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墨書 Inktalez
The wind seeping through the seams of the ATM felt like blades, slicing at the frozen tear tracks on the back of my neck.
In the warm yellow glow of the convenience store, the clerk was wiping the glass. As the cloth brushed against my reflection in the window, he deliberately pressed harder.
I counted the last three coins in my coat pocket; the edges of the coins dug into my palm like a cake nibbled by mice.
"Get lost." The clerk suddenly pushed open the glass door, and the smell of disinfectant mixed with the aroma of Oden hit my face.
The mop handle he held jabbed into my knee, and dirty water from the plastic bucket splashed onto my snow boots, causing the icy surface to immediately frost over with salt.
I stumbled back, my lower back colliding with the sharp edge of a fire hydrant, a dull pain radiating along my spine.
Under the streetlight, the wipers of a black car suddenly moved. The passenger window slid down a crack, and a middle-aged man rested his hand holding a cigarette on the window ledge. The sparks flickered, illuminating a gold watch on his wrist.
"Where are you headed, little sister?" The smell of smoke mixed with the sickly sweetness of car air freshener wafted out like rotten oranges soaked in formaldehyde. I clenched my frozen knuckles, my nails digging into my scabbed palm.
As a talisman hanging from the rearview mirror brushed against my ear, the musty smell of leather from the car seat made me nauseous. The man reached to turn up the air conditioning, revealing half of a dark green tattoo on his sleeve—a shedding snake.
"Aren't your parents worried this late?" His voice rumbled as his Adam's apple bobbed, mingling with a radio love song. His fingers suddenly covered my knee. The heating vent buzzed, dispersing the sour scent of sweat from his neck.
In that instant when I slammed open the car door, my down jacket whipped against the door frame, bursting into a puff of gray-white fluff.
The grip he had on my ponytail sent tingles through my scalp; the tearing pain reminded me of hair yanked out by my stepfather in the attic.
The thin ice on the asphalt road made me slip as I felt for broken bricks in the roadside greenery when light from his gold watch flashed into my eyes.
The shape of blood droplets on the snow resembled an enamel doll I had shattered as a child.
As he cursed while holding his forehead, I clutched a bloodied brick and ran wildly, hearing the sharp sound of his gold watch clinking against the curb.
The convenience store clerk held up a phone, the camera flash flickering like an eternal flame at a funeral.
A homeless man under the bridge turned over, wrapping himself in newspaper as an empty bottle was kicked into the frozen river surface.
I curled up behind a damp billboard, listening to the muffled wails of the current beneath the ice.
The phone screen was cracked like a spider's web, the numbers 110 glowing with an eerie blue light in the darkness.
As I pressed the call button, fireworks suddenly erupted across the river, the explosive sound drowning out the operator's inquiry.
"Nice to see you again." The female officer taking notes handed me a paper cup, steam rising in white mist that blurred her badge.
Her pen tip paused over the inquiry record, ink dripping onto the word "obscene," piercing through its meaning.
"You say the driver pulled your hair. Do you have any evidence?" I looked down at my reflection in the paper cup; ripples shattered the bruise at the corner of my mouth.
The fluorescent lamp in the mediation room buzzed, and yellow-brown herbal stains seeped through the bandage on the man's wrist.
He smiled and pushed a plastic bag toward me, KFC grease spreading across the transparent packaging.
"It's just a misunderstanding; it's to calm my sister down." The savory smell of fries mixed with the blood scent from his cuff, and dark red scabs clung to the edge of the paper bag.
The sound of the female officer closing her folder startled sparrows outside, and mediation documents fluttered down onto a table stained with tea.
As I tore apart the mediation document, paper fell like snow onto shiny leather shoes. The man's bent-over motion to pick up the paper caused his neck fat to fold into three layers, and the reflection from his gold watch illuminated age spots behind his ear.
"Your student ID looks nice." His fingertip brushed against the edge of my pants pocket, his breath carrying the bitter taste of nicotine from a patch. I burst through the glass door and heard laughter erupt from the mediation room, shattering the stillness under the eaves.
The red cross light box at the pharmacy on the street corner resembled an open wound. As I counted price tags for contraceptive pills on the shelf, a clerk stood on a stool changing promotional posters, and plastic rope snapped my shopping basket handle in my hand.
"Do you want to take a pregnancy test?" She tapped on the glass of the cash register. "Student ID gets an eight percent discount."
The yogurt in the freezer exhaled cold air, sending chills through my wrist where a bruise had formed.
My mother suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle, the fringe of her cashmere shawl sweeping across a row of vitamin bottles.
When her newly done crystal nails pinched my wrist, I heard the sound of a medicine box hitting the floor, reminiscent of an attic mouse gnawing on wood.
"Got some skills now?" She tugged me toward the door, her high heels crushing the scattered pills into powder that mixed with the slushy snow.
A black car across the street rolled down its window. A man, biting on a mint cigarette, waved at us, smoke curling into a perfect heart shape.
My mother suddenly let go of my hand, and I stumbled into a pile of snow, hearing her sweet voice on the phone with my stepfather: "Honey, our girl has learned how to scam people." Snowflakes melted as they landed on my collar, trickling down my spine to my coccyx, colder than rain leaking from the attic.
As I was pushed into the back seat of the car, the man tossed me a mink coat.
The smell of animal fat enveloped me, and the new amulet hanging from the rearview mirror pressed uncomfortably against my neck.
The radio switched to a midnight emotional hotline, where a female host was reading a confession letter from a cheating husband.
The man hummed as he turned the steering wheel, his gold watch and watch band brushing against the gear shift, producing a crisp sound like coins falling into a purse.
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