MHS Literary Journal

A creative writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters.

                                                                                                                               -Richard Hugo

Taryn Feltke’s cigarette glowed poppy-red against the gray twilight. She finished her smoke, and scuffed it out with the toe of her Pepto-Bismol pink pumps, wrinkling her freckled nose at the smell wafting from the filthy dumpster that stood between her and the smoke-stained brick wall of the alley.

“The things I do for crank…” she muttered to herself as she opened another carton of cigs. She pushed her copper curls out of her face as she reached into her purse for her lighter again, cursing as she had to dig a little bit to find it. As she found and lit it, the flickering flame that licked hungrily at the tip of the white death stick illuminated her sunken features, whispering it’s light across her graceful nose that turned up a little at the end. As the flame flickered and collapsed, it caught for a moment in the stormy gray of her eyes…then died in the tired circles under them, as the hope in her soul had died long ago, and as her addiction to speed had blossomed like a bright red—

Poppy. The color of the lit cigarette that smoldered from between her bright red lips, dripping smoke into the air and tar into her lungs. Disgusted with herself, she scuffed out her half-smoked cig, and thought for the millionth time, I really should quit…

She shivered in the evening September air, reminding herself to wear a sweater over her light-blue spaghetti-strap mini-dress next time. She was rubbing her goose-bumped arms, peering down the narrow alley at the figure that suddenly appeared out of the shadows.

The figure walked slowly towards where she stood, and came to a standstill a foot away. “You got the dough?” they said in a baritone voice that had an icy edge to it.

“Do you even have to ask?” She replied haughtily, pulling a wad of cash out from her purse and placing it in the figures outstretched hand.

She thought she could detect a slightly crooked grin on his face, but it was hard to be sure in the shadows of the alleyway in which they stood. She could just make out him searching his pockets, and as he brought out the little plastic baggie containing the drug, she might have seen him flash her a lopsided grin again…or maybe not.

As he once again retreated to the shadows of the alley, Taryn turned and began to make her way down the alley to the streets of the city, thinking that perhaps she could get some work on her way home. She paused by an abandoned coffee house and reapplied her bright red lipstick, checking her pocket mirror to make sure she didn’t smear.

Looking at herself in the cracked glass of a broken window behind her, she hiked up the skirt of the dress and pulled down the bodice, revealing cleavage from a boob job that she had gotten as a freshman in

college…before she had dropped out, that is. She ran her hands through the masses of coppery hair that fell as a curtain of curls over her shoulders, detangling the knots that she could, but leaving the tangles she couldn’t. She checked herself in the mirror one more time and began to make her way down the street, waiting for a car to pull over with an offer. She had done this every night since she dropped out, and though very often she got only one or two chances per night, bringing about $200 to $350 per customer. The pickings were slim, but she couldn’t complain. It put food in the refrigerator and rent in her landlady’s mailbox.

Someone leaned out the window of a red SUV and whistled, but didn’t pull over, so she continued her walk through the streets of the Big Apple, skirting the gangs and pulling her skirt down as the cops drove by from time to time. Eventually she gave up and began the long walk home, but just as she turned to walk down 42nd street, she heard someone crying for help.

Hurrying as fast as she could in her high heels toward the noise, she came upon a scruffy looking man holding a revolver to a kid’s head.

The kid only looked to be about 15 or 16, but he looked terrified. Tears streamed down his face in rivulets as he cried and begged.

“Don’t shoot…Oh God, please don’t kill me! Somebody help me!” he gasped and whimpered. The panicked note in his voice appeared to have no effect on the man.

“Shut up, you little brat! Hurry up…gimme your wallet!” the man kneed the boy in the stomach, causing him to bend over in half, gasping for air.

Taryn dropped her purse, and began to run as fast as she could toward the mugging.

“Hey, leave him alone!” she shouted at the mugger, taking off her one of her Pepto-Bismol pink pumps. He continued jostling the teenager and holding a gun to his head, so she did what any college-drop-out prostitute would do. She took charge.

She aimed, and chucked her pink high heel as hard as she could at the back of his greasy head. It was a direct hit. The man went down like a rock, while the boy stood there frozen, as if the shoe had fallen from heaven. He looked up, his light blue eyes shocked, staring at her in complete amazement.

“What the hell are you still doing here? RUN!” she shouted at him.

He didn’t need to be told twice, and took off running down the alley, headed for 37th Avenue. The man regained consciousness as she made her way over to him to pick up her shoe. He sat dazed for a moment, before a murderous look of outrage crinkled his ugly face, turning red in his fury. Taryn froze when she saw him move, and her life began to move in slow motion.

He reached for the revolver, grasped it, and slowly pointed it to her.

“Stupid girl. Should’ve stuck to playing with dolls,” he stated, grinning maleovolently with yellowing teeth as he pulled the trigger.

Blood blossomed over her chest, red and flowing…almost as red as—

Poppies.