Fragments

by Morgan Gallagher

  She was in the woods, wild winter woods. She could hear growling in the drifts and mounds around her. The snow in front of her was trampled down by foot prints and paw prints. Huge paw prints. Fresh blood splattered the snow, bright red cherries of death, in all directions. As she stared, her breath gusting out in white sheets, it became night: the red bleeding to thick black scars in the snow. The moon rose, washing her in silver light and far in the distance, a wolf howled. She almost panicked, almost bolted off, but she didn’t know where she was or where she could go. The sound of undergrowth crunching, being pushed down, reached her. The wolf emerged from the snow, bloody jaws wide, saliva flying, breath as white as her own. She screamed.

  She felt so foolish, as she fought off the coat, and fell out of the bed. What a silly thing to do. The floor was hard and cold, she hurt her elbow and her hip. She shook herself up and pulled on the coat. The day before her social security was due: noodles for breakfast then.

  She spooned them into her mouth and looked out the window. Sleet was driving everyone and everything before it: no one and nothing was safe. As she watched, three people slipped and fell over. Had she not had the coat, she would have decided she had to try at least a couple of hours in the library. With the coat, she could survive indoors all day, she was sure. Besides, there was a dead body out there being loaded into a hearse. Or on a slab somewhere, being sliced open. She was better, safer, inside.

  She sat by the window hugging the radiator, using the light to read a book, her radio playing music on batteries: she avoided the news.

  No matter how she tried to settle, the thought of the body she’d discarded as rubbish pricked at her conscience. Finally, after reading the same page three times and still losing what it was about, she stood up with a weary sigh: it just would not do. She was better than this. She packed herself into her usual outside protections and wondered what the heck to do with her backpack. It didn’t work with the fur: it reduced the protection and the fit. Equally, she lost heat, valuable heat, from wearing it under. She changed the routine by adding a long belted satchel under the coat, slung across her shoulders diagonally: it settled on the hip and was hidden by the bulk of the coat. In went emergencies supplies, including gloves: she’d need a new pair of thicker gloves from Goodwill, as soon as she could find them. A flashlight, some candy bars for emergency calories – these were so old the wrappers were about to crumble. It was time to eat them and then replenish the supply. She hesitated at the door, faced with the problem of taking the coat out into the hallways. Being seen. Being noticed. Being of note. She took the coat off, turned it inside out and put it back on again. The lining was good but everyone would assume the fur was in bad condition for her to be wearing it that way. She scuttled out, head down, in a ‘don’t talk to me’ manner well known to anyone in any city.

  She turned the coat back round as soon as she was round the corner and began the long march. She ignored her routine, and the library, and the various dropping off to heat up spots. She needed to get back to that alleyway, and back home, before the light went.

  There were spots at the back of her eyes and a rime of sweat on her neckline, and under her arms, by the time she reached it. Her feet were frozen lumps – no amount of coat kept them warm, and her blood was pounding along her veins. When she stopped, looking around the entrance, her legs shook and beat out the pulsing rhythm of her veins and muscles. The muffler over her mouth was sodden through.

  The sleet had turned into soft and gentle waves of deadly lace. The wind had dropped as the temperature had and the large soft flakes danced around. She’d already fished out her ice grips and put them on. The soft carpet of pristine snow hid the ice sheets underneath. Drifts were already starting to form at the corners of buildings and the frozen mounds of pushed through sludge from the snow patrols. Sound had deadened out around her as traffic had thinned. Anyone with any understanding of the city, and how savage it could become in snow storms, was heading for heat and hearth and home.

  The dark maw of the alleyway looked almost pretty in the dancing white flakes. She hesitated: why wasn’t there police tape?

  Staring into the void, she shivered: surely not...? Not the same decision to make again a day later. That poor woman couldn’t have been there all night long... someone would have found her? Someone had, of course. Maggie thrust that thought away. With a deep breath, she pushed herself into the alleyway, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Guilt would do that to you.

  There was no body, no lump, no covering snow hiding anything. The dumpster hadn’t held a body either. No police tape. No scraping back of the garbage as clues had been sought: nothing. If it hadn’t been for her own discarded gloves lying there, sodden and soiled, she’d have thought she was in the wrong place.

