In the Cold and Dirt

"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre: c'est de la folie" - Pierre François Joseph Bosquet

This story contains graphic descriptions of consensual sex, but... Well, you'll see.

IN THE LODGE:

As Marissa gigglingly flounced up the stairway toward the bedrooms, arm in arm with his best friend Charlie, something about the world twisted violently, like a kaleidoscopic dagger. He hadn't even been forgotten, he'd been pointedly ignored. Very deliberately walked past.

No.

His wife disappeared out of sight, and Steve calmly stood, ignoring the laughter. Ignoring the eyes of the oh-so-amused onlookers. Aubrey and Kevin and Ben and even Lauren and the new girl, Emily. His friends. They could die in a fire for all it mattered. It was obvious now that none of them gave a single damn about him or his feelings. No one took his side, they just laughed and joked about his reaction. All the people who mattered most in the whole world, now his parents were gone. He'd known Lauren and Charlie since forever. Even Lauren just sat quietly as they murdered him.

So he closed the door behind him, walked down the corridor, put his boots back on, carefully laced them, and hauled open the way to the outside world.

He stood for a moment at the threshold of the lodge, in only his jeans and a t-shirt, wincing at the cold, biting blackness of the mountainside, half-obscured by whirling snowflakes. It was a long way down. Far from anywhere worth being. Miles of nothing but snow-laden pine trees and night, threaded by a narrow ribbon of icy, buried asphalt.

The outlook wasn't great. He didn't have his car with him, so he'd have to walk. It was foolhardy to even consider it. He should at least go back and get a coat, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't move one single goddamn inch back into that den of traitors.

Grimly, he took the first step into the future. Or into death. Either was an improvement, if it came to that. After this, did it really matter?

Unseen and ignored, the frost-clad body of Steven Harrison, aged twenty-nine and survived by his loving wife, Marissa, knowingly began a gruelling march toward its final resting place.

DISTRACTION:

She fought to tune out the incessant screaming of the baby by focusing on the stack of board games. Nobody actually likes Monopoly, it takes too long to play. Snakes and Ladders isn't even a game, it's just a series of dice rolls. A mindless pastime. Same with Candyland, Sorry, and Game of Life. She was sick of word games like Boggle and Scrabble. They didn't even have a dictionary and she was sure he was making up words. She'd never liked Connect 4 in the first place. That just left chess, and neither one of them was any good at it. What sort of abject moron stocks a bunker and forgets about entertainment? Even a box of trashy paperbacks from goodwill would be enough.

Ever since the bombs dropped, her entire life had consisted of trying and failing to read yet another Survivalists Guide to Who the Fuck Cares, playing fucking chinese checkers, and rutting with Jimmy just for something to do. She didn't even like the fat, greasy pig. She was just stuck here, leaving him as the only option apart from her fingers. Look where that'd gotten her. She wished she'd stuck with her fingers.

The so-called books were no help. How to make a water filter. How to splint a broken leg. How to blah blah blah blah. How about how to make a colicky baby shut the hell up? She'd heard it was bad, but only in passing, and it's not like there was anyone here worth asking.

Why wouldn't the damn baby shut its mouth. Just for a minute or two. She wanted to kill the thing. Just take a pillow or... No, just pick up a can and make it stop screeching. Faster. She couldn't even get out of earshot, she couldn't even sleep. The cries echoed off the concrete and steel walls of the shelter. Somehow, that bastard managed. He was sleeping right now, like it was nothing at all, nothing to do with him. He didn't even help, just lectured and complained and begged for her stupid, hungry cunt. Like that wasn't how he'd put it in her in the first place. Her legs were closed for good. That greedy hole had caused enough trouble already.

She stared at the faded, dusty pile of boxes so hard it felt like her head would split open, trying to will something new into existence over the racket.

Eighteen months and the meter on the wall hadn't dropped even a fraction, as far as she could tell.

She wanted to kill it so badly, she could taste it.

IN THE COLD:

"B-b-b-b-bastards," he muttered to himself as he trudged.

