June 2023 Flash Lit 1 - Back to Back

 “I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 10

 

BRABANTIO            What profane wretch art thou?
IAGO                         I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter

and the Moor are ⟨now⟩ making the beast with

two backs.

Othello, Act I, Scene 1

 

Morning came, foul-breathed, headachy, and irritatingly sunny.  Leesa squinted groggily at the untidy room.  Untidy did not even begin to cover it.  There were the usual scattered clothes, dirty and less dirty, in heaps on the floor and the expected cups of dregs and plates of crumbs, but that was a level of chaos any fourteen-year-old could achieve.  It took dedication to tumble books on and off shelves, back to back, higgledy-piggledy, to crush out an orange crayon in an ashtray, to half fill a suitcase with rocks and then fill the other half with random cords and cables, dusting the whole with pizza coupons and rose petals.

She sighed and heaved herself off the lumpy futon.  The man—Ian maybe?—seemed to be gone.  Small mercies, she thought.  Her breath hurt.  Leesa touched the base of her throat, the place where he had pressed his thumbs.  She shuddered.

She had to stop doing this.  Maybe Ian had nearly killed her.

It was time to be someone else.

If only she knew how.

She wanted to go back to sleep, so that was probably not the best first step.  Instead, she put on some not-too-filthy sweat pants and a t-shirt she didn’t remember having, washed her face, pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and surveyed the wreckage.

Maybe Ian had, in his rage or enthusiasm, smashed a lot of dishes, but there was one coffee mug hiding in the dishwasher.  Leesa virtuously scrubbed the pot before making coffee.  The Old Leesa would have left it.

New Leesa found the trash bags and the broom.  The broom was virginal, unused, its white bristles about to suffer endless indignities.  Leesa felt sorry for it.  Almost as sorry as she felt for herself.

As she swept up the shards on the kitchen floor, she noticed that there was change in the mix.  Maybe Ian must have broken her laundry money jar.  She picked quarters out of the sharp bits until she had enough for a load, then left that mess behind to gather up a trash bag of random clothing.  New Leesa would be efficient.

Efficiency sucked, she decided, around four.  Sure, the dishes were done and she had clean clothes.  The building dumpster was full.  The floor held no hazards.  Also, her whole body hurt.

She cleaned most of the bathroom and then showered and scrubbed the tub at the same time.

New Leesa combed her hair, put on some lipstick, and slid into her jeans fresh from the dryer.  She put on a black cami under her red jacket.

When she sat down at the bar down the street and ordered a mai tai, the guy on the stool next to her said, “You look like you have a good story to tell.”

“It’s always the same,” she said.