Chapter 1 - Nothing to see here. (Patreon)

The morning sun tasted like blood. Her mouth was all gummed up with it. Like sticky carpeting on her teeth. Just once she'd like to wake up to a mouth that felt clean and fresh. But everybody feels like that.

She opened her eyes and tried to remember. The sun didn't really taste like anything. The pavement did. The pavement tasted like blood. She was on the ground, hugging the tire of a parked car like a pillow. There was a half-dried pool of blood under her face. She climbed to her knees and spit to get the taste out. She rubbed at her teeth with her fingers like a makeshift toothbrush, and spit again.

She could feel the fear rising inside her already. But it was okay. She was awake now. She took a deep breath. 

She wiped at her face instinctively, and her hand came away with blood on it, too. She took another deep breath, but it got cut off. She coughed, unexpectedly and painfully. The muscles in her abdomen tightened hard. She coughed again and again, bracing herself against the car. Finally it stopped. She was sweating. She held onto the hood of the car to climb to her feet.

The world was putting itself together, like a puzzle. On the sidewalk a few feet away, people were walking past without slowing or looking. She didn't recognize the houses here. She pushed the fear down again. The sun was shining. And she could hear a bus in the distance. Home. She just had to get home. She felt for her bus pass around her neck. 

Her nightgown was wet. The soft pink material was splotched red wet down the front of her body, and her hair felt stiff. Up on the sidewalk she started making her way toward the sound of the buses. She could feel something squishing between her toes in her slippers. On the sidewalk, she had to walk slower than usual to not slip in them. She tried not to let it make her angry. She was already self-conscious about how slow she walked now. She didn't even walk. She shuffled. 

Up ahead she could see the bus stop, with young people standing on the sidewalk with their backpacks, and men in their work clothes. There was a woman smoking a cigarette.

She kept her head down, and started toward the shelter's seats, but none were free. She shouldn't have bothered. Nobody stood. Not one of the students in their backpacks even looked at her.

And why should they? A hunched-over woman clutching her soiled nightgown. Someone else's problem. God she hated the smell of cigarettes. She coughed again, harder this time. So hard that she had to hold the side of the bus shelter to keep from falling over. Every cough hurt the muscles in her abdomen and throat. The woman beside her kept right on smoking.

Hunched-over. Ugh. As many times as she told herself that it was just a bad habit, that she could fix her posture if she just tried harder, it got more and more obvious that her bones were weaker now. Her body was curving in on itself.  She stood up a bit straighter beside the bus stop, her back aching with the attempt. 

She used one foot to pull the slipper off her other foot to see what the mess was. It was blood that was squishing between her toes. She put the slipper back on. Don't think about it. Home. Think about home.

She hated waking up afraid. She never used to. She used to wake up proudly, ready to face the day. Not happy exactly, but strong and free and confident in herself. Now she was just terrified and hunched and desperate to get home. Home where it was safe. 

Clara would be there, waiting. Her beautiful granddaughter. To help her up the stairs. To find her a warm quilt. And Clara wouldn't pester her with questions like the rest of them. Why couldn't they mind their own business? She was a person, just like anyone else. She could come and go as she pleased.

But Clara could be trusted. Clara loved her. She could confide in the girl about how confused things got sometimes. About how she was okay one minute, and scared the next. The rest of them could mind their own business. Her family of jackals, just waiting for their inheritance. Standing at the bus stop she couldn't help smiling. Their inheritance. Ha. Their reward. It occurred to her what her smile must look like, and she closed her mouth to hide the blood.

Nobody was looking anyway.

She almost slipped, climbing the stairs onto the bus. The metal door bannister was slick in her hand, and her feet were sliding around a bit inside her slippers. But she got to the top and lifted up the lanyard around her neck that had her bus pass. The bus driver didn't even glance at it.

Not far now. A half hour bus ride and a short walk in the cold. And then Clara would be waiting. With her warm hands and smile. Clara to take her upstairs and listen to her fears as she sat by her bedside. To whisper that everything would be okay.

She sat at the very back of the bus. It was early enough that she had the back rows all to herself.

She coughed, and coughed again. A harsh, wet sound. She doubled over with the strain of it. Her muscles contracted painfully. She covered her face, and coughed again and again. It felt like no air could get through. Like she was going to choke to death at the back of a bus half full of people. 

Finally the obstruction came up into her mouth. It felt wet and soft and solid, with a strange hard pit in the center. It slid in her mouth like an oyster. She almost retched as she spit the thing out into her hand. It was an ugly dark blood clot with a yellowed, cracked tooth in the center of it. 

Worried, she ran her tongue around the inside of her own mouth, taking an inventory. Her own teeth were all accounted for. 

She sighed in relief and dropped the thick wet clot onto the floor, wiped her hand on her nightgown, and tried to put it out of her mind. There was more laughter from the front of the bus.

It was okay. She would be home soon.

-

A new chapter posted free every Saturday! And if you are in the $5 tier or higher, every Sunday I will post an audiobook of me reading the chapter. 

Read the other chapters here

© 2025 Joey Comeau