21
By Lily Thomson
The girl’s mother could bend spoons with her mind. Her door was an ever-revolving turnstile of down-and-outs looking for some sort of salvation. Her mother lived in a perpetual state of dim lights, chakras and palm reading. Her mother would whisper very quietly in a way that was contrived to obscure any real meaning.
The girl was very quiet also, but in a different way. She preferred to sit in her room or, if the house felt too busy, or if she simply needed some fresh air, she could be found haunting the auxiliary corridors that made up the patterns of the city. Often alone, usually only present in the bitterly cold days when the sun was blotted out; on the days when there was a certain amount of synchronicity, where the weather could be predicted, when snowfall meant it would be a long time until the sun would shine.
It was these times she would wander through the alleys, skulking down the crevices like a silky cat who knew not where her home lay. She was a girl with the knowledge of a taxi driver. She knew the city’s roads as second nature and she put this mental map to good use. She never had any destination in mind: she would follow her instinct and turn and turn, and weave and weave, until her lips were ice and her eyes were discordant pieces of thread. Then she would go home.
Her mother never noticed her absence; or if she did, she did not care. The girl would watch from behind the door as she performed her art. Hiding, making sure she cast no shadow. This would only make her happy. She could just imagine her mother’s rose-tinted lips reading her palm, her lines, whispering like the wind, twirling a half cigarette between her forefingers as if it held some answer.
Today, the girl assumed this position. But her mother had no clients. She was speaking to a man who had a voice that was quite soothing and gentle, whereas her mother’s floaty whisper had been replaced by a voice like gravel yet to set, hardening ever quicker, ever faster. The girl couldn’t make out what was being said but she could tell the conversation was important.
When the man walked out, the girl didn’t hear him and so was caught spying. The man didn’t say anything, but he offered a smirk and a knowing glance before the door swung behind him. He wore a business suit. He was someone who, if she were filling out a census, would be classed as a young working professional. He carried a strange aroma of coconuts and the ocean which evoked memories of a fragmented kind. The girl was transported to a place where people exist as shadows and the location is a green screen. There is nothing concrete, nothing sure, just a suggestion of something.
She can hear her mother whispering as she blows out her candles in the Rosary. The rain is starting to fall, as symbiotic as her mother’s goodwill chime. The girl thinks it is time for a walk. She leaves the flat as she knew it, full of unattainable dreams, lipstick, China tea mugs and magic; flowers eviscerated by the sun and destiny tied up in the roll of a dice, a glance at rings, four assured lines in the palm that tell us: “She’ll be married fore the age of twenty one.”
THE END
Author Bio: Lily Thomson is a trans woman who lives in Edinburgh. Her work explores themes of identity, alienation, travel and intimacy, and has been published in The Honest Ulsterman, Agora, and One Hand Clapping. She is a previous winner of the Sophia Jex Blake essay prize.