Water

The year was 2021, Diana never knew she would have made it this far. She sank down in her chair, it creaked and moaned from the weight of the dreary vessel. She wore only undies, hoping that the hot air coming out of the still running shower would warm her spirit. Eyes sunken from long nights with no rest paired well with the many bruises that were scattered across her neck and back. Her jet black curly hair dangled down to her elbows, the beauty being lost in a sea of despair. She eyed a mark on her arm as it laid like a piece of elegant flesh on the table. Her vanilla colored skin had ribbons of raspberry running through them. Closing her eyes, trying not to think she grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the table and took a heavy swig.

“Another night” she said as she sighed and took another modest gulp of the brown liquid.

Propping herself up once again, which she had felt she had done too many times, she looked around her apartment. It looked clean and organized, but a keen observer would see the glaring detail that set this place apart.

There was no life. Not a picture of a family member. No colored lights or festive decorations. No animals. No religious ornaments. No plants. No music to set the mood. No famous paintings from a time lost to history.

Though, as spartan as the furnishings were, they were but a mirror of their host. Diana was gorgeous, fit, but there was nothing there.

Getting up was difficult, but she managed to lug herself up the stairs towards her bedroom as her legs protested. Her feet left little smudges of blood as she walked up the steps, the shower having opened up wounds from a long night. She looked down at her red cased iphone 10, the time was 5:00am.

Coming to the top of the stairs something dawned on her. She could change all of this, stop everything right now. No more long nights out on the street. No more tricks to please. No more beatings. No more… pain. She had always thought of it, but this time she would follow through.

She took another deep drink of the liquor and walked through the open door to her room where hot steam slowly spilled from the shower. She grabbed her Glock 17 from her nightstand then shifted into the bathroom, spilling her drink and falling into the side of the doorway.

“Fuck this” she said as closed the cover on the toilet and sat down.

For a moment, she just sat there and thought.

Thought of the moment she had graduated from college, how proud her parents had been. She remembered working her first job for an oil company as an executive of their medi department. She remembered having sex with the CEO. She remembered how sick it felt, how dirty it made her feel, how he had manipulated her into thinking she would promote and make her family proud. How they fired her without warning. How she turned to her friends for help only to find out help came in the form of fentanyl.

How fentanyl turned her to the streets once she couldn’t afford it anymore.

How the streets took care of her. How they taught her how to survive. How people who she had always looked down on had taken her in, protected her.

She looked at her glock, then put the gun underneath her chin. Tears began to cascade down her pretty cheeks and onto the tiles below. She sobbed and begged for forgiveness, mercy. Her nose ran, her heart thumped and blood pumped. Her eyes bulged, for what she was going to do would be finality. Then she took a deep breath and-

Click!

She had forgotten to load the gun. She hadn’t realized the whole time she was holding her breath as she gulped in steamy air. Then, she looked down at her broken, swollen feet. In between them were her tears. They had collected on the tile, coming together as the water moved closer to each other.

She wailed and howled, tossing the gun away and kissing the tears below her.

“Oh lord, I am sorry for my weakness! I am sorry for my sin! I am so, so sorry. I am sorry, I-” she choked up as she laid there in anguish.

She laid there for hours replaying a time when her professor, Dr. David Jenkins, told her to go to his officer after hours. She had gone and for some reason all around his small square space was water. As she walked in and sat down in a chair across from his desk he kept nodding his head in excitement.

“Look at all this! What do you see, tell me!” He said, almost losing his breath.

Diana cracked a nervous smile and raised her eyebrow.

“Um, water? It’s all just… water.”

Dr. Jenkins shook his head.

“I’m only going to explain this once, so listen closely. Water is special, it sticks to itself. It has unique properties that very few other molecules do. It can only get so hot until it changes form, then it comes back, well usually, and it starts all over again. You know, when I was graduating from college, I was the picture perfect person. I never wanted for anything, I breezed through my classes, was the first in my family to graduate, and received many offers from talented organizations. But…”

Diana finished for him.

“You were an addict?”

Dr. Jenkins nodded in approval.

“Yes, yes I was. It was a dark time to say the least. Well, things have come full circle, you know, just like-”

“Water,” Diana said.

“Yes, like water! You know my story well, I just wanted to say: I see a lot of myself in you.” He said with a smile.

Diana shook her head in disapproval, clearly disgusted with what he had said to her.

“Dr. Jenkins I would never do that, ever.”

He nodded his head and grabbed a coin from below the table.

“I knew you would say that, well, I hope I am completely wrong, but here, take this.”

Diana reluctantly grabbed the coin.

“It is a coin with an address on the back, this is the place that saved me. If you ever find yourself in danger, if you ever find that your life has lost meaning, take this coin, go to this address.”

Diana shrugged then took the coin and went to leave. As she left, Dr. Jenkins whispered something that she could barely hear.

“Follow the water.”

Climbing on the floor and scrambling to her nightstand she ripped the drawer’s contents to pieces. Papers, mostly unpaid debts, went flying as she scraped the bottom of the wood trying to find the coin. Finally, she found it, put on a trench coat, grabbed her car keys, then ran out of her apartment.

As she hastily made her way to the address on her phone, she grabbed the coin and held it tight in her hand. She looked down once again at her phone, the destination leading to the beach. Driving like a madwoman through the streets, she prayed to God the entire way. Although she was drunk she followed the steady stream of water in the middle of the road. She whispered to herself after a prayer for strength and protection.

“Follow the water.”