There was a certain kind of heat seeping out of Pfiefer’s pores in that moment. A certain kind of heat not even sweat can cool. Even the sun ducked for cover. Pfiefer didn’t hear the door close softly behind her, before she took off down Trelle Street. And if she had stuck around just a few seconds longer, she would’ve heard the powerful screams and the various degrees of crashing several glass items made behind it.
Instead, Pfiefer picked a spot on a curb, somewhere between her house and the Parker-Mosh’s and sat down, replaying the argument over and again. Trying to sort between this new information her mother had angrily divulged and the bitter emotions that were overcoming her right then. She would have loved to have sat down in some classroom, staring through some teacher, sifting through a scrapbook of recent snapshots, but anger has a way of clouding the happiness, misdirecting one from the truth and if not the truth, what’s real. It covers you like a blanket on a hot day, anger. Skin so hot not even sweat can cool it.
Pfiefer stared blankly at her dirt smudged fingertips, as her mind contemplated the validity of her mother’s words regarding her impending death. Death had been a scary subject for her in the past; the idea of death without the remembrance of life, the idea that dying means all she will have lived will seem fake because it was not permanent. It makes life seem so meaningless in the end. Going through all of the perils and joys of life, just to die and not remember it.
But sometime, after Doug died, she was no longer scared of death. Bad things happen every day to good people. That’s what they would always say. But she didn’t know about that. There was only Doug. Bad things happen to bad people too and that she was certain about.
But watching Tyler deal with it was different. The sadness for Doug lingered longer than it should have in her opinion, which caused the anger within Pfiefer to linger longer than it should have. If Pfiefer hadn’t have been altered in this way, she could’ve seen her mother’s reasoning right then, protecting her child from the stranger on the other side of the door. It would have at least calmed the storm bubbling inside of her, probably even have tainted her path. But when the doorbell rings sometime in the future, and she answers it, only to see a stranger on the other side, her life will flash before her eyes and she’ll know that this moment, among a few others, was the reason that propelled her on the path that placed her behind that door in the first place.
So Pfiefer wasn’t worried about her future death just yet. After all, life is fleeting and she hasn’t even gotten a hold of the good parts yet. She is still chasing after it, holding on as tightly as she can by the thread of its unraveling shirt. This realization made the anger subside and behind the anger, Pfiefer discovered that the heat remained constant. A feeling that didn’t originate from her emotions, as she had once suspected, but from what she could only presume was from humidity. As the sun stayed nestled behind a large, grayish cloud, its warmth continued to wrap her body snuggly; refusing to let go.
Pfiefer hopped up from the curb, intending to find a cooler place, until either nightfall, or until she could find a home she was still welcome in, and instinctively travelled towards the Diaz’s in pursuit of her sanctuary, the ash. Barbed wire had divided the town from the wilderness, in all places, she assumed, except for the one spot that she knew of adjacent to the Diaz property. Pfiefer felt cooler instantly the more she walked, which in turn made the worries she carried easier to manage. But then it hit her, the thought. In order to make it to the ash, she must first pass Tyler’s house and hers too. She could risk getting spotted by Kym, but her mother, that wound was still fresh.
Pfiefer, pausing in the street, thought only of how much colder it had gotten in eleven steps, and how this coolness made the decision she ultimately arrived to, easier. She turned around, and headed back down Trelle, opting to take her chances with the barbed wire in a safer spot, than the possibility of a round two with Persephone.
But by the time she made it to the Parker-Mosh’s corner house, she was sweating profusely. Although weirdly enough, the air she was breathing in didn’t feel hot, yet her body was clearly reacting to a change in temperature. Pfiefer stopped for a second, before deciding to test a new theory. She remained facing in the direction of Sub High, as it moved farther and further away in sight. Each slow step she took backwards was separated by a short pause. By the 22nd step, the shiver, resulting from the rapid change from warm to cool, reached her neck and Pfiefer instantly grew a smile; happy her hypothesis was confirmed, and ran towards the corner house, knowing it was the last place the heat remained.
Pfiefer stood on the corner of Trelle Ln. and Main St., Sub High still in sight, intending to follow the path the heat was leading her towards to the arid end, weighing which one of the three routes would keep her warm. Door #1, to her right, was a dead end with barbed wire dividing the end of Main St. and the field behind it. Door #2, to her left, led her down Main, passed the six other cul-de-sacs that comprised the Edens. Door #3, straight, leads to Sub High.
