Pseudo-trison

Stands of wood sheets and beams made their little stores and shores. Plywood signs advertise their sell, with the richer ones shining with LED signs instead. People huddled behind counters of wood, glass, and metal, waiting and pointing for what they wanted as men and women in cloaks of all colors gathered them. “How much for that piece?” The vendor looked at my pointed finger and followed it, landing on a skinned thigh with a yellow tag with its price smeared. The vendor turned back to me, eyes closed and in thought, rubbing his chin, instead feeling the leather of his mask. He said something while thinking, but it was muffled through the mask. I leaned on the glass counter they had as a cash exchange area. Other people down the line handing over money, grabbing their brown bags as they become wet at the bottom from the meat’s freshness, “What?” He put both hands on the counter, “Not from ‘round here?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Cause you don’t know how to fucking read.”

“My bad, bitch.” He turned around and looked back at the thigh. You could hear him laugh through the mummers and chatter of the crowd behind us. “Just give a 100 and we’re good.” I looked down and found my pocket, digging in it and taking out my post-leather, worn-out wallet, with loose papers—234 dollars.

He handed over a crate with the thigh—one flimsy one made with thin wood sheets. Carrying it on my shoulder, I followed the flow of the crowd, shoving past people who were pushing past me. Everyone was minding the crate, eyeing it heavily with uplifted lower eyelids, suspicious of their intentions and craving mine. Knowing that made me feel warm and proud.

Straight and narrow the market was one big alley that crossed a street and continued. People walked straight between both sides of the market, ignoring the sides of the street, keeping them still and empty. On the street, Melora waited in her oldie, A vinky van from the early century, the one with the single sliding door and large bodies. She was sitting in the passenger seat, glancing into the side mirrors often, looking into the crowd, and waiting for my face and crate. A habit she calls needed.

I walked up to the van while she was reading something. I pounded on the sliding door and she quickly glanced at the mirror while reaching for the glovebox, looking disappointed and relaxed when she saw me. “Don’t be a piece of shit,” she murmured, climbing over to the driver’s side. Pressing some button to open the door. “You get it?” I tossed the crate onto the first row of seats, hearing the meat inside tumble around a bit after the crate rested, making little thuds. Climbing in right after and sliding the door shut.

“Yeah, got it. Cheap too.”

Her keys jingled as the car came alive with a shy, resting hum from the engine. “How much?”

“100.”

The car started moving down the street, the crowd's murmurs slowly fading, “Oh, yeah? Not bad.”

“Doesn’t smell either. Got it fresh.”

“It’ll stink soon. Don’t worry about that. It’s always going to rot”

The blade glides through the red, glossy meat, splitting the fibers with an ease that comes with drowning. One gulp of water, and it's done. One gentle and smooth gesture, and it’s done—complete and ready to go on. The entrapped blood drips onto the ceramic counter, trailing to the edge and falling to the floor. The thigh was large, so I only needed to cut ¼ of it for a few days' meals. The rest would go into the fridge.

But I couldn’t help but keep cutting away at the meat. Watching the knife disappear into the meat as it digs into its deepest bits, slicing through it until it falls over and lands on the other pieces, it was satisfying to watch it all—to gently cut them, orderly line them, and do it again.

“What’re you doing?” Melora walked into the kitchen and walked up behind me as I cut another slice. I didn’t look at her, staring intently at the meat, “What you told me to do: cutting.”

She probably rolled her eyes and walked somewhere behind me, “Just… leave 3 slices out, put the rest in the fridge..” She took out a clay plate and placed it next to the meat. Walking away swiftly.

I looked over my shoulder at her and saw her leaning on the kitchen table, “Yeah?”

“Just do it.”

“Right.” I put the knife down and wrapped it, taking some leave’s-paper from a drawer near me. I wrapped the meat in it, hearing the fridge door let loose its seal as Melora opened it and told me where to put it.

She pulled out a chair and waited for me to sit, tapping on the table as she leaned on the backrest. “C’mon,” she said, “sit.”

I walked over to her as she backed away and walked to the counter, “I’ll clean it…” I told her, standing up.

She didn’t look at me and kept walking toward the blood. “I told you to sit,” she said.

“Right… sorry.”

“Just sit.” She took out some more leaf's-paper and cleaned the blood off the counter and floor. Walking the length of our tiny apartment and tossing the ball out an open window, down to the tower’s pit. Where it’d burn up along with the rest of the trash after dark. She leaned out the window and peeked at the mounting garbage. Looking at the empty-spaced rectangle that was the pit, 30 feet by 20, the trash was probably 10 feet high in some places, with more falling to count it up. One could hit her, “Come back in, Melora. You know that’s stupid.”

She let out a sigh, “Yeah, I know.” She didn’t move, kept her head out of the window, watching the other side of the building

“Hey,” I got up and grabbed her by the shoulder, trying to bring her back inside, and she followed. Pulling herself back, but never looking away from the trash. “What sup?”

She rubbed her face and the corners of her eyes with her fingers. “Guess I’m just tired… go prep for later. I’ll take a nap.”

