Her hands are covered in little cuts. She smashed a glass washing dishes, not noticing until she found the counter flecked with red. Her eyes swept over to the broken pieces of clear glass, catching on the shard with a single drip of rust. She picked it up, “isn’t this pretty?”
I’ve discovered something interesting under my friends elbow. It’s a document, practically illegible under years of grime. Registration instructions from twenty years ago, grubbily taped to the counter. I’m sure it was once possible to read words around the middle before someone cut a ragged hole through the desk. No longer, so now it’s an artifact. I took a pen from his distracted hand and wrote I APPRECIATE YOUR PROFESSIONAL ATMOSPHERE in dark blue ink along the left edge. He was busy discussing air freight charges with the man behind the counter. Walking away, I looked to the walls for something to examine. I always do in such places, but never find them. In among the ubiquitous framed prints of generic art, and certificates claiming their legal business, one sign claimed “If transporting live tropical fish, the customer is responsible for the oxygenation of the live freight”
He came to her over wires spun of thinnest information. His voice swept into her from small speakers she suddenly hated for distorting this precious thing. “Love me”, he said, and she did. “Touch me” he said, and she wanted to. Aching to trace fingers against warm flesh, she twisted, willing herself where she wasn’t. Something inside cried for release, though she didn’t know how. Her hands are useless, her mouth unable to shape the words to free her bindings. Pressing her lips to the inside of her wrist, it happened. Something shifted and with a snap, she moved. Electricity screaming free, complicated molecules shining into the purest desire, the body dissolved into an amalgam of sound. “I never knew this to be easy. This is never what I read about” Another letter arrived on screen. “I want you”, he said. “It’s time,” she thinks, then goes.