The orange plastic just isn’t friendly.
The orange seems like a warning beacon, so she put the pills on the shelf in a ceramic dish she made for her mom at a camp she forgot the name of.
Her mom once used the dish as an ashtray, Mom smoked Merits, she’d never forget that.
She plays doctor roulette, and for every three declines there is a yes.
The dish ashtray didn’t run out of pills, even when she took an extra, but the shelf moved from Hawthorne Shores to the West Side, now to Shawland Heights.
She told Allison not to worry, the rent was just cheaper here, but Allison did worry, Allison got mad.
They did an intervention, an interfuckingvention and Wendy came all the way from Connecticut, holy shit, sweet but misguided, and at least Allison didn’t tell her about the escort gig, or she didn’t mention it, shit, she would have mentioned it for sure.
This guy, he’s a creep, they’re not all creeps just simps, sniveling at the pink trough of womanhood and treating breasts like rare Moroccan fruits. He keeps demanding anal, and she tells him Sylvia will do that, not her, go get Sylvia. It turns into an actual fight, her wrist is sore, probably sprained, and she’s pissed, but she cut him, not deep but good, he ran.
He left behind his generic cigarettes, and lost out on his hummer. She lights one of his cigarettes, saving hers because that makes sense. They smell like mom’s Merits, sort of.
She slips her shirt on, her jeans never even got unbuttoned, head, motherfucker, the jeans don’t need to come off for head.
She’s out of pills in her purse and can’t wait to get home.
The pills aren’t on the shelf. There is no shelf, they had a drunken bonfire behind the building last night, and when the pallets burned down she threw the shelf on, it was a great idea, and there’s the dish, the ashtray dish on the floor, there’s one fucking pill left in it, and that’s a great thing, but not great enough, because she’s looking for the greatest thing.
She walks out onto the street. The one pill might as well be a placebo.
She’s staring out at Shawland Heights.
It’s grimy.
It’s beautiful.
But she doesn’t see anyone who looks like they wanna buy a ceramic ashtray.
***
Like this? I doubt it’s the start of another 1200 plus day streak of writing but I felt like writing it so I hope you read it and like it.
I’d love it if you would buymeacoffee.com/JimmyDoom or consider a paid subscription
I’ve missed your stories, and you.
Beautifully raw.