She tried to walk off, but I wouldn’t let her, keeping hold of her shoulder and taking her hand with my other, “Hey, c’mon… you can’t play me like that.”

She turned around, and looked at me sternly, blank and blunt. There was nothing in her eyes when she stared at me, one big void that made her pupil with her iris shying its bright brown, “I just want to sleep, you’re going to let me sleep.” She shoved her shoulder back to get away from my grip, looking at me intensely, confused at something. I wanted to interject something, but she wouldn’t let me, I couldn’t make myself do that to her.

She kept looking at me. She knew I was going to do something and would rather know what it was. “Can you sleep out here… on the couch at least? While I finish?”

“Fine… I’ll do that for you.”

I was walking down the stairs. Keeping my hand on the smooth handrail of the staircase as I descended the curving stairs, the two walls entrapping the stairs, slowly melting away and showing the lobby. Maybe it sounds more grandeur than how it is. The walls are of old wallpaper, one that has been yellowed from years of smoking, and cough-snop. The stairs are worn down where people have stepped the most, making you slip if you walk down without care. The varnish of the once vibrant wood shows the blandness of the natural wood underneath.

The lobby was no better. The wallpaper was yellowed and the edges were torn. The floor splintered and certain floorboards flayed upward at their corners. Making each step a hit or miss with squeaks. With rectangular glossy glass being flush with the ceiling, covering the lights behind them, and projecting a tinted-yellow-hue below.

I descended the stairs and descended further down. Hand on the railing, feeling its lingering smoothness. Then my feet no longer descended and I came to the floor. “Sup dawg,” cheered Vin, sitting at his desk, working for the building as a mock security and front desk receptionist. Buzzing people if the system told him to do so. I held my hand up, giving him a stationary wave as he stood and walked over to meet me in the middle of the lobby with some eagerness. “I know some stuff,” he started to raise his hand, expecting me to do the same to slap our hands together and then shake our hands: to dap each other up. And we did, except he brought me in close in a nervous hug. “Wanna hear?” He whispered in my ear with anxiety and I tried to replicate the best I could, “Sure… whats’ sup?”

He let go and walked back to the desk, gesturing for me to follow. He plopped down in his chair and put his hands together on his desk like the professional he was. “Ight,” he started, his nerves intact and voice full, “I’ve heard some whispers. Little talk from the ‘heights’ and from them little bosses in the streets. You know how I be, being the right person in the wrong place, that sorta thing.”

There were two chairs behind the desk, there was another person who acted as the actual security, he pulled it out from the space where his feet and legs rested in, and pushed it to me. Sitting at the side of the desk, telling him with some gratitude, “Least you haven’t gotten shit for it.”

He smiled and gave out a ‘hah’, “No shit, I ain’t no one important. It’d cost too much to do anything to me. Anyway, but, yeah, I heard talk. Bad talk. Nothing about violence though, I’m talking about some cosmic shit. Space shit.”

“What's that gotta do with us?”

“Cause… I dunno. But the sun’s gonna do something soon. Gonna release some wave or some shit which is going to fuck up the tech. Cause blackouts and knock the system down unless it, somehow, tolerates it. Which it won’t… I’m just trying to give you a heads-up. Buy a lock for your door, cause soon, this whole building is gonna be open to the rock-sniffers, and blood injectors. Other than that, everything seems to be nice and dandy.”

“What do you mean by a wave? You kinda looked over that.”

“Honestly, I don’t even know. I just know that they, whoever they are, mentioned something about the sun giving off some wave that is going to fuck around with the tech. And that’s all I know. But, nothing too bad. The whole place is just gonna smell like it does every day, except it's gonna smell in the morning too… oh, and buy a lock.”

“Yeah, I’ll remember to do that when I go back down to the market… Huh? Got any news within it?”

“Meh, not really. The price of meat is stable, some talk about it decreasing,” he looked at me with a smirk and snapped his fingers and formed them into finger guns that were pointed at me, “so look out for that and fill your fridge with it. Along with some of them veggies I will be hearing about, up in the North. Say, can y’all afford veg? Seeing how there’s 2 of y’all.”

“Don’t know, not anymore I’m guessing. She doesn’t want me to work anymore. Asked her why, but she wasn’t really clear or wanting to say.”

“Damn, at least you get to hang out with everyone’s best friend: Me.” He put his feet up and hands behind his head, “any hints at least?”

“Got my guesses.”

“Shoot ‘em.”

“She doesn’t trust me, or the world. Me with the world. The world with me. Or something else.”

“What’s that even mean?”

“No clue, but some shit in my gut keeps bringing up that idea. Don’t know why. But, I can’t help but listen to it. But, her job can keep us afloat comfortably and if we had 2 incomes, we’d probably just be bigger targets for anything.”

He took his feet off and lunged forward from the momentum of suddenly shifting his weight back to the ground and in front of him, “Oh, yeah! Y’all are the rich ones here. Saw you the other day with a fucking crate. I didn’t ask, 'cause it wasn’t my business, but I know for a fact you got some glares.”

“Yeah. I did.”