The Nightmare Offices

The Nightmare Offices - Harlowe's Life

I am alone.  No-one knows me, no-one cares about me.  I barely even exist.  I have no home, no family, no true love to return to.  I do not know what these things are, nor can I fathom the depths of their comfort.  I know only the thin line that divides day from night, joy from misery, health from sickness, life from death.

            Death.  This is what I know the most.  Death is my only solace in a world filled with life.  I kill to keep myself alive.

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The girl was dirty.  She hadn’t bathed in years.  There wasn’t anywhere to bathe, out here on the streets.  Homeless girls were known – no, expected – to be filthy.  She was hungry, too.  That was why she was holding a gun to a man’s head right now, because she was hungry.  She was seven years old and she was holding a gun to a man’s head because she was hungry.

            “I don’t want to kill you, Mister,” she said innocently, “I really don’t.  I just want some food, that’s all.  Won’t you give me some food?”  She stood behind the man on the park bench, stomach growling.  It was three a.m. and the man had a sandwich.  He looked scruffy enough with his shaggy beard and dirty sweatpants to be mistaken for another homeless person – but he had a sandwich, and the girl wanted it, so she didn’t care what he looked like.  “I need food, Mister.  Won’t you give me your sandwich?  I don’t want to kill you, Mister, but I will if you don’t give me your food.”

            The man laughed nervously.  “What has this world come to,” he said, his voice deep and throaty, “when children as young as you are killing for their next meal?  But you wouldn’t really kill me, would you?  Not for a sandwich, right?”  Again, the nervous laugh could be heard.

            “I would,” she said with her seven-year-old voice, “and I will, if you don’t do as I say.”

            “Don’t you think,” the man said, still sounding anxious, “that all this is just a little too much?  Just for a silly sandwich?  Can’t your mommy make you a sandwich?  I’m sure she’s worried about you being out so late.”  The man eased into his nervous laughter once more.

            “I don’t have a mommy,” she whispered just before she pulled the trigger and watched the blood fly.  Slowly, she walked around to the front of the bench and eased the sandwich out from under the dead man.  She wiped the blood off of it and ate in silence, watching the man’s wide, staring eyes and slack jaw in interest.  When she finished the sandwich, she crawled up next to the man and whispered in his unhearing ear.

            “It was a good sandwich – thank you.”

_

Harlowe roused from the pleasant dream-memory with a yawn.  It wasn’t often that she dreamt about her “misspent youth,” asThomasliked to describe it, but when ever she did, she always woke up feeling delightful, despite the horrors that her childhood memories held.

            She stared at the white ceiling of the studio apartment she shared withThomas, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes.  Sitting up, she retrieved her hairbrush from her nightstand and began to unsnarl the tangles of sleep from her long black tresses.  She walked through the apartment with her head bent to the side, braiding her hair.  As she entered the kitchen-area, set off by a giant, cumbersome bed sheet attached to two long shower rods held together by duct tape and super glue and hung precariously from the ceiling, cigarette smoke assaulted her nose.  She rolled her eyes atThomas, who was sitting in the tiny sink again, holding a cigarette out of the window.

            He looked at her as she approached him.  “I don’t see how you can do that,” he greeted her, referring to her locks, “if it was my hair, I’d have chopped it all off by now.”  Harlowe finished the plait off and knotted it with a black hair tie from her wrist, then slung it over her shoulder. Thomasstuck his head outside the window and took a long drag of his cigarette before pulling himself back inside and looking at his friend again.  “Want a puff?”  He asked, holding the cigarette out to her.  Harlowe rolled her eyes at him.

            “The answer is the same as always,Thomas:  No.”  She shook her head and opened the mini-fridge. Thomasflicked his cigarette out of the window and hopped down from the sink, catching the can of frozen orange juice that his roommate tossed to him presently.  “You’re gonna kill yourself, smoking those cancer sticks.”

            “Harlowe, please – we’re assassins,” he answered in amusement, tossing the frozen orange juice from one hand to the other, “Every move we make is gonna kill us, in the end.”

            “Well, no shit, Sherlock,” Harlowe answered, pulling herself up onto the table, “but why does that mean you’ve got to shorten your life span even more?”

            “We’ve had this conversation before, kid,”Thomaslaughed, enjoying the way his friend glared at him when he called her kid, “Because my parents were douchebags…”

            “…And they didn’t give a shit about you, blah, blah, blah, hence, you became a stoner, yeah, yeah, yeah,” she finished for him.  “What’s that French word for ‘I’ve seen this all before?’?”

            “That would be déjà vu, my dear,” he answered.  “Why did you give me a can of frozen orange juice?”

            “Because I want you to make orange juice, dipshit.”

            He shrugged.  “Makes sense.”

            Harlowe sighed.  “You don’t know how to make frozen orange juice, do you?”

            “Why can’t we just buy it by the gallon like crazy people?”  Her friend whined.

            “Because it’s too expensive that way!  And not all crazy people are as crazy as us – I mean, we work for Fuhrer.  They work at McDonald’s and Burger King.  They get paid way more for what they do.”

           Thomasgroaned.  “You sound like the mother figure I never had!”  He eyeballed her.  “Be my mom?”

            Harlowe laughed out loud.  “Look, do you want orange juice, or not?” Thomasshook his head, so she put it back in the freezer and retrieved the half-gallon of milk, instead.  She poured them both small glasses and sat down at the table.

            “Are we going in tonight?” Thomassquinted at his watch.

            “Yeah.  I mean, we kind of have to, considering the fact that we have an appointment at midnight.”  She rolled her eyes.

            “Oh, shit,” he said, “we do, don’t we?”

            “Yup.  With the mayor’s wife.”

            He mouthed a silent yes!  “I love killing chicks,” he rejoiced.

            “I can’t stand it,” Harlowe muttered, “They’re powertrippy bitches.”

            “You do realize that you just insulted yourself, don’t you?”

            “Shut up!”

           Thomaslaughed.

_