The Tiffany Box- ONC 2021 Shortlister

1- Dissolve in the Sky

Dr. Clara Abernathy tapped her pen on the surface of her desk. From behind tortoiseshell frames, she looked at her patient. The wall clock ticked lethargically. Thirty-three minutes had already passed without a single utterance. "Is it normal?"

A pair of blue eyes looked up through a curtain of dark hair. The young woman across from the woman mouthed, What?

"Your perpetual silence." The doctor exhaled exasperatedly. "It's been half an hour."

"I'm not in the mood for chit-chat," the patient finally said. "Not in a place like this which has little to say when I speak."

"You're not talking to the walls now. You're talking to me."

The young woman looked at the ceiling. There was a spot of dampness the size of her fist. A few days ago it was the size of a button. By their next session, it would have overtaken the world. "You're about as intelligent as the walls."

"Ashlyn."

"Clara," the young woman said mockingly as she diverted her gaze to the window.

"It's Dr. Abernathy."

There were birds sitting on a branch outside. The weight of them made the skinny bough bend. "I'd rather if I could return to my room," Ashlyn uttered.

"You know that's not possible right now. We still have half an hour. Tell me. How are you feeling today?"

Ash's fingers slid under the collar of her gray shirt. She coiled the chain of her necklace around her finger. Dangling from it were two hearts, one which read Return To Tiffany and Co. "I'm overwhelmed." Dropping the chain, she looked at the doctor. "Not by being here with you but by being here. Years trickle like sand through my fingers. Thoughts of the future are no more than smoke on my cigarette. I feel like I'm incapable of tolerating my own heart. There's nothing left in this cage. I want to stumble and fall into the clouds. I am in the mood to dissolve in the sky."

"Very profound for someone who didn't want to talk before."

"I guess I had to say something to appease you."

"Say you were granted freedom. I'm not saying it's a possibility, not with what you're in for, but let's just say you were to walk out one day. What would you do?" Dr. Abernathy asked leaning her elbows on the desk.

A decade ago Ashlyn had set fire to the house of a well-to-do man. It didn't matter that at the time he had been hosting a party for pedophiles. All that mattered was that he and seven other well-to-dos were found charred under the remains of his estate. The man, Dominic Vanderbilt, was her father. Though he had never harmed his child, she knew of her father's disgusting pastime and took justice into her own hands. She was ten years old at the time. Rather than being sent to prison, Ash was found mentally unstable and sent to a psychiatric hospital. But the real reason she was spared living a life behind bars, was because Ashlyn dreamed and the doctors thought she was a miracle.

"I'd step into the sunlight." Glancing at the boring white sneakers, Ashlyn added, "Perhaps go and buy myself a new pair of shoes..."

"And then?"

"And then I'd head westward. I'd keep on driving until the paved roads became dirt, and gravel spat out from under the wheels of my van leaving scratches on the side."

"Why a van, Ashlyn?" Reaching for a silver Zippo lighter, Clara began to roll it between her fingers.

Ashlyn knew the doctor kept four Zippos, three were silver. She had a handful of rainbow BICs: pink, orange, green, blue and white. And three packs of matches from the Remalda Inn.

"It would be available," Ash replied. "I'd drive and drive into the sunset, then drive some more till I entered the maw of night. I'd continue westward, stabbing at the dimness with my headlights until I found Him."

Setting the lighter down, Clara asked, "Him? Who's him, Ash?"

A rogue ray of light caught the silver lighter, making it shine. Ashlyn looked at it before replying, "God, Clara. I'd keep going until I found God."

Clara Abernathy did not correct Ash when she used her given name but did sigh. "God is everywhere, Ashlyn. Not in a particular place and if he were, I doubt it'd be west."

"Oh, that's not true. He lives in solitude, burning under a hot Arizona sun."

The doctor looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Do you dream, doc?" Ash said changing the subject.

"I'm not one of the lucky ones." The doctor's dreams were far and few, perhaps a dream every year or so. Each one was dull, nothing more than her driving down a dusty road while a song she loathed played on the radio. "I know you do, often."

Ash nodded. "Yes. I dream every night. Vividly."

"Honestly," setting down the lighter, Dr. Abernathy picked up her pen, "I think you're the only person I've ever met – in my thirty-nine years on this Earth – who actually dreams. It must be interesting, seeing things whenever you close your eyes."

Ashlyn nodded. In the seventy years that the facilities had been in operation, they had never met anyone like her, someone who dreamed often. But what they didn't know, what Ash kept secret, was that the dreams she had all belonged to other people.

word count: 923