Fiction

"Restore my hair with that cream."

She was smoking in the non-smoking room, like a queen bee, surrounded by drones. I was using a smokeless pouch to get my fix. She was like diamonds in my eyes, burning and glinting and making me feel rare. Like a rare slab of pork meat. Languid but tense. When I tried to speak the words were heavy like pudding. English pudding. Paste. I spoke the words anyway. The words I spoke were in the language I learned before I was born. The language that angels speak. It sounds like a cliche but it is actually the language of love. I don't recall what it was that I said. Maybe "hi".

"Restore my hair with that cream."

She whispered through the smoke and I walked up to her like Richie Rich walking up to a stack of gold bracelets. I took the gel tube of heair cream from my canvas tote and nodded, removed the cap, applied the cream. That is the last thing I recall. Then I woke up in this hammock here. In the lemon yellow jumpsuit. Scorchingly.