Anka

A scrawny teenager of 13–15 with tangled rose hair picked in a messy pony tail was sitting on a window sill of her room, looking sadly at the horizon with a steaming hot sugar free, milk free coffee in a glass mug by her side.

Oversize black hoodie she’s been wearing for a week or two, denim shorts and long stockings that used to look white a day ago.

It’s been day seven of her lonely stay at home. Parents went for a summer vacation, celebration of marriage anniversary, where she refused to take part in.

It would have been way better if her best friend, the white cat Percy was by her side. But he’s gone. More than a half year already. Went out in the window as he usually did and never came back. She missed him deeply. In this household where she felt alien and temporary, he was the only entity she felt connection to.

School was revolting, so her biggest dream was to get done with it as soon as she can. This thought only kept her tidy with studies, otherwise she’d stop attending that damned infirmary long time ago.

«When I graduate…» that’s how her dreams began.

«I’ll shave my hair bold and keep it that way till I get bored or cold.

I’ll move to Stockholm, have a room of my own in a dorm and erase everything I know and am now.

I’ll throw out the telephone… wait, no… I’ll erase… no, block all the contacts!

I’ll get a boyfriend or two… maybe… if and when bored… maybe not… only if they’re cute enough and love the same music I like…»

I’ll start sleeping with men — old, fat, all kinds of men… uggh! No! I don’t think… what if I get repulsed then and become a lesbian?… No… maybe not…

I’ll get a huge tattoo on my spine…Or… a Yakuza tat on my body! By a real Japanese ganster artist!!!! Well… aren’t they getting out of fashion… What if I change and wouldn’t want to associate with the tat any more?…»

These and other wondered through her mind like caravans of gypsies on their horse wagons you see sometimes on the road.

Coffee ain’t that hot anymore, so she didn’t want to drink it cold. «Maybe sneak in dad’s cabinet and pour some liquor from dad’s bar?’

She went where her thought flashed to, bothering not about slippers. The handle of the wooden bar was heavy and polished so she had to hold it with a T-shirt under her hoodie stretched out. There were four bottles fuller than half and one with less than. She picked the one with most liquid in. ‘Cognak’ — what the hell is this? The smell is awful!!! Internet hinted that the drink can be mixed with coffee! That seemed like a fare enough idea, for the smell was killing. She accurately brought her coffee to the cabinet sipping off some on the way.

Here she is lying on her dad’s sofa, coffee with cognac in her right hand and life seems not that bad. The drink still smelled, but coffee was a good partner, likewise strong and present in its taste. A moment of indulgence and she poured some more of amber liquid. She still touched everything through her short, holding her coffee mug anxiously. She had to drink quick in big gulps and leave the room, leaving no signs of her presence. But the drink was good. Disgusting as it was, she felt it’s fiary essence burning its way from mouth to throat, throat to gut. Then her body slacked and relaxed, lying itself on a sofa.

- Why the hell are you acting a stranger in your own house? — she heard a sharp feminine voice jerking her body convulsively. In attempt to rise quickly she spilled the remains of a dark brown cocktail on a light green parch sofa.

- Damn it! — she heard herself. She tried to wipe the stain with the sleeve of a hoodie, but it got bigger and messier.

Smoke… she felt the smoke… «What the fuck!!!» she thought rising on her feet slowly. Heart pounding in the eye of danger. She took a slow panoramic view around. Everything remained still. She tried to sharpen her hearing — no sound… But the smoke, cigarette smoke was overtaking the room.

«I’ll die. They gonna kill me…» — she thought and a tear started beading from her eye. How many times in her fifteen, ok, in the last five years, she wanted to die? At least three that were serious, where she read all the information from closed forums and sites researching what’s the quickest, easiest and un hurtful way to die. «Voilah! Here’s the moment X! Rejoice, Anka!» — her mocking soul was saying. «Does life seem sweet now?»

She couldn’t move. Body paralyzed. She froze in a slouched position with numbed legs straight. Coffee, cognac, stain… all that mattered no more. Eyes closed. All hope on heart. That it will burst of fear and end it before anything scary could begin. Who said Scandinavian crime mostly exists in books…

Who knows what time passed. It could be a minute that felt like a day or a day that flipped like a minute. Smoke didn’t not stop. She felt someone smoking very very close to her, yet her hearing and intuition didn’t recognize any obvious movement. It was scary to open the eyes, but body no longer listened to commands from center.

A rather chubby woman of early thirties or late twenties, bold headed, with tattoos covering her arms, was sitting at her dads table, smoking a cigarette. Crystal ashtray was full with twelve remnants of a cigarette. Her feet in greasy once white converse tennis shoes were up on the table, revealing a chaos of randomly layered tattoos on her legs and thighs. Mahogany table seemed to high for her short sausage like inked legs. Why the hell she hasn’t taken her shoes!» was the thought.

- I give no fuck! — was an abrupt, unexpected, harsh-voiced answer from a woman who seemed a strange mix of feminine and masculine, rather unknown, unidentified gender, but not in a pretty way, rather confused one. The scariest thing was that she seemed familiar.

Anka looked around in fear to find someone else.

- It’s me only. Wanna smoke?»

Anka’s body make a slow, unconfident step forward. She had an impulse to say that cigarettes are not allowed in household, but who fucking cared, when there’s a stranger in your house. She took a cig from a Marlboro pack stretched forward to her and took the lighter that was passed on through table, scratching the glossy surface.

