speaking from the I eye #4

ANYMORE

Scene Four

Woman's footsteps are heard by the girl who stands shivering in the building's entrance. She is smoking a cigarette between fro­zen fingers. February in this hemisphere is the most despicable, depressing, deadly month, despite statistics. The light is brown, it's night but never black because of the miserable streetlamps fighting to keep the city alive. All is doused with grey fog that smears everything like a sepia filter from 2010. Because it's nev­er bright enough to notice, grime covers everything, clothes are dank from too many days in the same combination of layers because who can afford multiple outfits when the temperature is freezing. The post stopped delivering and the shops are closed. The edges of curbs are broken, rubbish straggles where no-one picked it up. Furniture has been left out by someone whose shop was shut down by the police for suspicious activities a year ago and never re­opened. She wonders why no-one takes the furniture and answers for herself. The breath of those few still out on the street is visible, announcing their presence as if to announce the epi­demic, silently. The assault on the public is conducted in the same way. They all advance alone, sneakers absorbing the impact via worn rubber, hands shoved in pockets or guided by the small hand screen; eyes bowed. She wants to scream for someone to save her from this frozen desert but takes another puff. She doesn't even enjoy the cigarette and should because they aren't cheap. No matter how hard she sucks, an end won't come quickly enough in this wasteland. The footsteps get closer. A tram rattles down­hill, lights on, empty. Behind it, the fluorescent lights of the Syrian fast food restaurant's signage burn holes in the fog and make everything uglier. This brutal lighting announces in a quiet but confident voice the general disregard for life that grounds every decision regarding what used to be called the public sphere; the Syrians will take the brunt of it, she thinks. She looks at the shrubbery nearby and wonders if it's there to help the growing population of electric cars feel more at home in their new country. But determines that it's probably to serve as a place to hide rubbish, or for dogs to piss. Another puff and the woman's footsteps are coming to her now.

Scene Five

'What are you doing?' The woman with footsteps has stopped in front of the girl and speaks in a playful voice, in a language she understands but doesn't speak well. 'I'm smoking, a fag,' the girl replies in her own tongue, glancing out from the entrance, eyebrows raised, to notice the woman's smiling face, teeth ever so slightly grey from wine. You never see that anymore. And she is a bit drunk. She is dressed in a long brown leather coat with a red scarf, sporting a large black backpack embroidered with a name and the date two years ago, surely containing a laptop and multiple drives; her shoes are square-toed and flattened with an elegant heel. Probably on her way home from after-work drinks, like a hipster tech worker, but the backpack is retro, reminds the girl of brick phones and packing lunch in Tupperware. She laughs out, 'Give me one,' and the girl is startled from her fantasies. She unzips the pocket of her navy-coloured puffer coat to take out the carton of cigarettes, she opens it and peels one out for the woman, holding it by the brown tip between the index finger and thumb, upwards like a candle. As she stretches out the arm holding the cigarette the woman moves closer. 'Thanks,' she takes it. 'Want a light?' There is silence as the woman atten­tively curls her fist around the cigarette and moves the fist up to her own mouth, staring into space. She repeats the movement with her forearm a few times. The cigarette is invisible now and to passers-by it must look like she is punching her mouth in slow motion. She stops that. 'I'm meant to be quitting, I don't know why I took it from you.' The woman laughs again and looks around her, noticing the graffitied word URAINE on the casing of the e-parking payment machine. 'There are worse things in the world than tobacco,' the girl mumbles and rolls her eyes. 'Look, I'll take it back, save you the trouble of having to smoke it.' The woman looks up, and into the girl's eyes, with a light smile she says, 'That's kind of you, you're well trained, I see. But I cannot bear kindness. Don't you have anything else to say to me other than kind words?' They stare at one another, the girl feels her throat dry, her eyes sting in the fog and she dismisses the thoughts. 'Now, I was just stepping out on this miserable night to have a smoke before bed, I didn't need to talk to you. I'm turning in.' The girl takes a last, long inhale and makes a move to throw the butt. 'Are you?' This time the woman reaches her hand out, and caresses the arm of the girl gently.