Steve gripped his chest with his crossed arms like a life preserver, shaking so hard it made walking difficult.

Let's go skiing, she said. I know a guy with a lodge we can borrow, she said.

He still couldn't believe it, and he'd watched it happen in real-time. All seven of them sat on those two opposing couches, drunkenly laughing it up. Charlie, Marissa, Aubrey, and Kevin sat across from him, in that order, drinking their goddamn booze and pissing in his goddamn face, telling him it was raining.

There wasn't any light to speak of, now. Just what little moonlight leaked through the heavy clouds. He'd already nearly walked into a tree twice before re-finding the path.

"D-don't b-be so s-such a party p-pooper, S-s-steve."

He was starting to miss that crackling fire, but that was just about all.

She'd been hanging off Charlie's every word all evening, but that hadn't seemed so bad, not until she got him another beer, and he stole her seat.

You cheeky son of a bitch, she'd said, but she'd been laughing. She could have taken the empty space, but no, that wasn't the fun thing to do.

"What y-you gonna d-do about it?"

Jumped into his goddamn lap with a beer in each hand, that's what.. Wrap her stupid arms around him.

Only the crunching of fresh snow let him know he was making any progress at all. He could feel the ground falling away downhill as he walked. He was making progress. Just had to keep up the pace enough to stay warm.

Looking around at seven laughing faces. Such a funny joke. Ha Ha.

They were always the flirty ones. You know I don't mean anything by it, she said. We're just messing, he said.

"Y-yeah, right."

Seeing his free hand on her leg, questioning it. Seeing her rest her head on his shoulder as he told that stupid story about Charlie driving to Albuquerque, bugs bunny impression and all. Starting to see what was happening. Seeing the hand move slowly. Gently back and forth.

He focused to calm the shivers a bit.

"F-f-f-f-f-fucking stroking her!"

Don't be a such baby! Shut your fucking mouth Aubrey, you drama-loving bitch. Encouraging the show. That rat-bastard Kevin laughing along dutifully, like a little kid stood behind a bully.

Looking over to Lauren on his right. Smile vanishing, won't look at him, suddenly fascinated watching the logs collapse instead. Emily watching her too, poor woman must have been wondering what she'd signed up for.

Even Lauren though. He couldn't believe it. He'd known her forever.

"N-n-nice."

A clump of snow slid off one shoulder onto his bare forearm until he shook it away. It was starting to fall heavier now.

Marissa laughing at him staring daggers at her. Tilting her head sideways. Jealous? she asked, smiling.

Stretching luxuriously and standing up. Taking his hand with a silent smirk that said everything. Charlie suddenly looking like a lost puppy, but following all the same.

Ben twisting the knife for the rest of the peanut galley. About damn time, he'd said. Always knew he didn't really like me.

High-stepping was making his legs ache. He hoped it wasn't drifting as badly further down the road.

Probably aren't even really screwing. Just a prank, bro.

Like that matters.

"B-b-b-b-bastards."

SUPPLIES:

Sitting there, it was impossible to avoid seeing the cheap, skeletal steel shelving that lined the walls filled with cans. More than three thousand cans of boston baked beans. As many again of chili. That was along with the catering ten pound bags of dry elbow macaroni and rice.

All the food you could wish for, if you were a fucking insane, or Jimmy. He reckoned it didn't matter, just fuel for the human machine. No variety, just bulk purchased pallets of the cheapest canned meals he could get his hands on. But at some point he'd figured out his mistake, that's what the MREs were for. Six boxes of twenty year old military ration packs, with each case containing the same twelve menu pouches. No expiry date, but a distinctly ashy aftertaste. And that was in the five menus she liked. He'd traded with another apocalypse nut for those precious little bags of three-course meals. God knows what he swapped for them, but she was sure he was ripped off. All long gone now, anyway.

But Jimmy was right about one thing, it was necessary fuel. She had to keep eating, even when she didn't want to. Even when she choked on every mouthful. It needed milk. Only one way to get that, here.

