Weekly Writing – February 10 2024

Her brother had never thought a thing through in his life. The number of times he’d called her to say that he was in trouble would have filled a year’s worth of witching hours.
But she couldn’t complain – not that night, not that dead-signal hour screaming in the streets. Not when, if he’d thought that call through, she was the one who would never have known she was in trouble.
She’d had an empty suitcase standing at the foot of her bed for days, shabby and guilting her like a neglected dog. Every time she’d passed it by, she had told herself she should pack, just the essentials, just in case. Be prepared, so she wouldn’t find herself standing in the middle of her apartment just like that.
Staring around at her whole life, all the heft and clutter of it, unable to sort out what was important and what just felt that way. A change of clothes, that was easy, wadded into the corner of the suitcase. Toothbrush, passport, a thin fold of cash. Her transceiver, of course, but what about the family pictures? Too much weight, but if she took just the one of her and her brother, pulled it out of the clunky plastic frame-
It and all the clunky plastic others shook against the wall as she reached for it. Her apartment building had always been about as solid as a cereal box – someone slamming through the front door would rattle every window up to the third floor.
So they weren’t even trying to be subtle, then. They saw her as cornered already, or they expected her to be cowering, shaking under her covers along with everyone sensible, waiting for the lightshow through her curtains’ seams to stop.
They didn’t expect her to be warned, looking at the windows like a possible exit. They wouldn’t have guns. Wouldn’t have phones, wouldn’t so much as be wearing watches. Whatever they’d brought to kill her, it would be blunt, low-tech and simple. Brutal and safe, at least for them. No windows left open for what was beating on the walls of their world.
Meaning, all she had to do was outrun an idiot squad of men with bats and knives, crazy and well-paid enough to run the streets when no one else would. And all she could do was hope nothing she carried or was would count as enough of a window. She lunged for hers, leaving the suitcase behind, tearing two layers of blackout curtain away from what roiled and screamed beyond.