The Frayed Spine’s staff room, wedged sideways across from the counter, looks as if it were put together to be a functional shoebox at best. With it having just about enough space, it can contain three people tops, and only if they arrive in a chipper mood.
Maz steps inside. In an attempt to avoid looking at Ron and Eli in the room, she turns to the coat rack. It stands proud in its overload by the door, taking up the largest area. A casual swing of her hand unhooks her cardigan from the stand before she slings it on.
This would’ve helped to fight the frost that followed Mr. H. It’s fine.
She heads for the buzzing electric kettle near the corner of the room. Its white plastic, along with the rest of the kitchenette, appears duller under the single strip light that hangs well off-centre far overhead, as weak as the rest of the shop lighting.
For every buzz and roar it fails to come to a boil, she pushes the sleeves of her loose cardigan back up to her elbows before they fall again.
Her hands graze across the edge of the countertop.
You can definitely pretend you’re… waiting here to make coffee. Yep. For now. That’s surely a good enough reason to be away from any more new faces.
Eli’s voice comes from behind her as he hums a short, half-remembered jingle on repeat.
Maz’s sleeves drop.
That melody… What is it? Something familiar, like the notes of a ticket number being called for the thousandth time.
She closes her eyes.
A thousandth time.
Ron hunches over the cutlery drawer beside Maz. He rummages through it with constant clinks and scrapes that join in with the kettle’s death rattle. When he glances at Maz, he gives her a smile, too crooked not to carry a concern.
Meg’s theatrical laughter trickles in through the wall and slides straight off. None of it sticks in here.
Maz stares at the microwave, where someone wrote ‘NO GODS, ONLY LEFTOVERS’ across its door.
Meg’s charming a customer. Where does she find the energy? Possibly her built-in mischief, probably too much coffee… maybe you do need one after all.
The kettle next to it carries on with a sound far too noisy for this room.
Maz takes a mug from its tower by the sink and puts it down on the counter.
If that thing can finish boiling today.
She turns, resting her back against the curved ledge as her eyes fixate on the floor.
Eli sits slouching in the middle. He teeters his chair on two legs at angles that test the edge of gravity. His thumb slides up and down on his phone with restless energy camouflaged as boredom.
He stops humming, his gaze sweeping between Maz and Ron, and returning to her face.
“You alright?”
Maz’s nod aims at his boots.
Eli’s chair comes back to four legs with a clack that makes her catch his eye.
Okay. I’ll ask her this time.
He puts his phone face down on his jeans before folding his arms.
“You don’t remember either?”
“I got… Maybe some hint of…”
“Yesterday?”
“Nothing.”
“Right.”
The kettle clicks off.
Maz’s fingers find the hem of her cardigan sleeve as she crosses the two steps to reach the plastic chair opposite Eli. She meets his gaze and sinks into the seat.
She leaves some space between them, close enough for her to feel the scuff of his boot and for their knees to not quite touch.
Ask him. Ask where he was. Or where you were. Did time get redacted, or did you?
“Did I…?” Eli’s eyes sharpen for a second, skate off her and land on his phone.
Am I looking for a better question? Do I have a better answer?
His thumb finds one by tapping on the side of his phone. He keeps on keeping time with the melody that has already been rerouted in his mind.
So, it’s plausible that we had a big night out and blacked out for… a while? Yeah, right. Say that and see what that does to her. I’m not volunteering to be that idiot.
She shakes her head as her lips join the motion with their twitching from side to side.
“Never mind.”
Ron watches them before he slides a teaspoon into his mug that holds a dry teabag.
Maz’s phone buzzes. She slides it out of her pocket. The screen, already lit up, displays a text preview from Eli:
‘Half for you, half for me?’
He offers her half a grin as he begins to drag the mint tin out of his pocket. It only goes halfway out when his finger dishes the embossing on it inward with a muted snap from partly under the denim.
She pulls her sleeves over her hands.
You want it too much. Stop it.
Her eyes widen, as sudden and brief as a warning before a fall.
Wait. He never mentioned that outside of home. Is it that bad? Well, all that time since you’ve been using it… Maybe just as bad.
She stops holding her sleeve as the kettle in the corner that no one has switched on again starts boiling and gets louder by the second.
Meg’s next laugh arrives much closer, as if it has made its way into her ears, yet quieter and more muffled than it did earlier.
The pattering rain outside grows more thunderous.
She sits straighter in the chair, her shoulders in a slump.
It’s like that day all over again. You were in the kitchen.
***
You were in the kitchen.
Of course, the kettle. It had been more than ten minutes since it had started boiling. You just knew it wouldn’t ever stop unless you ripped its plug out. You absolutely hated that thing ten years ago.
No. Ten months. Maybe so far back that it might as well be a myth. Well, it was definitely autumn. A proper one, until it forgot when it was time to leave.
Did the countertop have two shadows of you on it? No. The light was up to its tricks again, or your cardigan had gone loose enough to earn one for itself. Nonsense. One of them was moving for sure.
You really thought the flat was bigger then. You could see the front room window looking small from there. Like it was trying to lighten the mood, it made blurry ribbons out of the streetlight glows. Yeah, rain, of course. It was raining. Your damp fringe kept weighing down to your eye.
Eli was right next to you with his arms crossed. There was comfort in him being that close as he made it easier for you not to admit that you were actually leaning on him.
Ari was there too, standing by the doorframe with his hood up.
His eyes looked strange under the bare bulb’s dim light. They were the same wobbly colour as the tiles, wanted to be green, gave up halfway and tried on, for just a little bit, brown to match the season’s trees outside.