It certainly hadn't played a role in Jimmy's sweet little morlock fucking fantasy. There was a big, well stocked first aid kit, but with plenty of bandages and antiseptic creams. There were questionable vials of injectable antibiotics that she suspected were intended for livestock. There were big bulk jars of multivitamins. There was more toilet paper than a human being could wish for. But there were no tampons or pads. No diapers. No wipes. No powders or oils. No baby formula.

Breastfeeding was the only option, unless she left it to starve. The only mercy was that at least it would shut the hell up for a moment, at least when she could get it to latch on to her nipple.

The smug bastard still thought he was clever, even after watching her improvise diapers from old clothing. Openly congratulating himself on his foresight while she scraped newborn feces off the rags with her bare fingers. It was impossible to acclimatize to the stench. Even permanently submerged here in the grime and the rot and the foulness, even inured to it, it was almost unbearable. Inescapable. Lord alone knew how bad it truly, objectively was. If a somehow-still-living person was to stumble in now, their first action would surely be to instinctively vomit in horror.

Once upon a time, she had an escape. A fantasy. She used to close her eyes and imagine walking down bright supermarket aisles, carefully picking up foods she remembered. Fruit. Cheese. Just a simple chocolate bar. Even cornflakes. She'd dream about walking through bakery, luxuriating in the sense-memory of fresh-baked bread. Even knowing it wasn't real, it was a momentary relief. But that was a thing of the past now. The supermarket was filled with screaming.

On the cot, she hugged her knees, folded up against her weeping chest, and cried silently at losing something she never even really had. Eyes fixed on the piles of garbage, carefully placed back in cardboard boxes that used to contain supplies, foul and filled with tiny traces of rotting food.

She'd wanted a baby, before. Back before this, before him. Back when she'd been happy. It was unthinkable now, but she remembered despite herself. She knew it had been true. She hadn't known better.

She hated herself for it. Nearly as much as she hated that fucking thing. Just like its sperm donor, that needy bundle of selfishness. It made her feel so guilty.

IN THE DARK:

It hadn't been bad. Actually it was quite good, all things considered. There'd been a lot of happiness and contentment. Good friends.

He'd met Charlie playing hide and seek on the very first day of school. Charlie never was any good at hiding, he was born to be seen. Always Charlie, never Charles, even though he was Charles Ashworth the fourth. He came from one of those families that pretended they were passing on some grand legacy by forcing their offspring to wear their name, as if they were European royalty. Like it came with grand estate in the country or something. All that charlie came with was a cheeky smile and an easy manner that drunk girls in bars liked to borrow for the night. Nobody ever went steady with Charlie for all that long, he wasn't serious boyfriend material. They looked to him for a good time, not a long time. He wore it well, though. They'd spent half their childhood summers riding bikes together, Lauren as well, just finding new and interesting places to be, climbing through the broken windows of derelict buildings and exploring. In one particularly spectacular moment, Charlie fell through the floor of one. Fortunately, the beam caught him. Right between the legs. Oof.

He'd been so numb he couldn't even move. Just curled up for a good half-hour. Steve knew the feeling. He couldn't really feel his arms and legs anymore either. He'd tried hitting them to get the blood flowing, but he couldn't make a fist, it was just floppy slapping.

Marissa entered his life like that, with a bang. Well, more of a thunk, really. She reversed into the passenger door of his rustbucket Nissan in a strip-mall parking lot. Profusely apologising again and again while trying to share her insurance details. He'd tried to explain it was just another dent to add to the collection, but he'd given in and taken the details. Once she'd calmed down the whole thing was like a dream. She was just so easy to talk to. He could still remember how she looked when they started talking about her. When he asked if she wanted to get a coffee sometime, she tucked her hair behind her ear with a smile and pointed out he already had her number.

It was less cold now, somehow. He wasn't shivering anymore. He hadn't needed that coat after all. It a bit too warm for heavy clothing like that.

Not as much as Bali of course, now that was really warm.

