Behind the Door

“What’s her deal?” The cup vibrates a staccato as Ala sets it on the bar. The customer swoops it up and disappears out the door.

“Why would she say that?” Ala walks around the bar to wipe a perfectly clean table. The rotations of her rag slow, then abruptly increase to a near furious spin. She can feel her heart thud against her breast bone. The hairs on her head rise just a bit as she pivots around the room, looking for something… anything to do.

She moves a chair that clacks down harder on the tile than she means it. She snatches the rag with a snap and pauses to note it tremor on her hand. She clenches it tight, and sets to wiping the finish off the next table.

It’s no good. She looks up as her breath catches. Koos. She has to go. Koos! She scans the café, only a couple usuals. Lisa is due back from break any minute. Ala sucks a rippling breath. Rut and koos! Not now. Her vision fills with liquid.

She blinks, once, twice, 15 times. But it won’t stop. She feels the liquid sliding inside her nose and tries as long as she can not to, sniff. Deil! She swipes a hand under her nostril. It comes away wet. Frantic now, she paces to the door. Street is too busy. Koos! There’s Lisa. Ala spins and disappears through the swinging door, cutting across the murderously casual, “Miss, could I get…” She hears the door jingle and makes a break further back desperate to disappear before the door swings open behind her. She hunts right, then left, spins, then bolts for a narrow door in the far back corner.

Her fingers tremble against the door frame until she can release the latch slowly enough to make no noise. She flips a lock and spins again. Her bare knee below her black skirt burns across the corner of the box she can’t see. Rut! Don’t fall! She steadies the stack and feels the raw skin ignite in the kiss of air.

She rattles out a sodden breath, and tries to inhale, but her diaphragm convulses. She feels around the boxes and slinks back to a gap at the rear of the closet. Will the cardboard and paper muffle her sound enough? The sting in her lower thigh draws her hand. It pulls back slightly sticky and clutches her forearm. Her fingertips graze the series of fine linear ridges in her skin. Then the floor collides with her knees. Her legs splay sideways under her and she wraps both arms tight around her middle. Her forehead makes a dive for the tile, but she manages to hang it in midair.

Her hands scrabble their way up to her mouth. Her cheeks are wet. She hears tiny plips on the tile while she fights to unfreeze her lungs. A trail of saliva rills over her lip and draws downward. Her whole body wracks as the last of the air in her thin frame morphs into a voiceless scream.

Her hands fall to brace on the floor, each finger trying to dig its way through the tile in one animal scrape. Fire, pain, teeth flash over and through her body. Her jaw locks as her skeleton tries to crawl out through her forehead. Her neck aches in the fight until, on the brink of unconsciousness, the catch in her belly releases and she sucks the stale razored air. Her lungs violently repel the invasion, setting off a panting war for breath. Pressure strains behind her face, bursting capillaries under her skin, behind her eyes, in a soul scream that rends her throat, but doesn’t make a sound.