Lia

My dog died last night.

It is yet another piece-of-shit morning in London. Cold February, touché. Subzero windchill, gloomy gloom, and low clouds. My skin is drier than it should be, eyes in drear, stomach somehow churning still; I’m hungover without having slept. A prison-sized window in my piece-of-shit room creaks open. Cigarette, flask: clockwork. It’s time to go to class. Snooze.

I am once again awoken within minutes. It’s mum.

“Lia.”

“Mum.”

“Did he make it?”

I pause to walk back over to the bookshelf and open a new bottle. She thinks I have bad network.

“Lia?”

She’s crying again. Sometimes I wonder if she loves him more than she loves me. She has a soft corner for bastards anyway. I am primarily bummed that the Vet’s wouldn’t let me take the shell and fur home.

When he died, I played with him. His fur was pristine as always, by the way. Smooth and not smelly, courtesy of yours truly. There’s something about his cold lifeless stomach that made me want to put my head on it. I wagged his tail and folded his ears. I got up only to go to the bathroom and empty my bladder. It seems my mother’s still preoccupied with emptying her eyebags.

“Mum. I have to go.”

“Goodbye, Lia. I love you.”

“Bye Mum.”

I gaze at the Tesco label and wonder if it’s going to be a good day. Who the fuck do I need to impress anyway? Swig, swig.

It is after noon, but you couldn’t tell by looking at the sky. I should go eat. I need to eat not because I am hungry; I am seldom hungry. I need to eat because the doctors say I can’t take my medication empty-stomach. I know to stay alive; I know to take my meds and not ask too many questions. The meds sit pretty in this little plastic box organizer. There are fourteen divisions, each an equal square, in two rows of seven. This should be the morning dose. Tuesday morning. One, two, three—water—four, five, six.

I am still in my underwear; things tend to get hot in here. I put on a pair of trousers from last night and a puffer jacket from the floor. Out we go.

Ah, fuck. My boots.

Out we go.

*


It is fucking raining again. I have not bothered to carry an umbrella. I have clearly not lived in London for long enough, which is a good thing actually. What I did bother to carry was my pair of headphones, trusty through rain and sleet and whatever else the Anglo-Saxons got cursed with. Today is a Tchaikovsky day.

We glance at my reflection in a puddle on the street. The streets are emptier than they were yesterday. A Hackney Carriage with a quintessential “TAXI” sign speeds through. It splashes the muddy puddle water all over the sidewalk, myself included; we are grey alike and now wet too. It’s a good thing I don’t give a shit about my pants—either way, they’re brown all the same now.

I often find a thrill in being soaked on a windy day. The cold is unpredictable; a shiver comes by every few minutes, teeth clink and clang, and nipples get hard. Seriously. The human body’s response to stimuli is truly sort of fascinating to me. I once had five or so cans of an energy drink within an hour and it felt like a thousand different broken shattered smug pieces of my heart were jumping on a wooden stage during an earthquake. I also once had five or so cans of beer within an hour and I felt nothing.

I quite dislike the anti-alcoholic narrative that is oft-propagated by the mainstream media. Having a high tolerance is great for social occasions since you get to watch everyone else make an ass of themselves while you stand tall as the elder brother. I always wanted to be an elder brother, but I am a woman. Sipping from transparent red glasses of wine also makes the sight of blood easier to deal with at times. This is worthy of note; I am a woman. I am a woman with a high tolerance for pain but with low patience for futility. Periods are futile. Being used to different types of alcohol also helps with business relationships, I hear. I will let you know of this if this degree manages to get me a job.

My Turkish eatery has arrived. Khan is going to have a good laugh at my expense.

*
 
Khan is quite the interesting character. He comes across as a bum who continues his father’s legacy of profiting from inauthentic cuisine from a different culture almost religiously. Nobody quite knows where Khan is from, or if he has any other family to speak of. I am Khan’s Habibi every time I enter. I just want someone to call me Habibi every day. I will settle for that, I think. Plus, Khan makes a damn good shakshuka and he gives me a nice Habibi discount. I have been left today with one of his newer batches of baklava as a take-home present. The rain is really shit and I need to go see my ex, Brent, who lives all the way in Croydon, that broke bitch. Uber is being Uber and I am praying that my Dad’s credit card doesn’t decline. On the bright side, Brent has promised to pay for this. On the London-sky-side, Brent is Brent.