Charlie and Ben went missing the night before, and only rolled up just as the ceremony was about to start, barely on time and very badly hung over. Aubrey was hopping mad, but it didn't matter, they were only nominally part of the wedding party. Little more than guests really, but there were only maybe half a dozen people there in the first place. She was just taking the whole 'maid of honor' thing a bit too seriously, but then that's Aubrey. She goes mad with power at the slightest opportunity. That was always the joke, she hadn't married yet because she hadn't found a man weak enough. If she got married, it'd only be so she had someone to cheat on. Anyway, she'd already taken Charlie and Ben out for an occasional test drive. Kevin seems happy enough with her though. Charlie didn't want to play best man, and Lauren thought it'd be fun when he suggested she do it.

"You looked the best though, Marissa."

He smiled at her in the darkness. She did. She looked stunning in her snow-white dress. It swirled like she was a part of nature itself. A goddess on a pure white beach, just like back then. He could smell the ocean breeze on her. It was nice to be out with her. So sweet she came along for the walk. She didn't have to.

"But then that's the way it's meant to be, isn't it. Together forever." Such a beautiful smile. "I love you Steve."

Even Aubrey couldn't find a way to upstage the bride that day. Neither did Lauren in her tuxedo. She bought it herself. Said she had to look the part. It actually rather suited her, she wore it well, like a stage magician.

The heavy snowfall meant it was up to his knees, now, but it was softer and he didn't need to lift his legs as high. That was good, because he didn't have the energy for it. He couldn't remember being this tired. Not ever.

He couldn't even remember when he first met Lauren. He'd always known her, and she like a sister from another mother. They'd climbed trees together, he could remember that, a tiny little Lauren scuttling up the branches like a monkey, racing him to the top. Looking out of the leaves over the rooftops and the neighbors yards. They were in pretty much the same classes all the way through high school, and it was never like that, no sort of tension between them, just friends. He'd worked out why when they were fourteen, all on his own, because they were both into the same girl. He'd felt pretty goddamn smug about it too, particularly when she admitted it. Still keeping her secret to this day, even though nobody cared anymore. Boys were usually all the way in the closet or all the way out, but a lot of girls had these of circles of out-ness, levels of secrets, like freemasons or something.

He looked at her, and asked about them.

"Where are you taking me, Lauren? What's at the bottom of the mountain?"

Lauren just smiled and held a finger to her lips. She didn't say anything.

Steve nodded back, saying "of course not," to assure her. He had her back, Just like she always supported him. That went without saying. Best friends forever.

It was a nice top hat, but it was too big for her. Unnecessarily so. A tiny little girl in a great big hat. How old was she, anyway? Four? Five? It felt like bath time, like when they were both little? Maybe that's why she was here. He barely remembered it, but he was warm all over, so he must be in the bath with her. A nice warm soapy bath. Relaxing, like a full-body hug. Safe. But no time for that, even if things were going better than expected.

How far had he gone? Half a mile? A mile? He had to stop leaning on this tree though. Get back on the road. Keep walking.

He shuffled back out onto the path with her, an inch at a time, toasty warm and content.

COMFORT:

With fists clenched tightly, she allowed herself to look at the little pile of clothes. Carefully folded, with a pair of black two inch heels sat on top, right beside the little red hand bag she carried that day. Her only clothes. The last outfit she ever wore. It was clear now, the last ones she would ever wear. Her crudely trimmed fingernails dug viciously into her own palms as she stood up and moved closer.

It was just a white cotton blouse, a black jacket, and a matching skirt. Nothing fancy. Just what she'd put on to go into the office. No thought had even gone into choosing it. She wasn't trying to impress anyone. Just professional, was all.

She hadn't even said 'I love you.'

She'd just said 'see you,' and then he was gone, just like the rest of them.

Aaron.

She'd been in a hurry. Half a cup of black coffee, two pieces of buttered toast, and out the door. She hadn't even given her husband a kiss. Not even a peck on the cheek. Just rammed food in her face and went.

She missed him so much. She'd been inconsolable for... For not long enough, it turned out. It was the reason she'd been with Jimmy that way, really. At least in the beginning. He wasn't even any good. She was distraught, and the tears would come unbidden, out of nowhere, halfway through saying a word. And Jimmy was there, holding her, comforting her and telling her it was all going to be alright, even though it obviously wasn't.

