[lizziebith]

I didn’t want to go into that room; I could tell already that it stank. I reeked too, of gasoline, and you’d think I wouldn’t what with the shortage and all, but long-haulers were outside pumping like there was no tomorrow. Maybe they were right. But I needed no new stink on me, no belch-perfume, no human chimney plume, no damp-flesh-rot, please. But I was pushed.

I came in off the 43 and out of the late afternoon and pressure gradient and noise of whinging brakes, but I still didn’t want to go into that room. All doorways and no way out, I thought to myself. All walls and ceilings and no shelter. Not like I knew what I’d do with shelter.

So, I blew in, and there was no turning back. I’ve found I’m reckoned only in terms of my direction, and forward is the only way I know how to go. So in I went. And inside, I found the angles confusing; I ducked under the remnants of the room’s original outer wall and curled quietly into the jamb of a long-barred door, and there I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and... Until you came.

And you breathed me in and took me away.