< Back at Chinatown >
The last time I left this place, I had nothing.
Only a debt to pay that my father left me to inherit after he lost the will to buy any more inhaler. Maybe breathing got too painful for him. Or he just wanted to be with my mother again.
And I used to call it a wretched thing.
Now, as I stand in front of this gutter as a mere speck of dust in the universe, I have no more intention of just enduring. I want to fight.
I have something to lose and I want to live for it.
“You really are a crazy bitch,” the madam laughed, smoking a cigarette on her desk. “You have the guts to march in here. Maybe, you were more than I thought. Now, you seem more like your father. Killer eyes, back in the day, ready to kill anyone who ever bothered me.”
I looked at her funny.
“You don’t believe me? He was my dog before he was your mother’s.”
“You’re really fucked in the head.”
“That’s more like it,” she chuckled. “A very Crolin thing to say. Well, he used to work for my father so that made him kind of like my dog too, no? Chan did not borrow his debt. He stole it. Do you know how he was able to live on despite what he’d done?”
I did not answer.
“I killed my father for him. So he could be happy. With your mother. A win-win, nevertheless. Since I inherited the business.”
“I resemble my father a lot.” Can’t I just freeload on her love for him?
This time, she looked at me funny. “So what?”
“Don’t you see him when you look at me?”
“That’s kind of disgusting.”
Damn. Well, I did try. But I still have to say what I came here for.
“I only have a month left. Either way, you’ll get the money. Through cash or by selling my organs. Can’t you at least give me the rest of my time? Get your goons off my back for the meantime and come get me after a month.”
YOU ARE READING
Dear Kafka
Romance[CPN] Riko was nearing the end of her life. What she decided to do for the remainder of it was to find someone to love. She never knew it would be so beautiful, maddening...turbulent. She got what she wanted and Lord knows it was the first time.