Day after day, telling her how she would be okay, how pretty she was, how he was there for her. Then one day he kissed her. She let him. It felt better. It pushed the other feelings out of the way. And then he was inside her, and it was enough, for a moment. Not sex, not even fucking. Bestial. Legs in the air, wet with desparation, screaming to be filled. The feeling of him stretching her up inside, pounding away artlessly. Sweaty and looming. In and out and in and out and done. It wasn't good, but it was adequate. He was lazy. It was a distraction. She had to take over if she wanted to come, but she didn't even want that, usually.

She had to wear surplus combat fatigues meant for a man. Baggy and shapeless. Bunched up hopelessly around her waist by a piece of rope, chafing. Even the underwear was wrong.

She reached out and felt the black fabric. Pure, tightly woven wool. Slightly stiff. Hard wearing and formal. Lightly, she rubbed her fingers across the purest form of nostalgia, the texture of the real world. The blackness brought out the gold of the band on her finger beautifully.

While she held it, just for a moment, she could barely hear the thing screaming. She could nearly bring herself not to despise it with every ounce of her being.

Nearly.

IN THE SNOW:

It was all too tiring. He had to sit down and rest, just for a minute.

Collapsing back onto the couch, it felt fluffy. Soft. Sluffy? It had an intriguing hot-cold texture to it. He thought about asking Marissa about the couch. She'd know. He looked over at her. She was Straddling Charlie's legs in reverse cowgirl position, cheerfully bouncing herself up and down on his cock. Seeing him looking, both of them smiled back at him.

"What's the matter?" Charlie asked casually as he fucked his best friend's wife.

"Uh ca izzi?"

Charlie shrugged, taking a sip of his beer. "I wouldn't worry about it."

So he didn't. Steve was thirsty, and it a bit rude of him not to offer some of his drink, but that was okay. The crackling log fire was making it too hot to think anyway. He felt like he was burning up, and Marissa was having fun. He was happy for her.

With a herculean effort, he eventually managed to force his t-shirt off over his head and threw it away, too exhausted to move.

Marissa slowly sank all the way back down, smelling of pine needles, swallowing the gargantuan, glistening shaft inside herself, and leaning across, she breathily whispered to her husband, "Of course I love you. I'm yours, body and soul. That's what we always said."

The words made the air hurt his lungs. Like razors in his throat, it made each breath was more difficult than the last, even though they were just tiny little ones. Someone had said something, but he couldn't remember what. Was it the woman?

"Aeh." he vaguely confirmed, confused by the stranger and trying to change the subject. He should get up again, he should continue walking.

He watched the drifting snowflakes gently falling onto the snowbank. It was beautiful. Where was he, anyway. He'd been doing something, but he didn't remember what it was. Going somewhere, or maybe looking for someone.

"Iui?" he eventually wondered out loud.

Aubrey and Kevin both frowned at the question, but Kevin wasn't going to say anything. Aubrey's weaselly follower.

She eventually answered for both of them. "Yes, I think so. It livens things up, don't you agree?" and let out a gentle, tinkling laugh.

Ben smirked in the darkness. "You didn't deserve her happiness anyway."

Lauren and Emily just looked sadly at each other through the blizzard. Some help they were.

No, that wasn't fair. Emily seemed nice. He should ask her if she wants to go for a walk too.

Where was he going anyway?

Steve shrugged, and curled himself up into the comfort of the white. The bed was too dry, like hot laundry, and something was falling on his face, but it was cozy and warm. He'd finish his walk later. Once he'd closed his eyes for a few minutes. That's all.

Everything would be okay in the morning.

SILENCE:

She pulled the door closed behind her and carefully latched it shut. Finally, silence. Only the singular dim light of the access shaft for company. Someone had to go, and she couldn't, she just couldn't. Not to a baby.

But someone had to go.

