The Doves that Strut

20

Standing in front of the door, I felt as if I was going to fall apart, crumple on the inside at any moment. Forty minutes after soaking in saline, my clothes still hadn't dried off yet. They were stuck closely to my skin, breathing coldness at me, one of the lingering aftermaths of the nightmare I had just lived in.

"Here!" The lady with thin braids that reached down past her backpack to her waist on the side like branches of banyan trees, her black umbrella with a silver handle facing down, handed Claire a 30mL bottle of saline solution. I was pretty sure that she had been in the field helping because she was walking in the opposite direction to Fifth Avenue as well. It had felt like forever for me and Claire to escape the fumes and weave our way into the quiet blocks. We looked flustered and awful, my heart thumping like an earthquake, and yet the lady, though alone, seemed so collected, almost proud giving us a glance, as if she had gotten used to and learned the hunting game. "I've only got one left, so you have to be sparing."

What kind of world do we live in that makes us used to retreating in protests, as if we were in wars?

"Thanks," Claire nodded.

"Do you know how to use it?" she asked.

"Yeah, I've watched a video about it," the girl who had looked back and returned and come to my rescue answered, half absentmindedly. She had the kind of expression people wear at funerals. I had never been to one, but I had confronted many in films. She turned to me and uncapped the mini plastic bottle. "Hey"—she sounded as if she was trying to brighten her tone and forget the funeral, and as if it was a hard thing to do—"look up and tilt your head to the left at thirty degrees."

"Got it." I did what she told, bearing no doubt in her words. My symptoms had soothed a bit as I had finally gotten to catch my breath outside the field.

"Keep your eyes open. Hold still." She held the bottle just above my face. As her wrist listed, the saline streamed over my left eye to my cheek, then my chin, my neck, and my shirt. I noticed her paintless hand. "Blink."

I gently closed my eye to squeeze the liquid out. As I raised my hand to wipe the remaining drops off my face, she skittishly clutched my wrist with her other hand. "No! What are you doing?"

"To dry my face?" I said.

"You can't do that!" she frowned piteously as if it was going to leave me chemical burns. "Those chemicals will seep into your skin. God knows what those assholes put into the tear gas. That stuff could be carcinogenic!"

"Shit, right. I forgot," I apologized, trying to sound like I cared about that as much as she did after I had just almost lost her. I lowered my arm and Claire loosened her clutch.

"Just... be careful," she said, nodding. "The other side," she guided, and I at first couldn't seem to comprehend the fraught nerves and bitterness in her tone.

I tilted my head to my right, and the world tilted, like a table with one side of legs frayed, and the streets where the lights, the newspaper stalls, the cars parked became steep slopes, flooded as Claire Everine repeated the procedure, while stroking my hair. "You're worrying the shit out of me," she said. It was almost a whisper. She probably thought I hadn't caught her. I had, but I decided to hold my jaws still instead. "Alright, done."

I waited until most of the saline had left my eyes, and blinked a few times. I stole a glance at Claire as she slid the empty bottle into her jeans' pocket. "Wait, you've used it up?" I asked.

"It's not enough for us to share." She shook head and patted the dust off her jacket, averting her eyes from mine.

I squeezed the skirt of my dampened shirt. It would have been enough, I thought, if she had skimped on the saline. "You should've taken care of yourself first," I advised. I still remembered the immense twinge of guilt i had felt not knowing where she had been on Fifth Avenue, and it felt more real than any memories we shared, even though we had turned out fine, only almost not fine.