#hunterhenderson

Hunter Henderson with perfect hairy pits.

Shyly, but in all earnest to pipe his voice over the engine rumble: “Do we live together?” It might have been more appropriate to ask in the flat itself, but it’s only half about apartment keys.

     he doesn’t want to talk today. 

He doesn’t look like a policeman, but she doesn’t look like a Nexus, and there used to be breeds of insects that hardly looked like themselves their entire lives. If nothing else, they’ve made Annie suspicious of most sticks. Cowering from the rain, Nala winds and worms her way in and out of Annie’s legs with inevitable stumbles until the two find shelter and Hunter finds Annie. Nala stares at him wide-eyed between blinks of rain dripping from her fur. Annie does mostly the same with rounds of droplets gathering on the brim of her hat and splashing her face in great wet wallops. She splutters when she commands the dog. They make room for one more under the marquee.

   “What would you call me if I had a name?”

This is her favourite place. elly has a short list to pick from, but between Big House, Court, Home and Car, Car stands out for its quietude and simple lack of negatives. The only bad thing about a car ride is that it ends. She loves the dense sunwarm packed into a car with all the windows shut, and the hum of the engine quaking all through her from head to toes. But on the verge of utter calm, elly’s foot slips and kicks the back of Driver’s seat. She scrambles with a jolt upright, half-asleep, ish. “Sorry.”

Half moon, yellow lights, Mickey Mouse, soap. She’s out in her PJs, half-attuned to two circadian rhythms, the closest Cass’ll ever be to sleepwalking. She stops at the halfway point between her house and the car in direct path of oncoming traffic, if there were any, and stares for longer at Hunter’s car than at him. His breath fogs up. Hers doesn’t. If the lights weren’t so amber, he would be blue. She needs to fucking sleep. “D’you wanna cuppa?”

Hunter is still filling up the tank outside. He finds her in front of the car flipping thick-rimmed black shades onto her head just to squint in the sun, and she finds him waiting while the gas glugs, and besides them, the sun and the gas station, there may as well be nothing left in the world. “I payed for the gas. We good to go?”