She'd put on her clothes, and it made her feel whole for the first time in forever. Feel good. This was the better way. It was a stupid outfit for a spur-of-the-moment trip, and one she'd started to regret even before everything happened. Holding her old bag and her shoes in the one hand, she paused and collected herself. She'd never be able to get back up the ladder in them, but she'd need them on the surface, standing proud in real clothes. At least for a little while.

Getting down the ladder in the pencil skirt had been difficult. It'd ridden up, and halfway down she'd become acutely aware of the show she was putting on for Jimmy, grinning back up at her from the bottom like a cheshire cat. It'd all seemed so silly then. Jimmy the office weirdo, that harmless dweeb. Always talking about prepping, planning for disasters that would never come. Talking about what he'd bought that week for his little apocalypse fantasies. He was always on about it, so proud. He offered to show her.

Then one day, she said 'sure, okay,' and they went after work. It was just meant to be fifteen minutes. Look at his hole in the ground. She was already questioning what she was doing before she even got to the bottom.

Jimmy showed her around his little mancave. Turned on the radio, walked her through his little collection of paranoid fantasy manuals, canned goods, and military rations. Talked about building the crude little cots he called beds.

The talk radio playing in the background suddenly cut to three screeching, warbling tones, followed by a robotic voice. It told them 'The United States has been subjected to a nuclear attack. The North American Aerospace Defense command has detected the launch of one hundred and twenty-two nuclear missiles.' and then her mind went blank as she stared in horror at Jimmy and he stared back. Then Jimmy was bolting to the door and scrambling up the ladder. She meandered over and looked up as he slammed down the hatch above, dogging it behind him and hurrying back down. The tones sounded again, and Jimmy was pushing her back into the tiny room, and closing the inner door, frantic and out of breath as the meaningless words repeated. They stared at each other forever as they waited. It had to be a test, a mistake. There'd be an all-clear.

The radio went dead, and a few seconds later, a quiet, low thud jostled the whole shelter, sending a pall of dust through the room.

It was real. It was real and she was... She... She remembered her husband Aaron, out there, alone.

But that was then, and she was ready now. Time to do what she should always have done. Time to leave. One step at a time, she hauled herself up the ladder. She hooked one arm around the top rung, doing double duty with her shoes in hand and bag on her shoulder. One by one, she moved the steel levers, and then she heaved up the counterbalanced plate and climbed out. For the baby. For her. For little Alice. Away from the dirt and foul air.

It might be poison, but she took a lungful of freshness, feeling the breeze. The first time in a year and a half. It wasn't like in the movies, but it was never going to be. She expected that. There was a lot of green. She pushed the lid back over, resealing the hole, and finally, she turned around to make her last walk.

She looked out over the shrubs, the gentle swaying of bushes and trees, and down onto the town below. Distant engine noises faded in and out as cars passed each other along the highway.

Putting her shoes back on, Harriet straightened herself up, smoothed down her skirt, and started along the path, despite the tears. Crying didn't solve anything. It was a fantasy.

He'd taken everything from her.

IN THE HERE AND NOW:

Doctor Horvat and her staff had curated a genuine contender for medical waiting room of the year: The room was the gold-standard of bland tolerability, and it had it all. Non-specific plastic greenery. Slightly disconcerting informational posters and leaflets for conditions the patients were unlikely to have but might worry about. Wipe-clean upholstery that made gentle farting noises if you sat down too fast. And of course, the piece de resistance, a wide selection of inoffensive magazines with no discernible common theme. Home Decor, gardening, vintage agricultural assorted hobbycrafts, and more. Everything interesting was decidedly off-the-menu.

He was gravitating towards an ancient issue of 'Festive Sock Quarterly,' to find out how anyone could possibly care. Perhaps a new, impossibly unlikely door would open? As he reached for it, a tiny voice asked "Where are your fingers?"

A brown-haired girl had wandered up to him, little more than a toddler in a flower-print dress with neat little bunches in her hair. As she looked at his face with guileless curiosity, he struggled for a simple, honest answer, eventually saying "The cold bit them off."

"Why?"

"It has to be very, very cold, even colder than a freezer," he explained gravely, and wiggled the remaining fingers on his left hand, adding "They turned into ice cubes and just fell off."

