Neighbors

Posted on Sat 20th Jun, 2020 @ 5:41pm by Yuliette Marayan Dr.
Edited on on Fri 24th Jul, 2020 @ 6:38am

1,096 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector: Zodiac
Timeline: MD11

The first thing Yuliette did was try to air the place out by rolling up the blanket-turned-curtain and tying it to the bowed cross bar with some cut up parts of rope she found on the floor. It didn’t get rid of the smell, but the exchange of air at least made it possible to breathe.

She unzipped her bag and dug through her things for a zipper pouch of herbal medicines she had inside, coming up with a little tin.

“Oh thank heavens!” She rubbed a little of her menthol balm under her nose to mask the offending odor. Then she looked around for a place to put her bag.

The floor was disgusting. It was layered in dried and sticky things and spattered carelessly with drippings of paint on top of the layers-- she could feel her shoes peeling as she stepped around in a circle. One heavy nail was in a wall and she used it like a hook to put her travel bag on, to keep it up off the floor, then she looked through her things for a quick catalog.

She had only her herbal medication that the Rho Saro natives had permitted her to use in place of modern drugs, a field kit of surgical tools, her stethoscope. A small torchlight. Two changes of clothing, a couple of bottles of antiseptic, some bandages. And a little overnight hygiene kit. Well, assuming she had water, she could brush her teeth at least. Underneath the hygiene kit was a long, slim wooden box. She pulled it out and slid away the lid. Inside were all of the polished clay beads, animal teeth, bone sewing needles, little bags of seeds, and carved figurines that the natives had insisted on paying her with during her last rounds. She’d accepted because she learned the first time that declining was rude. A lot of good a little carved tortoise was going to do her now. She took out one of the beaded necklaces and put it on. Each bead had been burnished by hand until it shone, and stamped with different marks.

Wearing it was a little comforting, at least. She knew how unlikely it was that she could never go back to Rho Saro. This bric-a-brac was all she had to remember them by. She turned the chunky oversized beads around on her neck a few times and went to look in the cloudy mirror over the sink. The necklace was different than all the elegant ones her father had sent her. She’d never brought expensive things into the desert with her, though, so she hadn’t had any on her when she’d fled. It was ironic, as that was sort of the point of jewelry in the development of most cultures. Wearing your ornaments meant always keeping your valuables on you for quick and easy trade. The realization that such an idea was hardly as outmoded as she’d taken it to be was a lesson learned too late. Besides, she wanted nothing to do with her father’s blood money or anything it had bought any longer. Much as it would make things not quite so awful.

In the chipped sink, she tested the water. The pipes shook— sounded like they had some air that needed bleeding out. When some water did make it to the tap, it came out brown. She waited some more. Eventually it ran clear. Yuliette still wasn’t sure she trusted it without a way to put it under a microscope or at least boil it. But she was thirsty. It was a real dilemma. No, probably best to find another source and avoid intestinal parasites or heavy metal contaminants. Ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure. She shut off the faucet and went back to the balcony. Hers wasn’t the only door with access to the balcony, and she could see her neighbor had a little jungle of potted plants established. Yuliette leaned on the rail, gently at first, out of distrust, but then found it was still very solid and let herself rest against it.

There was a kind of charm to the view of this “best good” studio apartment. The big open ceiling of The Drift made it almost feel like stepping outside and let her forget she was on an enormous hunk of metal in space for a little bit. The vendors below had colorful stalls and seemed to be doing a brisk business of foodstuffs and wares. There were joyful voices of kids playing games on the stoops to the suites. The air was a little sticky, stuffy. With so much space to process, it must have been taxing for any air exchangers. She actually didn’t mind. She’d always preferred the heat. Like her father. Yuliette scowled at the very thought of him. But there he was, continually on her mind, and she couldn’t unthink him again.

“Hello dear.”

Yuliette just about leapt out of her boots.

Her neighbor was a large woman, a grazerite bent with age, her stiffened bulky fingers doing their best to steady a watering can as she tended her balcony plants in the shared space.

“A little jumpy, are we?” The grazerite squinted at her. Yuliette seemed to remember that grazerites had poor eyesight to begin with. It was a little medical footnote which had never seemed that important since,with typical medical care, the small handful of grazerites she had ever known had each received corrective surgery in their youth and never thought about it again. “Come here, let me see you.”

Yuliette found herself complying. The older woman put a shaky hand on Yuliette’s cheek and patted it. “Ah. New here,” said the grazeritte.

“Yes, I’ve just rented the apartment beside yours.” Yuliette’s eyes fixed on the watering can, wondering how the woman was sure about her water source. “We’re neighbors.”

The old lady stopped when she felt Yuliette’s ridges and frowned. She shook her head. “We’ll see about that. The last three new tenants came and went so quickly I can hardly say they were here at all. Much less you in this place. No one seems to stay in that unit for very long. ” She went back to tending her plants.

“I can’t say as I blame them.”

Bending over one of her planters, the old woman breathed deeply from the open bloom of a bright exotic plant, then bit it off, mashing it over her broad molars.

 

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