  She was dizzy with exhaustion by the time she’d slogged back home. Going through her dry out routine in the toilet she had to drape the coat on the towel warmer – even it had got a wee bit wet. As soon as she moved into the main room the hunger inside her hit, roared through her. She realised she’d not eaten a thing all day. All that walking, slogging through the sleet, sludge, and wind. All the miles out to the alleyway, all the miles back. She’d not eaten one morsel. It wasn’t just that she hadn’t thought to try the two good soup kitchens on the way there. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t dumpster dive in that coat; it was too good to risk. She’d had the chocolate bars and peanut butter cups in her satchel. She’d simply forgotten.

  She devoured the out of date chocolate as she huddled against the radiator. She was late back, not much heat left. When she felt she could stand, and not faint, she heated a tin of actual soup from her emergency supplies and spooned it down. Some bread would be nice. Tomorrow she would buy fresh bread; soft, white and luscious.

  Wary of the previous night’s mistake she made sure she was tucked in bed, the coat once more over her blankets and bottles, before the heat gave way to chill. She hadn’t put the television on: it was a matter of pride that the meter never ran out and she’d wasted those hours yesterday. Tonight, she’d just lie in the dark, warm and snug, and snooze.

  In the dreamscape, the wolf was coming for her. In the dreamscape, the wolf was on her throat, foul breath robbing her soul of hope as the fangs ripped open her veins, spurting her life onto the snow.

  It was three a.m., again, and again she was up, cold and shaking. She warmed through a cup of hot water and sipped it, sitting up on the bed, wearing the coat. Her father had told her that this time of night was called the hour of the wolf. The hour of doubt and misery, despair and fear. It was a time of night she avoided at all costs. A lifetime with too few pleasures and too many regrets, did not sit well at three a.m. At least, with the coat on she was warm, well, mostly warm: how could she get fur boots for her feet...?

  Pay day had a well worn routine and the coat only interrupted it minimally. Using her EMT card, she got the money out in the nearest ATM to the electric company offices and spent a huge portion of her cash allowance on stoking up her card. Then she went food shopping and filled up her bags with staples and essentials. She noticed a couple of people nudging each other at the tills, when she stood in that coat and handed her card over to use up her food stamps. She couldn’t blame then, she’d have done the same. She usually went to the library then and sat and read the newspaper as she thawed out, but as she wasn’t cold, she trudged on to take everything back to her room. Her victory meal – having made it through another month – was usually had on her knees by the radiator, but it was too early. So she carefully made Dolly a three slices of bread peanut butter and jelly sandwich, wrapping it in a paper bag, and went back out to find her. This time of day she was usually begging above the underground vents on third. Dolly was there but the encounter did not go well. As she approached Dolly with the bag, Dolly had started screeching and wailing, throwing snow and insults at her. Maggie just stood and stared as Dolly’s fury hit into her.

  ‘Don’t you come here with your filthy fuck
ing coat and give me charity you smug sanctimonious cu...’

  Maggie backed away as the insults, and the projectiles, got filthier and more deadly. The bag with the food dropped into the snow. Maggie had seen Dolly do this, often, to well meaning but clueless rich people. She wasn’t that sane, that was sure, and she was choosy who she offered her booze to, and took food and money from. It was part of why all the real street people took care of her. Maggie had never thought she’d not recognize her... she’d tried to speak, to say, ‘Dolly, it’s me, Maggie...’ but the words had caught in her throat. The image of the dead woman face down in the alleyway had risen up between Dolly and her.

  Who was she, to be handing out food, when she wore a dead woman’s coat on her back...?

  Later, when she’d finished crying into her pillows she tried to eat her victory meal. She found she wasn’t hungry.

  Three a.m. brought a vision of the dead woman, floating on a rotting lake of stagnant water. Still face down, her hair matted and trailing in the twigs and leaves. Ice was forming around her, locking her in to the winter. In the distance, the wolf howled.