She paused on the corner for several more minutes, thinking about Tyler, wishing he could’ve dropped his attitude and been here to share in this experience with her, even though she was sure she would’ve been the only one sweating. This was probably the reason she ignored her first instinct and chose door #2 and headed down Main St. There was something about the idea of another confrontation with another loved one that she loathed more than her impending death and it was the sole reason she headed west.
Main St. is a long street that can take you straight across Blisst and out of it too, via the east exit, if you were so inclined. But she need it only take her as long as the weather was warm. So, when the cool began to surround her, Pfiefer backtracked and tried door #3; confident in her decision. Door #1 she already knew was a bust; barbed wire and mountains, no place for a fire.
The parking lot of Sub High was warmer than it had ever been as Pfiefer stood there preparing herself for the hell to come. She passed the first row of cars when the sweat that blanketed her skin, steamed off of her and faded into the dry air. By row number three, she grew fearful that her clothes would just ignite and fall into a pile of ash to the ground. That fear stayed with her through rows four and five and by the sixth, she had turned into a dragon. Each breath like fire that only seemed to burn back into her face the more she pressed forward. She couldn’t make it but halfway through the last row before falling to her knees at the side of a maroon Saturn. Her hands laid flush against the sidewalk and Pfiefer was surprised at how much cooler it had been compared to everything else. So she pressed her cheek to it and closed her eyes.
Internally, she was motivating herself to muster up the wherewithal to push through, but all she managed to push out was a lone tear that barely made it two glides down her cheek before it sizzled away. Eyes wide shut, Pfiefer unstuck her cheek from the ground and faced forward, preparing to let the warm sidewalk cool the reverse and eased her fiery face into the scorching sand. And once her fingers sunk into the spot the pavement once was, Pfiefer’s eyes shot open with the quickness of a firing gun, taking in all of the new sights surrounding them.
The sand was hot to the touch and soft to the feel, yet still cooler than her body itself. Miles and miles in all directions it laid, in short, rounded waves, until a quaking came with a commitment that stayed, mimicking the quaking on her back from the box in her pack, the ripples of the sand now flat within the radius of her and she.
And perhaps it was the sun that had beat down on her so badly her eyes cried, or the vibrations on her back that had made all she had witnessed blend and blur, or the dirt that was flung into her face when the shoeless woman raced passed her, or the heat the woman carried on her skin that had amplified the heat that had remained on her own. Perhaps it was the squeal Mother Earth let out when the woman ebbed and flowed from her, a screech so piercing no glass was safe. Or the weight of her world on her back that refused Pfiefer even an inch of measure. Perhaps it was a combination of all of these things that had made Pfiefer miss her opportunity at the box right then; although, none of that mattered right then.
Her vision shuddered well after her pack quit as Pfiefer remained on all fours until her corneas stopped quaking; until Earth loosened its grip. And when it did, she looked out into the desolate dunes searching for the terrifying sight that could’ve made Earth react with such fright. And she would’ve gone along unnoticed too, the beast, if her skin had not have been so pale.
Not more than twelve leaps and bounds away she cowered, behind a sandy mound shaking more fiercely than a mother had been previously. Pfiefer couldn’t help but share her passion on the subject as the fearlessness that she was once drenched in, had steamed from her, almost as if repulsed by her trembling. Pfiefer followed the imaginary trail as it left her behind, winding and weaving directly towards the woman at the other end, and watched as it possessed her with a confidence, Pfiefer grew green for.
The frizzy haired woman, stood strong and sturdy, planting her freckled feet into the scorching sand one step at a time, nearing Pfiefer. And when the distance that stood between them came down to seven steps, the box on Pfiefer’s back started shaking again then the weight of the world buckled her knees. Seven steps when the low vibrations and mass increased. Pfiefer, who had been reduced to the ground, smiled when this beautiful creature stopped dead in her tracks, tilted her head, cowered in fear and took one step back. And Pfiefer’s smile birthed full blown bliss when she watched the steam flee from the now wary woman and return in her direction.
Pfiefer had wondered if she could be seen in the brief moment she waited for it to reconnect with her; but had thought not once it did. But as quickly as it had arrived it was gone, when Pfiefer cultivated the confidence to take one aptly portioned pace closer towards her, only to have Mother Earth return her progress with a wail and a weight so jolting, Pfiefer had no choice but to put distance between them once again.