I decide to walk to the Uber myself; she doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. I look for an overweight brown woman in a comically small car. I am quite astounded by the abundance thereof today, in fact. Meanwhile, this reminds me that I need to figure out what this baklava will pair well with. I’m not sure what they drink in Turkey, but they seem like happy people, at least happy by Middle Eastern standards. I would also be happy if I had neighbors like that. My neighbors don’t violate arms embargoes and so I am alone in my curation of a collection of smuggled pistols. This is not as concerning as it seems; I compare myself to the archetypical suburban dad who chugs beer and reads smut and lusts over guns. That is considered okay. I think I am okay, too.

In the meantime, I must be looking incredibly jaded. A car pulls to the front of the shop and brakes.

“Uber for Lia?”

“Jess?”

“That’s me.”

Oh, Jess. You don’t look very much like a Jess. I am assuming Jess is one of those people who give themselves white names to feel better about their identities. I cannot really ask Jess what her actual name is. Because DEI.

Jess also drives like a woke smartass, signaling lane changes in an empty roundabout and stopping for ghost pedestrians at zebra crossings.

“So, who’s in bumfuck Croydon?”

“My ex-boyfriend.”

“Your ex? You’re going all the way there to see your ex?”

“Yes. He’s- He’s not doing so well. How about you? Do you have an ex?”

She goes silent. I am not sure why she has gone silent, but I understand that she might be fighting her own battles.

“I’m sorry.”, I excuse.

“Yeah. What’s your body count, just by the way?”

I don’t know where that came from.

“Aunty, it’s about 9 or 10.”

“First of all, I’m not your aunty. Second of all, you look like you could be my daughter’s age. She goes to med school. Did you know that? It is hard. She is a very smart girl. You seem smart too.”

Her gestures as she drives and talks are quite animated. She keeps one hand on the steering wheel, and uses the other to signal and gesture and inflect. She also turns back to look at me between sentences while she talks, but not when I do. My phone rings and aunty shuts up. It’s Mum again.

“Mum.”

“Hey baby. You feeling okay?”

“I’m good.”

“Food?”

“Khan.”

“Oh, that man. You are blessed to have him.”

Blessed is a repulsive word to me. My mother once said when I was still in school that I was blessed to have the friends I had. If I’m sleeping and anyone opens a bottle of water near me, I wake up in a jolt. Still do. This started once my body adapted to their supposed ritual of pouring water into the nose of someone by conspiring together. This is particularly problematic nowadays because I have made a habit of falling asleep in libraries. I tend to scare people when I get whiplash from a water bottle’s cap twisting 30 degrees or more counterclockwise.

I am also starting to get quite frustrated. Aunty’s heating is turned all the way up and I cannot take my jacket off. I cannot give this poor woman a heart attack. That is a job for little miss med school.

“Yes, Mum.”

“Ok. Give Brent my regards.”

“Middle finger as usual?

“I was thinking fist.”

I purse my lips. Both of us burst into laughter. I love my Mum. I wish I could say it better.

*


 
We’re pulling into Brent’s neighborhood. His house is a cutaway corner of one of many mews of brick. The copy-paste-copy two-story abominations go on as far as the eye can see; after all, the Americans had to steal it from someone. Serves the Brits right: one less diamond in the museum.

Brent owns a shitbox car. It’s a chipping white with some dents here and a few hundred scratches there. It is as if it were a big metallic cathouse flipped inside out. It is parked on the street because we’re classy like that.

“He’s waiting outside. That is so sweet.”

“Yes, Jess.”

Jess is being sarcastic. Brent is standing in his slippers and a bathrobe knotted three times over, covering his wifebeater and swimming trunks. His hair is all fuzzy like a bird’s nest. I love how Brent makes me feel so much better about myself. I am his dominatrix; I am less unemployed than he is, in a sense. This guy’s literally just a bum. At least he has an umbrella.

I step out, once again reserving no shits for my trousers. I offer to hold the umbrella, which he gladly accepts. It is always a little awkward to stand next to Brent; I am quite tall and he is quite short. We scuddle into the narrow doorway.