Scene Eight

She's crashing endlessly upwards, carrying a recyclable shopping bag full of old electronics. On each turn, her shoulders fall into the concrete walls of the stairwell as she drags the bag, scrambles and gasps for breath, pushing her failing legs to keep going. They are burning from the effort to keep the pace stepping up. She's afraid and dizzy and still she is laughing, choking with laughter; because she can see herself from the outside and it's objectively funny. Could someone have spiked her drink, who does that anymore? Someone rich with a cruel sense of humour, or a Student running a test. She used to be one of them; once you start it's hard to get out of it. She had help, but that's harder and harder to find. Objectively funny. She hasn't laughed like that since she and Rhoda spent all their evenings on the balcony drinking wine and cackling. She can hear the GSM vibrating above; she knows who it is. She keeps panting, pushing upwards, laughing and smashing into the narrow contours of the stairwell as she ascends; there is no natural light, just beige bulbs sitting in frosted plastic cones on each landing. The doors, two per floor, are reinforced metal and each has an array of stickers with several illegible names scrawled on them. She enjoys the pain in her chest. With Rhoda, their jokes were usually about the daily encounters with the Students and the ways they'd come up with to trick them: 'I called them up myself today, I told them there was a problem in the building, I knew they wouldn't come. They mocked me on the phone, "We don't do house visits unless there's a dir­ect threat to the Movement." Then I just kept ringing, each time a different person answered. There were so many of them at one number, but I knew they weren't all in the same place. I asked them if they felt content as individuals and inevitably they would tell me to stop wasting their time, because as Students they have more important work to do than paying house visits for a problem in a building. What did I think they were there for, therapy?' Rhoda and I found the Students' posture hilarious, these kinds of stories could keep us going for hours. This was back in the days when we hadn't found a way to differentiate our­selves; we didn't identify strongly as Students but our behaviour basically reproduced their logic. We were them. These thoughts stream through her mind like whirring air conditioning and then down her face in real liquid form, as tears. And her legs almost give out under her. She reaches the door: PRUDENCE. Fumbles for the key and pushes it, the door jams a bit and she squeezes past dragging the recyclable bag across the stained parquet to get to the vibrating GSM on the other side of the living room. It's the woman. 'Yes, it's me, I'm back. You can come.'

Scene Seven

She leans her head back on the sofa, which is grey and wide, eas­ily big enough for four people. Her dark hair curves around her face like a frame for its pale skin. Her eyes lower and she speaks to the girl in her own language, 'I wanted to ask you what business you're in but since we are here I can tell. You know, it's funny that I work in hi-tech and you work in low-tech. Don't you think?' Sitting on the sofa's edge, eyes looking at the woman from an angle, the girl is silent. 'Yesterday I told you I was quitting smoking but I lied, I love smoking. I'm actually trying to quit something else.' The girl smiles. The woman continues, 'The Student Movement has been part of my life as long as I can remember. But I am stuck. Personally, I mean. I have no one to speak to. I mean, I fear I'm going crazy. That night I met you, I had this feeling that maybe you could help me. I was attracted to you. I know we have nothing in common.' She looks up and her lips curl upwards, and there is silence. The girl moves her hand and places it on the woman's thigh, 'What were you saying about hi-tech and low-tech?' The woman leans up a bit and brushes her hair from her eyes. 'You don't have anything to drink, do you?' 'No, I'm sorry, only Kale, been a long time since I could buy shit.' The woman is a little surprised but laughs it off. 'I en­joyed that wine yesterday, what a treat.' 'Yeah, I can only im­agine,' her hand is still on the woman's thigh. 'I can only offer you Kale.' 'It's fine, I'm fine, thanks,' she looks at the girl and then around the room. They are on the eighth floor, the large win­dows have beige semi-transparent blinds over them and look like they haven't been opened for years. The parquet floor is covered in water stains and scratches but isn't dirty. The sofa is good quality but old. There is a tram bell chiming in the distance, down below. The wall opposite the sofa is lined with black shelves, floor to ceiling, neatly organised per category with out­of-date electronic communication devices: touch screens, brick phones, iPads, AirPods, iPods, pagers, fax machines, landlines, laptops, iPhones, radios, Kindles, bluetooth speakers, head­phones, digital cameras, and things she didn't recognise. Seeing all these objects made her feel nauseous, she started to remember having used many of them. As her thoughts drift backwards in time, the woman hears the girl reply that she would be happy to try to help, if she can, with what the woman thinks she needs. And that she agrees they have nothing in common.