  The next day brought a snowstorm. Holding a cup of hot water, Maggie looked out and knew there would be no help to it: she’d have to stay in. Even though the coat would cope, her legs would give out, her feet shatter in the snow; thank goodness she’d found the coat.

  After five days of never-ending storm, she had begun to appreciate the meaning of the phrase ‘cabin fever’. She always wished she was one of those women who did things: knitted, quilted, tailored her own clothes. Heck, after five days of looking at the whiteout, she’d have whittled wood. She was out of books to read and her radio was dead – she needed new batteries. The television was okay, but not for full time distraction, electricity notwithstanding. She’d have to go out and get some supplies. Checking the cupboards she was surprised by how much food there was. There was even a stale end of a loaf of bread. Curious.

  She slogged out to the library and found she could do quite a few hours there, as the coat made it warm enough. Her feet stayed dry and warm. She even nodded off over the newspapers as she was getting so little sleep at home. It was the cardinal sin, however, nodding off, and she was asked to leave before she’d checked out new books. Her face burned a little; she’d never been asked to leave. The librarian station was filled with faces staring at her, and the coat. Whispers. Why was a woman like her asleep in the library? What sort of woman was she... with that coat and worn boots which rustled with plastic bag liners when she moved? Unseen, her library card was left on the floor under the table she’d fallen asleep on.

  She had to go past one of her most visited soup kitchens on the way back and the smell of the food rolling out into the frigid air, enticing in the needy, made her stomach roil. She realized she was hungry, and made to descend the snowy stairs down to the Church basement. She got as far as the second step, then thought through the problem of the coat. It wasn’t even that she would probably get comments, or looks. It was the thought of the dead woman in the alleyway. She just couldn’t go into a Church, even the basement. What if someone had seen the woman wear it in there? Recognized it, thought she was the dead woman? Her cheeks burned with the shame of it and the fear of it seized her heart. Maybe she could go in, slip the coat off... just carry it, inside out. Maybe slip it into one of the black bags her satchel held? Then she could have her bread and stew, or soup, and chat with the workers, and the others supping, and feel the cheer of being part of something, no matter how fragile.

  But what if she lost it? What if someone stole the bag when she put it down on the floor? What if she got in a fight over the hidden contents of a large bag, as sometimes happened, and she lost it? She’d be back in the cold, again: all over cold. She’d be back out in the streets, all day long, no matter the weather.

  She walked on, past the market, past the launderette, past the shopping mall. She’d got out for a few hours and her room waited. The coat would keep her warm as she waited for the radiators to fire up.

  Each three a.m. brought a rough awakening; a sense of shock and terror. A need to get out of bed, wrap the coat around her and sip hot water as she waited out the frigid dawn. There was something wrong, somewhere. She couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t quite see the pattern in the swirling snow outside the window.

  She wasn’t sure how she’d got to the mall, nor why she’d been asked to leave. The guard who had her elbow firmly in his grasp, was walking her out into the cold dark night, telling her she was now banned. She stood, watching his mouth move, trying to make sense of the words. It made no sense. He was saying something about dogs, how she’d been asking to buy a dog, to keep her safe from the wolf. He thrust some dollars into her hand, twenties. Said she didn’t have enough to buy a dog, and the mall didn’t sell them anyway. She looked down at the money: where had it come from?

  The banging on her door was loud, so terribly loud. She couldn’t think. She stood up, switched off the TV, and staggered to the door. For a moment, she couldn’t face opening it. ‘Maggie, I know you are in, OPEN THE DOOR’. She reacted automatically to the command, she opened up the door, standing back and pulling her coat round her, feeling herself shrink into its bulk. It was Tony, looking annoyed, then concerned. She stared at him, once more watching lips move but not quite being able to hear what they said: not quite making sense of anything. He was looking down at her, with a curious look on his face. He held paperwork in his hands. Paperwork. Paper. Lease! The image of her standing in the street, like Dolly, begging, flashed through her brain. She shuffled back into her room, searched through her pocketbook. There, her EMT card. She turned back, handed it to Tony. She could hear her own voice give him the ATM digit code. Tony looked back at her, searching her face, saying something in soft tones. She didn’t like that, wondered if he’d see the image of a woman lying down dead in a frozen alleyway on the backs of her eyes. She slammed the door shut in his face.