The way he smelled was even stranger. Had he been rolling in syrup that got fire branded? And probably dipped in some secret medicinal flower? Maybe metal. Whatever it was, it kept you having to fake a cough.
Ari shook the mint tin between his fingers so that its contents rattled like loose change.
“Half a scale keeps it balanced.” Either he couldn’t care less or he was already bored, but it did strike you as he might’ve said that before too many times. He carried on anyway.
“Everything worth feeling needs a little venom, you know.” He turned and stared at the rain on the window.
“Otherwise, why bother?”
Eli’s eyebrow reached a height that could’ve made you laugh if this was any other day.
“Scale, as in…?”
“It’s called ‘Viper’, so ‘scales’, not pills. Gotta respect tradition.” Ari’s smile broadened.
“You know, it’s a version of an old recipe. Older reason.”
He leaned close without ever stepping away from the doorway. When he opened the tin way too near your face, you knew that was where the strange smell was coming from. He let the mint tin sway from side to side, which let the green scales inside skitter with it.
“Relax. Natural as rain.”
Eli just shook his head and never let his eyes leave Ari’s hand.
Ari shrugged, losing his patience on how well his pitch needed delivering.
“Call it maintenance. For when the world forgets its own boundaries. You know… the mirrors that show too much, shadows that start acting up. This…” Ari gave the mint tin a knock.
“Smooths things out.”
Eli looked at you with a hope that you could decide for both of you.
You couldn’t take your eyes off the round scales that glinted green and black. Their edges were as fine as gold leaf. They looked expensive and oddly dangerous. Yet the promise in Ari’s voice carried a rest. Maybe peace, which you hadn’t known since, well, you’d forgotten.
The flat felt colder when the bulb above made a sound and flared brighter. The light returned weaker, but the cold didn’t go anywhere. You covered your hands with your sleeves, not that you were chilly. There was no need to make a display of shaky fingers.
“How do you…?”
Ari tapped his tongue with a wolfish smile fixed in place, like he was going to tell a dirty joke.
“Half for you, half for him.” His grin dropped.
“Then wait for the hiss.”
He looked across the doorway at something you couldn’t see that had stolen his attention.
“It’ll keep things from getting messy.”
Could a green little thing make the shadows go away? You didn’t know. You had the feeling that it might. You also had a hunch that an old story had just remembered you, not the other way around.
“And if we don’t?”
Ari closed the lid and placed the mint tin on the counter.
“It’s not a pull you want to follow.”
A shape of a snake coiled around a block letter V was embossed on top of the tin and ate up all the light. Was it medicine? It might have been evidence. You wanted it gone, and opening the lid had done so.
Ari took a step back.
“You’ll get the rhythm eventually.”
You laughed for the sake of making a noise and knew it sounded nowhere near a laugh, just didn’t want to count out loud that there were seven in there.
Eli walked Ari out. They were talking, and you tried to listen, but their voices were muffled at the door.
Thunder rolled outside as the sound of rain grew louder against the window.
The light hadn’t gone out, but the flat seemed darker. You didn’t want to look around since you were pretty sure you had a duped shadow, and it was leaning closer.
Eli came back with worry on every edge of his face and pulled a kitchen knife from the drawer. You saw his reflection in the blade, gone all grainy at the edges, as if aged into an old film.
He plucked out a scale from the tin and put it on a receipt lying on the counter. Its surface caught the low light in petrol rainbows. Green and black powder glittered on the paper like crushed emeralds as the cut ran jagged across its middle. He held out the half in his palm.
“Ladies ascend first.”
You caught the uncertainty in his eye and the question mark in his grin, leaned in anyway, and took it from his hand with your mouth. Your tongue grazed his skin on the way. The half-scale tasted bitter and metallic, and it was gone so fast you couldn’t even make sense of what you thought of it.
Eli watched you before taking his half next.
Nothing happened for a while, or nothing obvious. A silhouette almost took shape in the fridge’s reflection and disappeared without giving you any time to figure out if it had ever been there.
Something changed, and your heartbeat matched his breathing. Maybe the other way around. It was a strange thing to feel as it was both yours and not. Yet it still managed to make you imagine scales sliding against scales out of nowhere.
He stared at the wall.
“Feel that?”
You nodded.
“The hiss.”
The bulb cut out and dropped the flat into darkness.
Laughter took you both by surprise, startled by how suddenly clear everything was.
The light came back and went again. When it found its regular glow at last, the kitchen’s colours snapped back to normal. The shadows folded themselves away. The whole flat felt alive. You felt alive.
His arm found your waist and wrapped around. He pulled you closer until your temple leaned on his chest, his heart beating against your ear. It was good. Better with the smell of him, that Eli-smell you’d know by heart, even blindfolded in a riot.
He rested his chin on your head.
“Anything different?”
“Quieter.”
“Then it works.”
The kettle clicked off at last.
***
The kettle clicks off with a loud crack in the staff room.
Maz arranges a smile so stiff it might snap as her knee jitters. She tucks her phone away while she throws glances at the kettle, Ron, the door, and everywhere else except Eli’s fingers drumming on his phone.
That was… uncalled for. You’re fine. You’re not craving anything. It’s nothing more than a… habit.
Ron watches her, absentmindedly placing his mug down. The teabag inside it remains still dry. His chin tips down when he looks at the mint tin peeking out from Eli’s pocket. He picks up his mug again and adds the water.
Maz digs her lighter from her pocket. Her thumb presses the spark wheel down, not waiting for it to clear out of the denim.
She is already halfway out of the door before anyone can ask.
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