Free 1999 by Pasha Malla Page B

reinhabited by a race of velveteen maniacs with symbols for names, all those toddlers wailing away on sparkling toy guitars, performing cunnilingus in the air, pooping into sequined diapers. And so Sonya would stop it – and only then, knowing she had done right by the world, could she retreat to a life of hermetic bliss, away from everyone and everything, and live out her days in perfect, silent, uninterrupted solitude.

    OH, HERE WAS A “FUNKY” SONG , thought Mrs. Mendelbaum in her snowsuit. She’d even heard it before, maybe, and turned the volume up just a touch – riding on the highway now, the snowmobile sliding along, ever mindful of black ice. What were they saying, though? Something about the future. “Something something the future will B…” Will be
what
? Was there a future? Wishing someone would tell her, Mrs. Mendelbaum shivered and looked out through her visor at the world. She was
so close
to Minneapolis – close to everyone, close to the future! But looking up the sky did not look like the sky of the future. It struck her instead as still and lifeless, a great pale corpse slumped over the world. How depressing; it was enough to make her want to take a break. Also she had to pee.

    ESME PASSED A TACO BELL , Carlo’s favourite restaurant. Carlo, lurching Carlo: all chicken soft tacos and pico de gallo and that clumsy slug of a tongue. But, aw, so sweet – he’d made a piñata for her, after all, for her birthday (though he’d filled it with condoms, and when they’d tumbled forth she could have sheared him for wool, his grin was so sheepish). Was it only last night that he’d worked at her button fly – for, what,
ever
? – before Esme, like a prisoner unlocking her own cell for a cute but hapless warden, snapped it open: here you go!
    She’d wanted so badly for it to be good with Carlo, and when it wasn’t she could only trust it would get better, later. She could wait; she loved him. But here was later, Esme thought, gazing through the windshield. Later was nothing at all.
    was singing again: “Until the end of time, I’ll be there 4 U.” She vaguely remembered what the guy looked like from the jacket of an LP that might have belonged to one of her mom’s boyfriends – Tom or Roger or Luis-Enrique, Esme wasn’t sure. And despite what appearances might suggest, apparentlywasn’t gay. Just sort of elfin and a little
purpler
than Esme was used to (Carlo wore mainly camouflage and black denim).
    Maybe a guy likewould be good – tender, experienced. She’d lose herself to it and him and afterward he’d hold her whispering, stroking, whispering. And if they had a kid, what would it look like? She tried picturing it, but all that came to mind was a little Carlo nestled in her arms, swaddled and cooing, gazing up at her with wide, astonished eyes.
    Esme slid her foot off the accelerator, pulled her hands from the steering wheel, and closed her eyes. Slowly the car decelerated and began to list to the right, toward the shoulder, and blind to the world Esme thought about how she was old enough to do almost everything adults do: she could drive and almost even vote, though now – typical! – there was no one to vote for. There was only. And not even
him
, just a voice and a promise.
    At the crunch of gravel and ice Esme’s eyes snapped open and her hands grabbed the wheel. She jerked the car back onto the road, sweat squelching in her palms. Breathing, now, breathing, with the car locked tightly into the lane and her foot steadying the gas. In the rear-view, a little black blip emerged from the point where the grey of the road vanished into the endless snow – not a car, something smaller. A motorcycle, maybe.
    Esme stared, unsure whether to speed up or brake. She was reminded of when, at eight years old during Christmas shopping season, her mom had disappeared at Sears. In that