feel the coolness of it, she thought. Concentrate on the smooth surface and color. Anything to get your mind off the pain.

When the feeling subsided, she left the bathroom and headed for the Friends of the Library book section. She was a sucker for books, but was afraid to check any books out on her card, for fear that they would be stolen or destroyed and she would be unable to pay for them. Then she would be unable to use her card for services like the internet, or to view magazines that were kept locked away in the periodicals section.

She fumbled through a sock she used as a change purse, and found that she had a dollar and seventy seven cents. She perused the sale tables and found a few bargains. Some books that she had never read before, but looked interesting. A few magazines that were free for the taking. Even if she did not like these, she could always trade them to others or use them for toilet paper when she was in a fix.

And then there was the book on astral projection. It was free, and in battered shape. Someone loved you once, she thought, tucking it in with her other treasures. She paid for her things and headed out of the door once the overhead p.a. announced that it was time for the library to close.

Mary’s stomach complained from the lack of food, but she planned on visiting the trashcans next to the local restaurants for anything of worth. She lucked out with some dry pizza slices and half a sub sandwich. She washed them down with water she had gotten from a nearby drinking fountain and returned to her alley to settle in for the night.

The overhead streetlight was still blazing, so Mary used it to her advantage, pulling out her reading material from the library. She leafed through the magazines, envious of the perfect people displayed in perfect homes. She set aside the novels she would cherish page by page as one does fine chocolates in an assortment box. She pulled out the book on astral projection and read through the introduction. By the time the street lights went out for the night, she had read the book from cover to cover, her mind spinning with the possibilities. The book had given several meditations to choose from, but she could not seem to relax enough to let herself go and enjoy the “out of body” experience.

If only it were that simple for me, she thought. But I have always been too much or a realist. It’s hard not to when the street you sleep on is so hard, or the people look past you like you don’t exist, and your only chance of eating any meal at all comes from the inside of a trashcan.

Tears swelled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. I thought I was done with all this emotional nonsense long ago, she thought, pulling out a piece of paper towel to dab at her eyes.

And then, like lightening, the pain returned. Flaring through her chest, locking the air in her lungs and staking her to the pavement beneath her.

Relax, she told herself. Try and breath through it. Try and focus on something. But all of her tricks were not working. She realized that she was still clutching the book on astral projection. Remember the exercises, she told herself. She focused on a light in the sky. It must be one of the stars, she thought. She imagined her pain like a black smoke that filled her body. If I can just let it go, she thought. If I can deflate myself like a balloon…

Her lungs slowly let out the breath that she had been holding, and with it went the pain. Focus on the light, she told herself. And let your body fall away like an old, heavy coat. She felt her body become heavy and swore that she passed through it into the wind high above her. Onward she pressed into the sky, following the path of the star.

Deep breath now, she told herself, and sit up. But when she sat up she was no longer in the alley. The ground beneath her was padded with long strands grass and not the cold, hard pavement. The sky seemed clearer, without so many of the city’s light to wash them out. She held her hands out in front of her and was surprised that her pinky fingers were gone from both hands and that her fingers seemed longer than she remembered and with an extra knuckle.

She pulled herself up onto her feet and could see by the light of a nearby torch stuck into the earth that her skin was purple, dappled with spots of creamy white. She heard voices in the distance, a language she understood but that sounded like music when compared to the guttural language of the people who passed her on the street.

Where am I? she asked herself. Aside form the small village she walked towards, there appeared no other signs of civilization. No phone poles, no street lights, and no pavement of any kind.

“Hello, Mary. We’ve been expecting you back.” Said someone beside her. She jumped, having missed him in the dark. He was as tall as she was, also colored purple with spots. He was lean, with large almond eyes as dark as the night around them and wore a simple cotton tunic like herself. She knew from the reflection in his eyes that she looked similar to him, and so much different than what she knew she should look like.

“Where am I?” she asked. “And who are you?”

“I told you not to go so deep in your meditation, dear. It always disorients you.”

“You know me?”

“You are my wife, Mary. You like to visit other worlds in your meditations and see what life is like for those that live there. You were gone for a couple of days this last time and I was beginning to worry. It’s bad for your health to stress your body so.”

Mary rubbed her chest and nodded, then reached out for her husband’s hand.

“So what was this world like?” he asked, leading her back to their home. She told him of life in a place called a city, where some of the residents flew through the air, others drove around in beast-less carts and a few who lived off the land -not by farming it, but by surviving on the garbage cast off by the more fortunate.

“You must have had a bad dream instead, love.” He said, rubbing her shoulder when she began to cry over the life of the homeless woman whose thoughts she carried. “No people, no matter how civilized they claimed to be, could ever let another sentient being live like that.”

But Mary sighed and stopped trying to explain. She knew that it had all been real. The suffering of the old woman was as real to her as the smiles on her children’s faces as they greeted her at the hut’s door. That night, while she slept on a soft bed in the warmth of her husband’s embrace, she could still smell a faint trace of fried chicken, fresh cut grass and clean laundry.