The Golden Rule

Ch 2: Crazy Pain

She was in horrible, stinging pain. She was shaken out of her sleep by a slight throbbing pain at the back of her skull. She rolled onto her back to get more comfortable on the ragged, lumpy, cotton mess of a mattress. It was not getting any better. Thinking back to yesterday, she didn’t see what the problem was. She had been sober for three days, but she now really needed some dizzy juice. It was slightly bright enough in her room to see the splinters in decaying wooden floor, but she couldn’t tell whether it was the morning or the afternoon. She let her lethargy drag her back down and tried to recapture the only thing that gave her any sense of peace in the Sixth City, sleep. A dim light shone from the hazy window above her head, and after a minute of the light gently attacking her face. Fine! Im up! Im up! Les just get this over wit! she thought as she pushed off her rags and made an ungainly rise.

Upright, she could feel the all too familiar warm dampness in the air that was nearly suffocating her. Coupled with the headache, her irritation drove her to hastily run across the damaged floor towards the window to try to pry it open. She struggled and sweated against the unyielding rusted metal in a quick burst of panicked energy, groaning as her muscles tensed at the incredible pressure, but it was no use. The slight buckle of the window sounded like satisfied laughter in her exasperated state. With her bruised palms, she made a fist and pulled her hand back in a desperate attempt to try and break the window open, but she halted when on closer inspection of the window, she saw the little handles that locked the window. Her anger faded immediately, and she let out a small chuckle of relieved laughter.

 Man, I woulda messed up my hand if I'd done that! she joked as she gently twisted the handles and yanked the window upward.

            A warm breeze whipped across her face and briefly refreshed her drowsy spirit and moist skin. She smiled and breathed in deeply, but she quickly regretted that decision as a puff of smoke went into her lungs. “Ack! Ack!” she grabbed her throat as she started coughing rapidly and some moisture started coming out of her stung nose and eyes. She wiped her face roughly with the back of hand and looked out into the street. She saw the depilated, old buildings and shelters littering the broken, crowded concrete, and smoke rising into the sky that was familiar all around the city, and she assumed was in all the cities in Onyx.

“Whoa, girl! You gonna give me a show?” howled an old man wearing a long coat standing on the sidewalk below her window.

“Ewww! What makes you…” she had spit out before she suddenly remembered that she had slept naked last night, and looking down, she could see that her whole upper half was exposed to the outside world. She rolled her eyes and curtly retorted, “Move alon oldie. You don have the money.”

“Ya… don kno wha…I got. Come dow so… so I kin play.” he slurred. His teetering and swaying gave away that he was completely under the spell of the dizzy juice, and not being one to waste opportunity, she ripped off a loose chunk of wood from the floor and chucked it at his head. The wood hit directly in the center of his forehead, allowing blood to streak down his dirty face and fall flat on his back. Satisfied, she left the window, but she looked back to briefly enjoy the sight of small children ravaging the man’s pockets and ripping his clothes off. Thas wha you get. she thought as she decided to get ready for the day.

            Her eyes swept the littered floor to her giant sundry pile of clothes and bags. She let her knees fall onto the pile and flung the various cloths left and right, but none looked particularly appealing to her. Finally settling on a top and bottom, she moved back to her mattress and slipped on a faded pink spaghetti strapped tube top that wedged into her sides, a pair of tiny blue shorts with a short red skirt on top and scuffed, red painted army boots. She went to rusted cabinet next to a long jagged edged mirror to put on the finishing touches.