Ashes Of The Phoenix. Jane Fade Merrick

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СКАЧАТЬ the girl roughly rinsed her hair using the water of some bottles she stored in the bathroom. She hated washing her hair, first because she had to do it with cold water - frozen, in the winter - and secondly because she had to redo her elaborate hairstyle, which was quite challenging especially when she had a headache.

      A short time later she heard a shy knock at the door. With her hair wrapped in a towel she went to open it, however, first she made sure it was him. The child entered the room tiredly carrying the basket with the bottles full of water. She seized one giving him instructions: “First take that sponge and wash all the furniture that you have smeared with the damn drink, and when you’re finished take that rag and wash the floor. I’m going to the bathroom to get changed, and don’t try any tricks, if you run away I’ll catch you!”

      Having said that, she closed the door behind her leaving the brat alone, who sadly set to work.

      Sitting on a rickety cabinet, the girl slowly passed a wet sponge over her fair skin. The contact with the water made her shiver; it had been a long time since the day in which, for the last time, she had had the pleasure to wash with hot water, but she cheered herself up: at least now she knew and appreciated the value of things that she had taken for granted before she had lost them.

      For the umpteenth time she went over in her mind the principles on which her existence was based: “I shall steal only the essential to survive, I’ll never despise or waste anything; I’ll reuse things as long as possible...”

      Repeating those rules distracted her, allowing her to suffer less from the cold. She now passed the sponge over a long scar on her left leg. As if it was a kind of eerie path, Fade slowed her motions as she followed it; the girl followed the long trail passing over the cross marks of the stitches which had now healed, and in doing so she counted silently: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...”. Seven stitches were needed to heal the gash she had been inflicted. “Don’t harm other people’s lives” was the last point of her list, while the cold rivulets dripped from her legs to die in the shower tray.

      Once she put the dirty clothes to soak in a bucket, Fade left the bathroom wearing tattered pyjamas and the rollerblades at her feet, to find that everything was clean. That unexpected order made her reflect on the fact that she hadn’t even allowed the child to dry up; she took a better look and noticed that his clothes didn’t look wet, or dirty.

      â€œBut how...?”

      â€œIt’s a synthetic cloth: it doesn’t get wet nor does it stain” he anticipated her.

      She was puzzled, but realizing that it had been quite a while since she had stopped following fashion, she had no arguments to rebut.

      â€œWhere are your parents?” She asked finally.

      â€œIn a distant country” said the boy vaguely. After a moment of silence, he resumed: “I need to go somewhere, can you help me do it?”

      â€œAs long as you get out of here,” she replied disdainfully.

      â€œAlright, now let’s eat something.”

      She didn’t like that tone at all, for she found it quite bossy and demanding, but she merely grabbed a couple of packages of food and sat on the bed, which, fortunately, was spared from the earlier flooding.

      The child sat on the ground and opened a packet of paprika flavoured crisps.

      â€œHe has weird tastes” she thought.

      After having eaten a couple of chips, he asked, “What’s your name?”

      She hesitated a moment: she was no longer used to confiding in someone, more so with such an unsettling person.

      â€œI no longer have a name in this city. People simply call me Fade.” She answered.

      â€œThen you can call me Jag” said the child, in no way intrigued by the phrase he had just heard.

      Another endless silence stretched between the two.

      Following the hearty - and high in carbohydrates - meal, Fade stood up and walked to the door; she pulled back the bolt and, with an elegant and sarcastic wave of the hand, she invited him to leave. “You don’t mind sleeping in the lobby, do you? Surely there is no place for you in here!”

      â€œI don’t mind” said the boy standing up and approaching her. “But first,” he paused for a moment, “May I use the bathroom to wash my hands?”

      â€œI don’t mind” she said with a toneless voice “But don't use more than half a bottle of water!” she recommended.

      A few minutes later Jag came back, and, without saying a word, he walked through the door and closed it behind him; the girl simply slid the lock in place and listened to the boy’s movements in the hall, and as soon as everything was silent, she went to lie down on the bed.

      After a night of restless sleep, Fade got up at sunrise, quickly put her rollerblades on and went to check if the child was still there or if he had gone away. While she slid the security bolt open, she couldn’t fully understand which of the two possibilities she would have preferred.

      She opened the door very carefully, looked around and saw the boy in a corner, curled up like a cat because it had been cold the previous night. She felt no pity at the sight: too many times she had slept in those conditions, and she had seen hundreds of people acting in the same manner. “Come on, get ready!” She ordered, waking him up.

      The day didn’t start well for the girl: in her haste to escort Jag to wherever he wanted to go - and finally get rid of him - she didn’t have the time to style her hair in her usual hairdo, so she went around wearing a hat which was big enough to cover all her hair and a pair of sunglasses to avoid being recognized; a pretty futile attempt, for she continued to wear her threadbare purple and black rollerblades.

      She absent-mindedly followed the brat who walked before her carrying a big map with both hands. The child kept on speaking to himself reading the names of the streets and raising his nose in the air, looking for a match with the plates attached to the walls of the streets.

      This went on for a bit and, suddenly, Jag stopped with the open map still in his hands. So abruptly that she almost bumped into him.

      â€œWhat's the matter? Are we there?” She asked.

      He didn’t answer; he just stood still in the middle of the street. Then he finally admitted: “I'm lost...”

      Fade, stunned at first, burst out in a fit of rage: “What do you mean you’re lost? We’ve been walking around the city for hours and you realize only now that... Give me that!” She ordered, snatching the map out of his hand to understand where they were. Following a moment of confusion, she understood: “You idiot! This is the map of another city! How will you be able to find your way around with this?!”

      â€œHow is that possible?” He asked with the blank stare of a person who doesn’t understand what is happening.

      â€œYou tell me! It’s also the map of the city of another State!”

      â€œThat's СКАЧАТЬ