Chapter 1
"As the first snowflake settled, it whispered secrets of a winter tale waiting to unfold…"
The sentence flashes twice on the billboard, then is replaced by falling snowflakes, which is a funny thing against the humid grey background which has yet to throw us any mercies this December.
Or any other.
But still, I’m momentarily transfixed, as is everyone who’s had even one dose.
But I’ve only had one dose, and so after a moment, I’m back to myself, which does nothing for my peace of mind.
I stare at the snowflakes for a second too long, almost hoping the phrase will reappear.
The sentence is bogus, an absolute plot twist on this rancid, heckled city sprawling out around me. It is meant to draw me into the theater just two buildings over, but the trash mushrooming out of the big can outside of the emergency exit tells me all I need to know: after you leave the film, you’ll have a layer or two of garbage to skim off yourself, and that’s not counting what actually gets inside you. It won’t be worth it, not even for the temporary fix.
I have had only one dose, after all, so I am still thinking this way. Plus, I’ve got a past.
“No thank you,” I say aloud, looking for the approaching train. It is only when the woman next to me turns and looks at me that I realize I have spoken my thoughts aloud.
She stiffens and her lips purse into a thin line.
Don’t even think that, say her eyes, but her mouth remains motionless.
I turn away from her and suddenly I shiver, as if some small child has just lifted up my shirt from the back and dropped a piece of ice down my spine. I turn my head just to check.
But no one is there. It’s the lady, of course, who is making me feel this way. Drat.
“Don’t you like that movie?” she asks, nudging me in the side. Now she’s just trying to get a rise out of me. Or is it something else? I am suddenly almost paralyzed, but I don’t know why. But still I am, and without saying anything, I get up, nod in agreement as quick as I can, and hurry in the opposite direction.
“Who cares anyway?” I again say to myself out loud, even as I throw my plastic coffee cup in the overflowing trash outside the emergency exit of the movie theater. I’m not afraid of them.
And yet, I walk faster and a memory careens to the surface: screaming and lunging forward, even as his limp form was being dragged away. I remember the fingers pressing into my arms so hard that my eyes filled with tears. I remember especially, the dazed, almost wondering look in his eyes as they pulled him away: still conscious, but no longer in this life. An observer.
I look over my shoulder again, half thinking the old woman is following me.
But she isn’t. No one is.
“Happy Birthday,” I whisper aloud, and I walk faster.
