Fran smells her underarms and winces. She had been using a men's deodorant for the last week or so. It was a gift to her dad from a friend who lived in Dubai, it came in whole ornamental set of dude's sanitary products. A soap, a body wash, a shampoo, a shaving cream, after shave, deodorant, and a perfume. Apparently mere existance of a product like this waged a war against her dad's fragile masculinity. He also thought it smelled like shit. Fran was unbothered by the labeling of the product, and gladly used it.
Unwashed curtains hung from two sides of her room. The walls were painted lavender and the ceiling white. She jumped back into her bed with now better smelling armpits. The silence it the room was only broken by the rain outside. She intently listened to the dripping water from the sunset above her window and fell asleep to the noise.
She dreamt. It was an empty room, a giant hall, white all around - so white it was hard to distinguish between the walls and the ceiling and the floor. The burgundy pillow the size of a queen size bed stood out in contrast. Fran sat on it, back half bent and limp.
It started raining yellow flowers. Fran caught one of these flowers and a hand emerged from its center. The hand wrapped around her neck and pressed hard. Breaking out in a sweat, Fran jerked awake, curled up in a sad ball in the corner of her bed. The rain had gotten heavier. She had napped out the whole afternoon.
Her neck was still tight. There was a stone rolling down an ancient mountain in her stomach. New York made her feel horrible.