*
 
It is a very beautiful kind of dim in here. A generously sized window lets in whatever light is left of the sky. A little bulb hangs above the shoerack. He’s lit vaguely salty candles that mix in with the ever-so-slight stench of unsorted trash. Exasperated, I immediately take my jacket off and chuck it at him. He drops it.

“Lia-”

“Shut the fuck up.”

I can tell that he’s searching for words and I don’t like to see him struggle. He is struggling because his eyes are not meeting mine, which makes sense given that he is a man. I trot into the living room and turn the ceiling fan on. I am cold but I am also hot.

“Fan? In this weather?”

“I’m hot.”

“Why else do you think I dated you?”

Fucking Brent.

He goes off into his study and grabs a stack of forms from the printer.

“Grab yourself a pen.”

I wonder if this, too, is some sort of sex joke. I dig into the back pocket of my trousers and take out a humble gel pen. These trousers belong to my Dad, technically speaking, which is why they have functional pockets. The fact that my Dad’s trousers fit me is worrying.

I scoot over and Brent sits down next to me.

“Can you take a fucking shower?”

“I thought you wanted me to get the umbrella.”

“Just tell me what I need to sign.”

He starts to slowly pull out individual sheets from the stack and point to the bits with empty fields. He’s already filled in my email address, actual address, phone number, and how I know him. I read the last bit out just to make sure this isn’t a marriage certificate. You never know with this joker.

“I hereby attest to the good character of Brent Thompson and declare that the above information is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”

Yup. Sounds like a load of shit, but whatever lets him stay out of jail.

Sign, sign, sign, and done.

“That didn’t take very long.”

I look deadpan at his face and raise my eyebrows. We chuckle.

“Thank you, Lia.”

“Is that it then? Anything else I need to do?”

“You’re good.”

“Okay. Best of luck for this, Brent.”

I get up and look around to spot my jacket.

“Lia.”

“Yes?”

“Stay for a bit. I can make tea.”

“I hate tea.”

“Okay. You pick.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Wait.”

I make my way towards the dilapidated kitchen. A little cockroach scurries across the countertop where I’d sometimes sit and read. The fridge is bare. This man. I get on my knees.

The bottom shelf reveals three cheap bottles of Pink Moscato. I had gifted these to him. They still have the ribbons on them, though the note seems to be gone. I grope them by their necks and bring them back out. Brent is already horizontal on his couch.

“Too soon?”, he asks wryly.

I’m done. I look sharply into his eyes and I see no remorse. I free the bottles’ necks. They fall to the wood laminate and shatter. I raise my fist up to chest level, knuckles facing him.

“That one’s from my Mum.”

*
 
Back home, flowers have begun to arrive. I know that the flowers are being sent for my dead dog, but I wish that someone sent me a rose for Valentine’s. I miss my dead dog but I do not cry. I do not feel much guilt either, but I do find some sense of hollowness in the house. Maybe it is the fact that my leg isn’t being dry-humped.

Anyway, I know how to romance myself. I pick up a cigarette. Puff, puff, puff. I blow a ring of smoke into the air like a fifteen-year-old schoolboy with a strawberry-kiwi-ice flavored vape. I bumped into one such specimen earlier just outside Brent’s house. He had a fairly visible hickey on his right jaw and the bluest eye. I wanted to hug him, but I wasn’t sure how. I would’ve wanted a hug at fifteen. I got antidepressants for candies on Hallow’s Eve, which was close enough. I dreamt of gardens full of four-leaf clovers. I now have flowers but no garden. I don’t even know how to take care of a flower; I would kill a rose if someone gave me one. I’ve put the flowers on the sofa for now. They are living beings and I am a good host.

“Water?”

I smile to myself. Water.

I make my way to the upstairs bathroom. I try my best to ignore the fur lingering still on the carpet, but my best isn’t very good at all. I flick on the single yellow ceiling light and the exhaust fan. I lock the door and make doubly sure of it, even though there’s nobody to come barging in while I’m doing my business anymore. Both the dogs I’ve lived with had this bad habit. I sit cross-legged on the marble floor. This is unsanitary, I know, but it’s my bathroom in my house for fuck’s sake, and nobody’s watching.

I sit cross-legged on the marble floor and the first weight starts to press on my larynx. Gently, gently, we sink. The well fills up. I am my mother’s daughter. I crawl into the bathtub and turn on the shower. The water is cold at first because the piping is quite old. At least I have baklava. And gin.

