Outage

When the internet was inconsistent at worst, people went outside to find a better connection, usually finding each other. Holidays were like cutting off the internet completely; everyone flooded the streets with cups and boredom, waiting to be filled. Like the worst and the best of us, the creatures came out at night.

On St. Patrick's Day evening, a man asked me if I wanted a sip of his witches' brew. My fireworks fizzled out. You get what you pay for, so I told him yes. One could expect a grand explosion when rubbing crystals together or when opening a beer can, but I found neither. On a state-mandated holiday, of all days?

The bartender with the soldier's cut winked at me as he sliced a yard of congealed orange off the top, and everything “good” – whatever wasn't the foam – sunk to the bottom. He hit the orange peel with the wrong point of the blade, causing it to split off from the cutting board, landing on the grimy tile and disappearing behind the veil of the bar top.

He told me he had another, but I told him the trick had lost its magic.

I usually get twist-off caps, but this time I wanted to write love letters in the condensation. I used to have a keychain that said "I love adoption" with a generic red heart that always seemed out of place with my keys. Maybe a smaller part of me wanted to capture the leftover warmth from the previous hand.

"Why aren't you wearing green?" he asked.

I swallowed the citrus with my spit, rounding out acetic acid into kidney stones.

"Don't want people to mistake me for a leprechaun," I smiled, but something was rising in my stomach.

When a man with a warm Budlite chimed in and asked if I had earned myself a pinch, I was no longer in the bar.

I was at daycare, and Andrew, a boy devoid of any green of his own, pinched me when I begged him not to. It was like the bee that stung my pinky. I let my guard down on the grass and was met with forces beyond my control. Nothing more, nothing less.

I asked for another one and chugged it, foam and all.

I went home alone that night and had a dream about a moth tattoo in the ditch of a girl's arm. We held hands, and I cried for her, for every second she couldn't. For her eyes were glued shut. She didn't tell me she was dead, but I knew she was. I buried her a shallow grave because she asked for resurrection. The best I could do was give my life to her. I buried her hands first. If she held on, neither of us would leave. So, I dug her crescent nails out of my palm and buried her head last.

When I woke up, I regretted my choice of a wave-patterned bedspread. I peeled back the ocean's cover and felt as if I was waking to a naked stranger hogging the sweat-colored sheets on Valentine's Day.

Somehow, knowing that I had found someone on this lonely holiday after all.

by Taya Boyles