Veins! Those veins look like mine! Anka’s eyes rose in panic.

- Yeah.. you’re right. These are yours… Recognize the scars, hah? — ugly grin with half green teeth and a coughing laughter.

Anka’s head tilted «no» slowly. Cigarette fell down, so she had to crush it with the white socking on her feet, gray socking on her feet. Handwoven beige carpet in her dad’s cabinet didn’t matter at this point, just like the sofa. She’ll deal with it later. Now — get sober. For it seems a hallucination visited her.

She looked at the stranger staring right in the eyes both scared and ready to attack. Her mouth mumbled something what she thought was a straight question «Who are you?»

When her eyes fell on the neck, she saw a huge diamond tattoo sparkling above a gigantic lily that was drowning in white armless tank top that made her look bulkier than she was.

- Like it? That was the first one, — said the woman fuming smoke though her nostrils.

«Big diamond and a lily» — these were the tats she saw in a catalogue of an ink salon they went with her classmate once. Her classmate’s boyfriend was a master and he offered to make her first tattoo for free, as a present. They drank beer that day and a cute little girl Mila apprenticing there gave her wrist for another tattoo to practice on.

«Shit no way…»

- Be grateful I’m alive. After five attempts of …

- Who are you?

- I thought you figured out… — another cigarette lighted.

Anka started feeling more adequate and sober, so the next move was to go check the front door. She rushed to the entrance. Pushed the door — closed. The door is closed! From inside. «Hallucination… hallucination… hallucination» kept humming her disturbed mind.

- Ah! — she cried out loud, for the lady was right behind her. Same hight, same face shape, eyes look similar… just more tired and yellowish…

She pushed her. Thick lady jerked and pushed her back. Anka’s frail body flew to the closed door, hurting her spine. Bold and aggressive person was approaching menacingly.

- If you fucking touch me…

- Who are you?

- Who the fuck you think I am? Try ter guess, will ya? Two abortions, homeless, jobless, crackhead, ex-boyfriend as a pimp, prostituting for a while… Need a job, am tired, came back to parents’ house, have some rest…

- Parents’ house? — almost screamed Anka. In that very moment she knew for sure that it’s impossible. She is the only child and by no chance both of her parents could have a monster of child like this thirty or more years ago. Each of them looked younger and better off than this…

- Didn’t you want that life, dumbo? — harshly laughing voice continued conversation.

- You… you… cannot be me… — Anka said almost inwards trying to pull her body up.

- Oh, I fucking can. Got in one university. Didn’t like it — quit. Ran away with a biker to Copenhagen. Lived there, worked a waitress for a year. Found another man, a traveling artist. Went with him to Italy.. That’s how it all went… One ill man after another. All dickheads you know. No fucking use of them. Tried girls… hm… better to live with, at least not as messy.. But you get no feelings and sensations, if ye know what I mean… — the he/she/it person cackled. — Lived a free life! Enjoy my freedom you know! Do what I want, how I want, went I want! Thinking of… hm… running a shelter house for stray cats… you know… I love them… Maybe open a fund and live on people’s donations. Penny by penny and me and cats…

- Stop! Stop it! This ain’t no fu…freaking freedom!

- Oh, girl, freedom is this! — the lady slowly turned around, showing off her body. — Eat whatta want, sleep whoma want…

- Can you leave!

- No, that’s my fucking house. You go and leave. I’m at my private space.

- I’m calling a police.

- Yeah! Tell them you’re a fucked up girl, who’s left alone in the house, ate too much of barbiturates and now hallucinates mixing that shit with alc.

- I’ll stab you then! — Anka was determinant to go and grab a knife from a kitchen.

- Ha-ha- she heard a rough voice distancing herself from the door. — You did that so many times to your body, who ever cares! Just finish yourself off already, let your parents live!

As Anka was coming back with a butcher’s knife mom used for meat, she walked in slow steps, feeling herself a wild animal trapped by another wild animal that’s bigger and scarier. Something ruffled in the back, she turned, the knife jerked… Shit! nothing…

- Hey! Hey you! Where are you? I’ll find you, bitch! — she screamed outloud.

Nobody seemed to answer.

She walked forward, back. Anxiously opened the wardrobe closet. Heart pounded billions of Gigahertz a second. Empty. She checked each and every room, one after another. No sign of presence. Where is that strange lady.

Suddenly the entrance door made a sound. A key was turning from outside. She stood in front. Her body precipitated making denim shorts and hoodie stick, palms too damp to hold a knife tight. One stocking rolling down too low.

The door opened. The end. Heart stopped. Some voices on the background.

«Miyao… miyao…» — she heard with her whole body, not just ears. A white little circle was moving towards her. The knife fell scaring the kitten and parents coming in.

- Mom… dad… — she said almost crying.

- Honey, are you alright?! — mama said worrying, running to hug perplexed Anka.

- I thought… I thought…

- Oh, you thought there were burglars, didn’t you? — mom was taking a knife away, to make dad not see. He was carrying a big luggage case indoors.

- Look whom we found? Isn’t he the cutest thing on Earth?! Just like Dodo, isn’t he?

The cloned version of Dodo was indeed, extremely sweet and scared at the same time, hiding under a chair. Anka stretched her arms to the little fur ball, taking a trembling being to her heart and covering him with her chin.

- Thank you mama! Your are the best parents in the world! Next time I wanna go with you!

***