SNUFF (h.s.)

Chapter 43

Roller Girl

A green glass bottle empty of the refreshing Coca-Cola beverage – Scrlash! The glasses scatter on the ground.

Α compote can and a company of swarming bees tasting the cloying juice – Zvrklin! It's tossed and hits the tree bark.

A worn boot with the faux leather fraying and the silver buckles fogging – Fvroup! It tumbles small and mundane like a tobacco spit.

A chopped head's draining blood has spilled and dampened the shooting wall. A bullet wedges in the forehead and the head falls like a coin a kid throws in the claw / gypsy machine. The idle head rolls on the dirt.

The radio from Loretto's car was echoing Rhiannon's transmission. Noon had passed, the trees waved whenever Nora stared at them – none but her shadow cooled them. Small, empty barrels were sitting beside the well. We cannot see her but we know she is there. She'd said to Harry that she could find a gun easier than a job and so it happened.

Loretto's teeth had become gravels a child kicks at the playground. It looked more like a holed shoe sole and something in his singular open eye made her think her own in his place.

She searched for carte-postales in her hanged thin jacket. She watched the hand-painted destinations as if they were imaginary and inexistent. She was caressing the creases, the color had eroded leaving a white area. There were faded and vague landscapes; there was the hiding land behind lonesome Gioconda, it was the piercing other side you cross with tight fists and firm gait. In that picture you could trace the Hawaiians shades reaching the Californian shore. She searched the painted sand and the inclined calligraphy at the palm tree corner.

Their appearance was the trembling horizon.

"I want to see...", she murmured in a terrible whisper that seemed to be a promise. She has the longing of an artist whose hands are tied before her work. Her slow words step in a rose garden seeking her heart.

She gazed the highway. A roller girl was wandering on the long road, she was heading to the small town of a sideway. She had pearl skin enjoying turns, she wasn't in a hurry to arrive somewhere – Nora imagined a girl like her could travel around the blue globe on her distinctive rollers. She seemed to be one of those Deadhead hep cats who spend the night on their roofs with girlfriends never wondering if the next day comes. That was Nora's longing too.

She straightened her palm in front of her eyes imagining the roller girl's feet sliding on the dunes of her fingers.

She watched the roller girl receding. She approached the well to throw the head. She observed the hasty fall occurring until the sudden standstill before it starts sinking on the surface. The face turned as if it was lying on the water to see the bizarre solar eclipse. Nora was acquiring a golden outline as the sky reddened. The well stones resemble turtle shells climbing to escape. Her hand holds the wooden bucket, the rope is tight-wrapped. Nobody comes to look for him.

Nora started the car, she crossed the highway. The roller girl had the size of a blue beetle as she appeared compact and tommelise on the route. The radio was singing, she lifted her right arm grabbing an invisible handle and closed her left eye. Her mouth imitated the sound of the rolling reel in the camera's belly. She was recording a mute figure in a silent scape the girl seemed to seek but only Nora could offer her. Her hair were needles and longer than Nora ever remembered to keep her own. The horizon was trembling from the heat, the roller girl was swimming in a paradisiacal ocean.

Watching her, she slowed. She smartened up. She adjusted Rhiannon's music so that it wouldn't overlap her voice. She kept the gun hidden between the door and her sweating thigh. She was breathing unable to be satisfied with the life she was insufflated with.