  She’d sat down on the floor, her back to the wall, looking at the door. It wasn’t good, this wasn’t good. Whatever was wrong with her, she had to get hold of it. She couldn’t lose this place, couldn’t get thrown out. She’d never make it, never make it to the sun, if that happened. She’d never ever, ever make it on that bus if she lost here. Never have another dog to play with in the park on long summer days, to cuddle up to on winter nights, to brush and love and be loved by. Never have another good day in her life. She was rocking, tightly curled up on herself, when a shadow appeared on the other side of the door. Her EMT card was pushed back through to her. She looked at it, feeling so hot there, in her lovely coat, that sweat was sticking the lining to her. Maybe she had the flu...?

  Her electricity running out was a complete shock. She woke to a room in complete darkness. She woke at three a.m., as usual. The nightmare was shredded and fading as she stumbled around to try and find the flashlight she kept in her bedside cabinet. She had lost her coat somewhere, in the thrashing from the dreams, and the cold sliced her. She stood up and felt faint. She was oblivious to the crash as she tumbled headlong back into the tunnel she’d been running out of, with the wolf’s breath at her heels.

  The pain of lying there drove her to consciousness, her body demanding she move. As her eyes opened she saw the coat on the floor, under the bed. It was daylight and she felt transparent, like a window. She was sure the daylight was going through her skin and bones. Her mouth was dry and her lips cracked. A terrible sunken feeling was clawing up from her stomach, hurting every bone in her body. She rolled forward, snaking her hand under the bed. The barest touch of the fur and the pain receded. She found the strength to inch forward, grasp it with one hand. She pulled it towards her, feeling better the nearer it got. Finally, she pulled it over her head and rested. The darkness she was in, under the weight of the coat, was warm and comforting. She wasn’t sure if she’d slept again but it was late afternoon light that greeted her when she finally pulled the coat on again, and stood up. The shakiness wa
s gone. She felt fine, what had happened..?

  The electricity: that was what had happened. She found that out when she tried to warm herself a cup of water. She had to go buy electricity, didn’t she? What day was it?

  The trudge to the ATM seemed to take hours. It was dark when she got there and she stared, with little understanding, at the figures glowing on the screen. There was something wrong, the figures were jumbled. It was almost as if she’d missed a month, almost as if she’d had money left over, and food stamps, and then she’d been paid again. She shook her head, a puzzle for another day. All that mattered now was buying more electricity. She took out cash, and staggered to the utility offices. Closed. Shut. The only day they closed, was Sunday. She stared at the door, uncomprehending, and began the long trek back.

  She knew there was something else she’d needed to do. Something else she had to do: something urgent. What was it? Buses drove past her but she knew she wasn’t allowed on buses anymore: something about the coat. She walked past the soup kitchen on Third; my goodness the odor coming up from the basement steps was foul: had a sewer line burst there? She trudged on: where was she going?

  It was so hard to push against the wind. Something was stopping her making any progress. Her legs moved up and down, the wind pushed at her, and it was as if she was taking baby steps, or even walking on the spot. A massive gust pushed her back against the sharp edge of a wall. She cried out in pain, as even the thick layer of fur didn’t stop the hardness hurting her. The wind pulled back her hood and the sleet slashed into her face, full force. She turned against it and found herself staggering down a small alleyway. The power of the wind dropped and once more the sleet was only coming down on her, from above. She tripped, and realized she didn’t have her ice grips on. How stupid was she...? How did that happen? She went flying and hit a dumpster hard, with her right shoulder. One knee cracked into the ground: agony. But she caught herself in time and managed to stay half upright, grabbing the side of the dumpster. The burn was so intense on her bare palms she thought it was embers she had grabbed hold of. She looked at her hands, on the metal, sticking, as if glued. With a scream, she pulled back and most of her skin came with her but a fair amount was left stranded on the dumpster side. The agony flashed warmth through her brain, like lava exploding. She looked at the dumpster and remembered what it was she had to do, what she was forgetting.