PUNK PROSE: Walking Home, 6/24/22 by Jessica Gleason
Shar walked down the same road every night; the third street light always flickered though never went out, and inevitably something would be rustling in the trash cans in front of Ms. Monroe's house. Tonight was colder than the night before and tomorrow would be colder still, but Shar refused to cover her hollow clavicles; the space between the top of her black boots and the bottom of her jeans shorts was exposed to the night air. She resisted shivering, though no one was around to see her. It was a matter of principle. She was tougher than that, tougher than a little Chicago wind, tougher than Clark or Will or that rat fucker, Tommy Lee.
The keys between her fingers occasionally clinked together as she walked, a musical accompaniment to her uneven stride. It was a two-mile walk home from the library each night. Though, looking at her, most wouldn't think "librarian." She'd heard all of the insults and assumptions, but librarian wasn't one of them. Tattooed arms, a blanket of dark hair, and those knee-high lace ups, always threw people off. Of course, they never looked close enough to see the hobbits and elves circling her upper arm or the Frankenstein quotes on her lower, literary and also badass.
Her brain was always thrumming along, playing a neverending game of "what ifs" and she would often walk at least one block too far on Main Street, adding another five or ten minutes to her stroll. Tonight's big questions involved her person-hood, her importance on a larger scale. Feeling incomplete and inconsequential, she was angry. Angry wasn't her default, but she'd felt it bubbling up under the surface all week. There wasn't much she could do about it, no immediate solution, no feel good band-aid to make it better. Shar hated feeling out of control. It's why she liked the books so much. Each had its place, a sequence and a home somewhere amid the shelves. It made sense. It was quiet, unlike the world in which she lived.
Queasy, she stopped to throw up right on the hood of Tommy Lee's prized 1984 El Camino. Fuck that guy and his stupid car. She wiped her mouth with her arm and continued walking.
Upon returning to her tiny cottage, packed in among all of the larger flashier homes on her block, she opened the door and tossed her keys in a half-empty candle jar on the bookshelf and sat down on the couch she bought off the previous tenant. Old and worn in, in desperate need of replacement, and she flipped on The Golden Girls for the umpteenth time, hoping she'd make it long enough to be a fiery old woman, complacent enough with the world to sit around eating cheesecake with her strong lady friends.
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