Page 48 - WTP VOl. XIII #2

Monocle (continued from preceding page) ~
Via likes to ride the bus to work so she doesn’t arrive all stinky, but she much prefers to walk home. She finds that it builds a barrier between the workday and her home life that helps her on days like today where she wants to pretend that she had a different job where people don’t throw up on her.
She keeps her eyes on the ground, in some ways to avoid eye contact but also because a few months ago she found a Martha Stewart cookbook lying faceup
in perfect condition on the sidewalk and now Via’s convinced that shit is just going to fall into her lap if she takes this street home. More than convinced. This belief system has evolved into her stopping at every broken desk, every swollen chair, tapping the bottom with her foot and considering if it would look good in her living room—as if she could even carry it home.
This time, she comes across a box. An odd burst of sadness comes through her at the sight of worn, abandoned photography–this is an old person who probably died—but then she finds some old pens from an insurance company that was probably suc- cessful a few decades ago, and that distracts her. Via picks gingerly through mildewed scarves and then her hand stumbles on something soft and fuzzy.
She jerks her hand back. There’s a non-zero chance it’s a rat.
No movement in the box.
After a moment’s deliberation, Via decides to resume her search. Peeling away the leftovers, she finds what she was looking for; that soft thing, it’s actually a little velvet pouch. She pockets it and skitters away as a neighbor’s door slams.
She dumps her haul on the pseudo-granite kitchen
countertop and drinks a shit-flavored protein shake. Then, with one hand, she twists open the tiny bag. It puffs open stale air, which Via doesn’t find to be too promising.
A brass brooch circa 1974 that she knows there is no possible way she can pull off. A chain that she pock- ets for Isra. A watch with cracked glass feels like bad luck to have. A pair of studs that make her heart stop in anticipation for a second, but the backs are a little green so no thanks. She has half a mind to invest in rubbing alcohol and put in some work, but Via re- minds herself she picked these up from the side of the road and they smell really bad. Then another piece of glass, for a second she thinks it’s another watch, but it’s not. It’s too big for that, and it’s also not a clock.
Via squints at it. She rubs it against her shirt. Then, she remembers that she got thrown up on earlier today and does a half-jog to the shower. Once she’s suitably sterile, she returns to the fluorescent lights of the kitchen and sets the thing in her hand—it’s a monocle, she thinks, with a dark metal frame and a stupid little chain. She spent all that time rummag- ing through someone else’s trash for moldy jewelry and a doody-doo-looking prop. All the scraps besides the chain get scooped back into the velvet pouch and tossed in the trash. It reeked of dead person anyways and she really doesn’t need that kind of energy in her apartment.
And with that, it’s time for an edible. She does a hand- ful of chores—mostly laundry—while she waits for it to hit, and then gets one of the four adult Lunchables that she has in the fridge to keep her occupied while she watches a documentary that’s just a compilation of dogfights from World War II. Via finds it’s not really hitting today, though. She’s restless. If she were the type of person to go on a run, this would be a great time.
But she’s not.
So she sits, and her eyes glaze over watching the skinny little airplanes slam into each other and then the edible hits—she thought it hit before—but she supposes her stomach was a little too empty and she’s—found chocolate chips in the back corner of her pantry—showering again but this time—condi- tioning her hair —standing naked in the half-length mirror of her bathroom —staring at her bones — I look kind of like Skeletor?—not sexy – more chocolate chips —the mirror again, hair up in a towel, and she’s still naked with the exception of that monocle—she dug through the trash for—comfortably tucked into her bad eye.
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