As she looked in wonder, the little girl was hurriedly scooped up by a woman emerging from deeper in the building, an almost carbon-copy of the same little girl but writ large.

Gripping her daughter to her waist, she felt her face rapidly flushing with embarrassment as she apologised. "I'm so sorry, she doesn't mean anything by it. It's just childish curiosity, please forgive her."

"It's okay," he shook his head up at her and smiled. "I had a significant run-in with hypothermia about a year back, but I'm about as over it as I can be. If I wasn't, I'd be wearing gloves."

Looking back at the suspended little girl, he continued. "Do you want to see properly? What's your name?"

Dangling with aplomb, the girl nodded once, saying "I'm Annie. Who're you?"

Matching her seriousness, he introduced himself, "Steve Harrison."

"Yes I want to see, please."

Looking at the mother, dressed in black jeans and a cornflower blue blouse, he smiled as gently as he could and said "She seems sweet."

Still embarrassed, she smiled back at how well the man took the intrusion. Saying "she is," she lowered her daughter back down to the floor.

"I'm surprised she's not with her dad while you're at the therapist's office. He at work?"

She frowned slightly, but had long-since grown used to the question. Taking a seat on the opposite side of the coffee table, she waited for the inevitable quiet 'pffbt' of the cushion to subside before explaining. "Well, my husband is of the picture. Aaron couldn't cope with it all, bless him, and well... The biological father is in jail."

"I'm sorry," he nodded sadly, "That sounds like a painful story. I shouldn't have pried."

"Maybe not as painful as that," she joked, gesturing at his hand as little Annie studiously inspected the stumps of his ring and pinkie fingers, "though I didn't know Doctor Horvat dealt with that sort of trauma."

"Not what I'm here for, actually. At least, not directly. It's a symptom, a side-effect, if you will." He exhaled sharply. "No, I ended up trapped with people I didn't like, and who didn't care about me, and I couldn't spend another single moment. I traded a couple of fingers for my sanity and self respect. It was just the price of a ticket out, if you know what I mean..."

Her lips pressed to a thin line, and she darkly said "More than you could possibly imagine. Sometimes other people are assholes."

Nodding, he affirmed it. "Other people are assholes."

She looked him in the eyes as it hung in the air, a shared truth.

With another sigh, he said "That's how my marriage ended too, along with basically all my friendships. Turns out pretending me turning into a human popsicle isn't a big deal? Not a great look. Lots of finger pointing, with folks playing hot-potato with recriminations, or at least that's what I heard. I'm only in contact with a couple of them now, at arms length." He shrugged dismissively. "Nobody went to jail, but nobody came out smelling of roses, either."

"Soooo... trust issues for you too, right?"

"Yep. Trust issues. And the usual post-traumatic nonsense."

"Yep."

Once again, mutual understanding hung in the air, filling the silence.

Little Annie had long since lost interest in his slightly mangled hand, and was entertaining herself walking backwards and forwards between the magazines, organizing them by size.

She made a decision. "Harriet James. People call me Harry."

"Pleasure to meet you, Harry." He smiled at the unexpected connection. Suddenly, he looked up at the clock on the wall and continued "Look, it's time for my appointment, but It's been fun talking to you. Would you maybe... I don't know, would you like to continue this sometime?"

Hesitating, her eyes flared as second thoughts jangled through her mind.

"Ah," he interjected, "Obviously somewhere... A public place, like a coffee shop, maybe? "

She laughed at that. Trust issues indeed. Maybe, just maybe it would be okay. "I think I'd like that."

Doctor Horvat opened her office door and announced "Steven Harrison?"

"Ah. Let me give you my number," he said, pulling out his phone before thinking better of it, and produced a small card case, flipping it open. "Here's my business card. Call me anytime."

Their fingertips brushed together as she took it, and as he stood up and started to move off, she said "Actually, We don't have anywhere we need to be in a hurry. We could wait for you?" she asked with a questioning look.

"Sure," he smiled back, "I'd like that too."