#gideon002

Nights alone were foreign as dust from untrekked planets. Even in Crest, the whistle of her dad’s snores had broken the shouts and screams from upstairs neighbors, factory husks who reanimated once neon signs had cast out ink. The rattle of wind against windows, swaying apartment Piles, their dull groans. Rain tap tapping against awnings. Hoots and howls from jostling youth below, who smashed bottles against concrete, getting a rise out of strewing bitter liquid all around. The reek of alcohol and stale urine. Signs of life.

Here, she could very much be in limbo. Left alone to a bed that was actually a bed, a room that was actually a room…soft sheets and silence set her hairs up more than any crowded, concrete cell. The sound of carefully chosen prison ambiance sputtering from her armlet did little to calm her, no, her heart beat staccato as notes from her kazoo. Back in Purgatory… She rolled from bed, pulling her briefs up. Maybe her old cellmate would still be willing to hold her hand.

“Gideon?” Robyn tiptoed across the hallway to his door, knocking quietly. “It’s me, Robyn, I, uh, couldn’t sleep.”