And so a standoff resulted within a seven step separation, as an unsure assurance wavered between a woman and a girl. It’s possession mostly manic in its effects, with phenomenal females defying logic and reason through extreme temperatures, through harsh sounds, through domineering density in order to be crowned its reject. But then something happened.
Seven. Almost like remembering the detail that cracked the case wide open, she erected into a powerful presence beyond her years and her reputation and began her next step. Six. Whatever stream of sureness that had once toyed with her temperament was long gone, only the wisdom it whispered to its victim before it left remained as another step was taken near her. Five. The plushness of her pink lips parted in such a way to reveal two thin rows of even teeth as the length of her bone white legs parted in such a way to produce two even steps closer. Four. Three. But it was the longing in her eyes when she stared at her that really confused the girl on the other end. Like watching someone look in the mirror and love what they see. There was purity in her gaze, innocence in her stare. Two. And Pfiefer’s confusion grew great when the woman opened her mouth to speak. Like paper, she was almost as buoyant underneath the weight of the world that by then had floored her. Like paper, she was almost as transparent when the name the woman uttered was not her own.
“Geo?”
There was a brief moment within that space of one step that Pfiefer had wished she had been Terrene, if only to satisfy her thirst to discover whom it was that this beautiful being debated with. Even as the heat blazed, the box seized and the Earth screeched its deafening tone, there was something so frighteningly fascinating about this creature standing above her looking through her as though she didn’t exist. She wondered if this was how Tyler felt in those instances she caught him staring. She wondered how he was even able to handle the agony. Not once realizing that she, herself, was battling obscene conditions in order to remain in this woman’s world, if only to observe her for just a little while longer.
Pfiefer’s eyes could not pry themselves off of this gypsy, even though the heat was etching its warnings into them convincing her to try. In between watery blinks, Pfiefer soaked up her sights. Her thirsty hair, the same color as the sand, begging her for a drink. The moisture steaming from the coats she wore. Layers upon layers of rags that were drenched in water, Pfiefer had wondered where she had gotten in a place like this. They were seared and scorched in some places so badly, you could see the next layer through the first and they covered her entire body, from shoulders to ankles.
Pfiefer watered her pupils, before diving back into more details, like the freckles fragmented on her fragile face; the light behind her eyes that credited her complexion. Her delicate hands, unpolished, dripped in gold in all places but her fingers. This glove’s strange writings etched into the metal had dodged Pfiefer’s attempts at deciphering the code no matter how many times she blinked. The light catching in such a way as to elude her efforts. But it was clear that it was the most valuable of the possessions she carried besides the one Pfiefer couldn’t steal her eyes away from; a rectangular object inside the sack on her back made from some of the pieces burned off of her coats.
Time had slowed within that one step, but then increased to a speed Pfiefer had a hard time following after the fact. The box in her pack stopped shaking ever so briefly. The howl ceasing, its weight releasing her from its clutches urging her to run towards freedom though Pfiefer, who was organizing the various ways that would allow her to seize the box, didn’t heed the advice, and so. The weight, howl and shaking reappeared, with what seemed like more fervor. Its absence, somehow, amplifying its presence when the woman turned back and narrowed the gap to within seven steps.
“Geo? Is that you?”
Closer, she neared the girl shaking in the dirt, hotter became the temperature, faster the beats in Pfiefer’s chest beat, more worried she became when she felt the heat. Down the woman bent her face inches from hers, out stretched her hands preparing to touch the girl, quick the sand around them turns to glass through heat, then shatters, forms again, and breaks on repeat. Out of the corner of her eye Pfiefer caught a glimpse, dreadful eyes, dark pointed ears, darker skin. “Go. Danger. Run.” The Earth cries, Pfiefer’s petrified, wide stretches the mouth of the angel’s face, tears coincide.
Out claps the thunder coming from the skies, the woman jumps with fright and then shields her eyes. Fast as she can she runs away, pulling up the rags of her hood to hide her face, back Pfiefer looks to thank the angel for his gift of rain, back Pfiefer is in the parking lot again. Dreadful eyes, more this time, make their way around, staring down at the drenched girl on the ground. Out comes the hands of all complexions trying hard to soothe, back snaps their hands with hisses and an attitude. A certain kind of heat seeping out of the lot of school, Pfiefer’s skin so hot, not even sweat can cool.
This work is created by, written by and belongs to Aecko and shared here for entertainment.