Ms. Periwinkle

The sweat dripped down my temples, and beaded in the small of my back. I must have looked high, with my eyes darting left and right, anxious to react to an aggressor.

This morning was a rough one – my boyfriend of three years had broken up with me after another fight about money. I had left the office downtown and walked straight past my bus stop. I zigged and zagged around high rises and low rises, down main roads and through alleyways.

Sometimes the sound of the trucks filled my senses, and other times I relied on the smell of 20-stories of garbage to distract me. I never realized how curious it was to consider that the lives of hundreds of hotel guests eventually amalgamated in heaps of trash around the corner from their beautiful 4-star entryway.

I think the first time I saw her was at my bus stop, but that could be a manufactured memory. After that it must have been at least 10 minutes before I saw her again, down an alley this time, in her eye-catching periwinkle sundress.

Why had she been in that alley, anyway?

As we approached each other, with the hum of motors behind me and the stink of refuse ahead, she smiled at me, but only for a moment, as if to say, “don’t fear me,” but her smile faded before we passed, and I saw all too well a look of malice cover her face.

I walked out of that alley desperate to be under the gaze of passers-by, if not to also glad to smell something other than rotting food and who-knows-what-else.

The roar of a truck engine greeted me at the entryway, reminding me to be heartbroken.

I stayed out of alleys for a while, and ultimately headed back to my bus stop.

It only took one more encounter to suspect that she was following me. Who would tail someone in such an eye-catching outfit? And such an optimistic outfit, too. It had only brushed against 70 degree weather last week, and now we were back into the 60s.

How had she gotten in front of me? She was walking towards me, amongst a half-dozen other city workers, similarly avoiding eye-contact. She turned into the alley 30 feet ahead of me.

I kept my eyes on the corner of the brick-laden building, trained by decades of cheap horror flicks to expect a jump scare. But she was gone. No dumpsters to hide behind, no loading bays to duck into; just gone.

But that was fine by me. I had no desire to see her or that dress again.

If only I’d gotten what I’d wished for.

It wasn’t too much further back to the bus stop: two blocks west, one block south, another two the west, and half a block back north. “Fuck it,” I decided to take an alley to avoid doubling back north to get to the bus sooner than later. I’d already been wandering for a few minutes shy of an hour. I didn’t want to wait another twenty minutes if I missed the next bus.

God damn it if I’d known better.

There she was with that stupid grin on her face again. How did she get ahead of me?!

I noticed a shadow that wasn’t mine and suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, and saw the asphalt closing in. Two male figures danced above me and I hardly caught a glimpse of the syringe in my shoulder before I hit the ground. Shouting. Banging. Cold. Very cold. And wet. Another sharp pain.

A man with soft eyes stood above me. Suddenly I was more awake than I had been all day. Another syringe fell carelessly beside me.

“Stay here.”

I rolled onto my back, and I stayed.

Time went by. Five minutes? Ten? Twenty? Bodies slumped to the ground around me. Two of them, I think. Three, maybe?

I waited for the commotion to stop and my senses to recover. Lifting my head, I saw a man dressed in black lying on the ground, and Ms. Periwinkle propped up on one elbow, dressed now in crimson, too.

The man with soft eyes stared past me, sitting against a building.

A heap of vibrant color approached me, rising above the sticky pavement. She mounted me, hands on my throat. Her periwinkle dress was dripping with blood. The hilt of a blade danced on her shoulder. I reached for it, felt it, and tugged, then pushed it back in. Closer this time. Her neck, hopefully. I was suddenly warm. Hot, even, and she went limp. Her body collapsed but her hands betrayed the lifelessness of her eyes, grasping at my throat as if it would save her life.

Was there even a world around me anymore? Why was I alone? I had been surrounded by people just moments before. It only felt like moments, anyway. I lay there a while, still waiting for my senses to calibrate themselves. What drugs were in me now? My body was heavy, but my mind was alert. I twisted my neck towards the nearest alley entrance to see a blank white box truck between myself and civilization, still running.

Still taking inventory of my senses I realized the knife was in my hand, ripped from the wound in Periwinkle’s throat. I must have held onto it as she fell away. I loosened my grip and let it fall to the ground, and cleaned my hand on her dress, looking towards the far end of the alley where an empty black van idled in the entry, opposite the box truck.

I stood, slowly, hand on knee to stabilize myself, and let my senses reawaken. I was terrified. I reached for the knife and cleaned it on Periwinkle’s dress amidst the blood from my hand; none of it mine, I hoped. Glancing around as if I were the survivor of a gruesome battle in a war film, I slid the blade into my pocket. I stared at the soft eyed man and stepped towards him, then fell towards him, catching myself on the wall by his side. I let myself collapse next to him, my eyes fixed on his, both mine and his unblinking.

I touched his hand — it wasn’t warm — and exhaled deeply, sinking further into the wall.

Again I steeled myself and, looking towards the black van, rose once more to make my way to the bus stop.

I heard the loud yet gentle diesel bus engine pulling closer as I steadied myself against the van. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: my jacket may as well have been made of blood. I slid it off, flipped it inside out, and held it at my waist in a lame attempt to cover the blood staining my shirt. I reached into my pocket, my fingers tensed around my wallet, and shakily removed it as I stepped in line to board.