Nov. 12, 2024: "Let’s have you write about a chance encounter in an unexpected place. Let one of them be in need, and the other, against their own expectations, find themselves eager to help."
Clutching the puffy winter jacket around her shoulders, Alisa trudged down the sidewalk of the strange city. How she ended up here was a mess: it was a terrible idea to go partying with people she didn’t know, and a worse idea to let them drive her over the state line into a city she’d never visited before. But here she was, dressed for an evening in someone’s living room and not for late autumn/early winter outdoors. The winter jacket was filthy, had been discarded by someone, perhaps a week ago by the looks of it, and though one sleeve was sodden from where it lay in the gutter, it was still better protection than her short, sparkly dress from the elements.
Everything after that was a slapstick of disaster: one of her heels broke; she left her purse with ID and phone on a bus; she’d made up an excuse for friends and family that would take them a day or two to see through, to excuse her absence during this hare-brained adventure. Alisa was accustomed to seeing herself as the smartest person in the room (don’t ask her friends whether that was true), but as she limped down the pavement, she was feeling pretty down about herself.
The building she found herself in front of was a large, square, powerful bank, closed for the night. Three floors up, she could see a cleaning woman vacuuming an office; otherwise, all the lights were out in the building. The streetlights glowed on her and she could see her reflection in the broad, smoky windows. She looked wretched, with the stained coat, the inadequate dress, the tear in her stockings and the way her heel-less stiletto made her foot rest. Her hair wasn’t in the best shape, and her makeup was running with tears. At least she hadn’t been violated, she told herself: no, her new “friends” simply lured her to another city, got drunk behind a liquor store, caused trouble on the bus and fled without looking back as she stumbled after them.
She turned away from her own reflection, wounded by what she’d seen and everything it represented. At this time of night, half an hour after all the bars closed, she had no idea where she was going to sleep, much less how she was going to contact help to get home. She continued down the sidewalk, glancing at all the strange buildings, hoping to see nobody else as she thought about next steps.
The two contenders for priority issues were finding shelter and getting something to eat. Weren’t there any all-night eateries anymore? And even if there were, she realized, who’s to say they’d buy her sob story and give her a freebie. Shelter it was, then, and she’d deal with the rest tomorrow. But if a restaurant wasn’t going to give her free food, any hotel in the downtown area would more likely be inhospitable. She slumped against the wall for a moment, overwhelmed with sorrow and self-hatred, when she looked up and saw something unusual.
Most of the buildings around here were either pressed up against each other or had narrow alleys between them. This area was different: there was an old convenience store whose distance from the bank formed a small park, of sorts. There was a sculpture in colored lights, and inside that was a small burbling fountain, with a park bench against the store. Alisa looked around: there was no one around to see her enter this space, so she limped inside and collapsed on the park bench. The aged wooden boards bent slightly under the impact.
“I’m not that fat,” she cried bitterly, drawing her knees together. She glared at her traitorous footwear. As much as she’d paid for these shoes, one would think they’d hold up better in a year of light use. She looked up at the sculpture. It didn’t look like any particular thing, just some spiraling leafy branches and splays of colored lights showing it off from different angles. Frowning, she looked at the empty bench beside her and wondered if she’d get any sleep here.
The stir of gravel beneath her made her yelp; she quickly drew her legs beneath her on the seat and craned her neck, looking for a wild animal, a critter, hopefully a squirrel and not a raccoon. She didn’t see anything like that at first, nothing running back into the bushes as she looked around. “What the hell,” she whispered.
When she heard it again, she got scared. Whatever it was, it was methodical and not easily frightened off. Slowly she peeked beneath the bench. What she saw didn’t make any sense: the shapes were familiar but it was inherently wrong. Forgetting her concern, she gripped the edge of the bench, extended one slim leg to the ground, and cranked her head around to study it.
It looked like there was a tiny man in a tiny, crude outfit, dragging a Polish brat across the gravel. He looked up at her, and he even seemed a little cross. He had dark, messy hair, as though he’d cut it himself with a knife. His clothes looked like scraps of fabric that he’d stitched together to cover his torso and legs, like layers of tunics to trap his heat. Of course: if she was cold, a little guy like that must be freezing. Except he wasn’t, he was dragging a sausage to her stockinged foot.
“You look like you’re having a worse night than I am,” he called up to her. “I brought you something. It’s not hot, it’s a little dirty, but it doesn’t look like you have a lot of options.”
Alisa stared at him a long time, wanting to scream, and yet his smallness—and his strangely confident attitude—made the encounter feel a little familiar. Slowly she reached down to pick up the sausage. He ducked to the side as her fingers spread and neared him. The brat was cool and greasy, but it smelled okay (no rot or mold or anything else) and only had a couple flecks of dead leaves stuck to it. She wiped those off and gingerly took a bite; betrayed by her body, she quickly scarfed it down, her nose filled with eastern European seasonings. It wasn’t even bad, cold.
“Thank you for that,” she said, looking down at the little man, who was standing nearby, staring at her foot. “I said, thank you.” He seemed dumbfounded. She slid her leg over slowly to nudge him in the belly with her big toe. He sputtered and flailed as though someone had tossed a firecracker down his tunic.
“Ah, yeah, fine, you’re welcome.” He regained his balance and stood on two small rocks, craning his head back to look up at her. “And you’re gonna need a warmer place to sleep, if you’re planning on spending the night around here, it looks like.”
She nodded miserably.
“My name’s Cody. This is kind of my area, but I know that the store here has a broken lock on one of its garden-level windows, and they keep the heat running all night when November starts. Don’t fuck things up for me and steal anything, okay?”