Adele Evershed

I run my fingers over my precious haul, the things I’ve found scavenging today. It’s an average haul; some mud-caked screws, one long, thin nail that took more effort than it was worth to dig out of a slab of crumbling wood. But there are some treasures too. A single stiletto shoe, as red as a scream, a mottled book with a broken spine, and a tiny barrette still holding on to a blush of pink beneath the grime. I add the shoe to my shelf with the rest of my collection – all the things someone once loved. I’ll barter the screws with Ken, he’s always building something. He used to be a bank manager, but he spent his weekends making tools in his shed. Funny how that turned out to be more useful than balancing books. I plan to give Mirna the barrette tonight, so I take a rag, spit on it, and start rubbing gently so as not to remove the paint.

Flicking through the book, I pause on a photo of a boy who looks a bit like me, shiny curls untouched by dirt and a bleached smile. I used to shave my head, but my last razor dulled long ago, so now I hack my hair off in clumps and use it to stuff my pillow. The caption under the boy’s photo reads, “Most Likely to Save the Planet.” I hear a painful bark and realize it’s me – laughing.

A wandering musician is visiting tonight, and I decide to use some of the pages from the book as my ticket. I pass over a couple of sheets of loose-braided girls and soft-soaped boys to Dan-Dan. Dan-Dan’s etiolated body is deceptive. You think he could be pushed over by a shower of dirt, but he has that wiry strength that comes from desperation, and we all know he keeps a shank somewhere in his grubby layers. At his feet, he has a collection of tat that we use as currency, all the thrown-away things of an above-ground world that we have upcycled to help us survive in this one.

In the Amphi, I spot Mirna. She’s laughing with Argos, twirling her braid, her hair tied with a bright turquoise ribbon I’ve never seen before. I feel something hot and dark unfold in my gut.

I start toward them, but Jub pops up like a weed, crooked smile and all. She puts a hand on my sleeve and says softly, “Hey Paulie, slow your roll. Before you make a complete idiot of yourself – Argos asked Mirna to shack with him. And she said yes.” Her eyes are wet, watchful like a puppy who expects to be kicked, and I do want to kick something, but instead, I put my hand in my pocket and pull out the barrette. I hold it out to Jub. I thought she would be happy, but she looks fearful. “What is it, Jub?” I ask. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect anything in return.” She relaxes, uses the barrette to clip her ragged bangs off her forehead, and says, “Thank you, Paulie, it’s beautiful. You know Argos isn’t his real name? He got it off some catalog he found. His real name’s Nigel.” She takes my hand and leads me toward the stage.

The musician is standing in the center swaying, wrapped in layers of blues and purples. Her face is so clean she looks like one of the girls from the pages I handed Dan-Dan – except for her hair. That’s coiled and pinned like a tufty crown balancing precariously on her head. We, her audience, are smudged in every shade of dirt, our clothes and skin nearly indistinguishable. When she opens her throat, the past rushes in. I’m home again, Mom and Dad arguing over how to load the dishwasher, me in my room, dusting my Anime figures – a complete set of Jujutsu Kaisen in battle poses. Those were the last ones I got before the ‘Blow-Up.’ I loved those manga books about heroes who could channel ‘cursed energy’ to protect humanity and each birthday or Christmas I asked for a new figure. What a joke! There never were any heroes, and humanity was the monster all along.

The musician collects her tributes from Dan-Dan, then a low rumbling swells as people start to sing, “We are the greatest Argonauts, the world has ever known”. It’s the anthem of our burrowed world. It’s meant to rally us and remind us that survival is heroic, but every time I sing it, I feel the lie pressing against my lips. I’m not great. I didn’t choose this downcast adventure. I didn’t volunteer to spend my days measuring breath or trying to find a way to lopsidedly light the dark. In another time, a parliament of owls safe in the night would probably take flight. But all the owls are gone now, and we surely know nobody is safe from harm.

I lean towards Jub and whisper, “Wanna come back to my shack? I can show you my collection. I found a shoe today – might even fit you. And tomorrow we can scavenge together.” Jub bites her lip like she’s holding something in, and then she nods. ” That sounds like the story of Cinderella,” she says. “I loved that one. I used to collect Disney princesses when I was little.”

Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the valleys for the American East Coast. You can find some of her writing in Gyroscope, Free Flash Fiction, Trash Cat Lit, Janus Lit, and Poetry Wales. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). Her third collection, In the Belly of the Wail is upcoming with Querencia Press. She has published two novellas in flash, Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), and has a forthcoming novella, A History of Hand Thrown Walls, with Unsolicited Press.

Read more from Adele:

Here on Trash Cat – ‘Did You Know if Sheep Fall on Their Backs, They Die’
‘The Diary of a Reluctant Spectroscopist‘ ‘I Made a Wish Jumping Rope‘