“The Soulless” XII
Posted by fictionforum on July 28, 2008
The breakfast rush wakes me up. Anya has left her cot all crinkly with night movements. I stretch and yawn and scratch myself. No shame. Why bother? The fat lady with the horrible cough lays in the cot beside me, she’s still asleep. Curled into her breast, almost disappearing between sheet and bosom, is her daughter, Claudette.
When we first met, I was lying on my bunk, watching the big orb lights stare at me. Suddenly the wide face of a little brown girl, with egisma blotched skin, fell into view. She stood over me queerly with a perplexed look on her face.
“Wharrya doing!?” She squealed. This question, I could tell, had been on her mind since the hour I had begun it. Her voice was wavy and uneven, very comical and endearing. She had short, brown hair, bobbed at her earlobes, and these wacky animated eyes. She was enjoyable- for a six year old. She talked endlessly but I was never bored of her. When I walked away from my bunk, she’d leave me alone. If I was talking to Anya, she’d lay silent as mouse on the floor between our beds listening with exceptional interest. She kept her bottom lip puffed out as if at any moment she might interject with an intelligent and interesting statement, yet she never did- she’d lay, her hand gently scratching pink alligator arms.
Along with her interesting stories about Florida: riding dolphins, porcupines eating her shoes, salamanders in jars and sometimes bed mates, she has a collection of little stuffed animals. They’re pink tigers and fluffy purple dragons and a leopard print elephant. They were made by her grandmother in Florida, each handmade, the fabric carefully selected.
“My granna makes goo’ aminals don’ you think, TOM?” She always said my name really loud- just incase I didn’t know she wasn’t speaking to me.
“Yes, I think so, Claudette, very nice.”
I’m in line for breakfast. Today, it’s barely edible french toast sticks. They’re these over processed, over manufactured, reconstituted bread bits. They’ve come right from the freezer of an elementary school. The sugary syrup comes in little plastic containers, the milk comes in tiny fuzz-filled cartons, the cereal comes in cold boxes. Today we get canned peaches. They’re all smothered in their sticky confectionary yolk. Then the wrinkled oranges are piled up in a cone shape. A lady with a blue plastic glove hands me an orange. It’s dried and cracked, brown and green on one end. I’m going insane in here! I’ve got to get out! When will they have this situation under control?