**
 
Today the grass seems greener than I remember it being. Snow splattered all night; rain followed because this is London and in London it rains. It is now sort of frozen and sort of wet-muddy on the pavements; rain has turned to ice and a blanket of mushy snow has been trampled by soles. I enjoy the slippy-slidy surface.

A yellow Beetle passes by. Out the rear window pop two ears, triangular white, a big face of pure fluff, a cherry red tongue, a nose shiny black, and two eyes of Cupid. I let out the biggest smile in the world. Cupid smiles back. I slip.

There’s this little fraction of a second when your feet first lose their grip on the ground, when you feel off-balance. You can, in that moment, no longer save yourself from falling. You have slipped and it is certain that you will not land on your two feet. You can flail your arms or you can put them behind you to absorb the impact. You can also curse, which is, of course, a popular choice. There is, however, a panic in coming to the acceptance of inevitability.

The most rational action in this scenario is to mitigate the impacts of said fall, not to try and prevent it entirely. Despite this, in those few moments in the air, we choose to bend forwards.

I am now sitting, ass-on-hands, on the sidewalk’s side. I am in pain, and worse yet, I am in pain for no conceivable reason. This is just shit.

“Brent.”

“Lia?”

“I think I broke my ass.”

“Are you outside?”

“Yes.”

“Did you call an ambulance?”

“No.”

“Do you want to call an ambulance?”

“No.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t fucking know, Brent. Come up with something.”

“Send me your location. Ambulance inbound.”

“Fuck you.”

I sit there in agony for seven minutes. I am in agony because I cannot fathom having a doctor examine the state of my ass. I am really not quite sure how I will tolerate this embarrassment.

There it is.

*

 
Brent looks very smug right now. He is dressed sharp, and seems to have made himself just at home on the flimsy couch next to my bed. In his hands is a cactus plant.

“I got you a cactus.”

“I will shove this cactus up your ass.”

“So we can be twins?”

“You are such a prick.”

“No, he is.”

“Brent, why’d you come here?”

“You called me.”

“I made a phone call to you, yes, but that did not necessitate your arrival at my fucking beside.”

“One way or another, eh?”

“Will you cut it?”

“Sorry.”

“Why’d you come?”

I instantly regretted saying that to someone like Brent. Thankfully, he chose to be the bigger person.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“We’re not together, Brent.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Why did you come to my place earlier?”

“To stop you from going to jail?”

“And that matters to you because?”

“Brent.”

“My bad.”

I give him a sort of pissed-off look, though I’m sure I was simply contributing to Brent’s amusement at the situation. I’ve never been one to want to depend on anyone, least of all a man. I don’t want to give anyone the power to be absent—their presence cannot matter that much to me. I am not reliable. Nobody relies on me. Relying on me is akin to booking a flight with an airline that might go bankrupt before takeoff. I am a social demerit. I will sustain myself; I am Pol Pot.

I have to admit, though, the cactus doesn’t look so bad. I will put it in a sort of glass cage so I don’t get hurt.

“I got you another gift.”

“What is it?”

He reaches into the breast pocket of his shirt and reveals one single sugar-coated gummy.

“No way.”

“Way.”

“Brent, you fucking lifesaver.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Where’s yours?”

“Lia.”

“Don’t be a pussy.”

“Fuck you.”

I let back an exaggerated smile with all of my teeth showing.

“Your mouth stinks, Lia.”

“Why do you have to be an asshole?”

Brent raises his eyebrows. This bitch. We take our gummies. He lays down on the couch, I on this sorry excuse of a bed. I dream of being able to afford a nice big bed someday. It’ll even have lamp switches and a really nice memory foam mattress. Some Dunlop pillows, maybe. If only I were rich. In the mean, the three hands on the clock on the wall run in circles: the shortest completes a twelfth of a revolution, much like a shadow of his hero Napoleon.

Our eyes meet—Brent’s and mine, that is. We are stoned.

*


 
I’m not sure I remember the events of the day very well. It is dark outside—that I know—and Brent was over for some reason. I think we took an Uber to mine and he paid for it out of his own pocket. I unwrap myself out of the white duvet; I do not hear Brent.

Slippers on, and I tiptoe downstairs. The fur still hasn’t faded away.

***