SLUG
A cannonball of a young, stout woman comes barreling down the corridor, about as tall as an emperor penguin in the shape of angry turnip. Out of the back of her head dangles tendril of hair matted into a single, azure-dyed dreadlock (aptly named Chad) fishtailing behind her. Her skin’s golden-brown, like fine cane sugar with dollops of Cambric tea haphazardly flicked in. Vitiligo’s rampant all over her body, but only noticeable around her hands and visage. A pair of fireball red horn rimmed glasses rest askew on her splenetic face. A spatulate index finger extends from her arm if it were a Briquet sabre on the other end of a calvary woman. This is Slug; the strangest human Nora knows.
“Don’t let him nettle you!” She cries, “You have rights! UNALIENABLE RIGHTS!”
Dreading the encounter Nora’s jaw clenches shut with enough psi to grind solid granite into gravel. She sees the fury in Slug’s eyes. That primal, candescent glow around the irises not unlike that of a rampant mother grizzly finding one of her cubs in the clutches of a squishy, aloof human toddler.
Unensorceled by this new challenger Officer Dante clears his throat. Nora’s legs transform into a pair of rubbery stilts, wobbling with inalienable terror.
Slug, you are a screen door hatch in my submarine of life. I guess we’re finally getting those matching mugshots the old gypsy woman told us about.
“Marcy!” Dante smiled, “Did I find your friend? Frank was looking for her earlier, said she broke in from the back. Though in truth, I think he’s just got hurt feelings. You should’ve seen his face; it was so red I thought steam was about to shoot out his ears!”
This doesn’t phase the mad Slug on the warpath.
“Don’t get colloquial with me! Nora, are you alright? She’s shaking like a leaf!”
Nora hated the weight of every eyeball in the room falling on her. She couldn’t even tell what face she was making over the pounding sound of blood in her ears; the face of someone stuck in a child’s swing.
The Officer chime’s in, “Frank made a personal request for some ‘protection,’ in case whoever got past him was a dangerous and/or up to no good. Though, to be honest, I don’t think your bud’s much of a threat to anything other than Frank’s pride. But, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t first ask a few questions before letting anyone off the hook. Why don’t you go back to the parlor and help your folks finish with the floral arrangements so we can both finish our work.”
“Your WORK,” Slug barked condescendingly, “is a crockpot of lies and balderdash if you’re going to beleaguer a young woman in mourning!”
Baron Munchausen would be proud.
“Mourning or not, your friend still technically broke into the morgue.”
“Everyone grieves differently. You of all people know how something so formidable as tragedy can affect someone’s behavior. Remember Mrs. Luzzatto? After she became a widower?”
“Yeah, we couldn’t get her out of the tree overlooking her husband’s grave. We were there for eight hours before the branch she was straddling snapped. She fell and landed face first on Mr. Luzzatto’s tombstone. That was not a pleasant Christmas. ”
“One’s reactions to grief is always going to look a tad peculiar from an outsider’s perspective. Granted, Nora’s actions certainly fall on the more asinine end of the spectrum but if sneaking into a cadaver repository Indiana Jane-style is her way of dealing with it, then we should be respectful and not marginalize it.”
The Officer’s throat made a groaning sound similar to a jammed coffee grinder, squeezing his forefinger and thumb over the bridge of his aquiline nose: a display of notable irritation.
“You know what? I don’t actually care about this. There are so many ways I can rip your words apart but I’m not going to. It would not be hard but I’ve had a long night bleeding into an even longer morning and I still have a full afternoon shift to look forward too when this is all over so I think I’ll spare myself the headache.”
The Officer turns his gaze to Nora with an expression statuesque in its stoicism.
“You’ve been through a lot today, Miss Voorhies. Your mother was one formidable soul. You have my condolences,” he says sliding the beveled grip of the Nikon back into the arms of its master.
“Thank you,” Nora forces from her lips, her hands clutching the camera with a grip that could strangle pythons.
And with a final nod, the Officer disappears into the repossessing room, presumably to talk the disgraced restoration artist out of pressing charges. Did he even want too? Nora didn’t want to stay put to find out and so without missing a beat Slug and she turned 180 degrees and marched themselves to the corridor’s exit.
“You’re one radical pixie, Slug, too weird to live and too rare to die.”
“A radical pixie, huh? I like the sound of that!”
“Enough to get it tattooed on your neck?”
“Only if it’s written in comic sans and accompanied by an image of Tinker Bell twerking on the Torah.”
Nora softly smiles.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
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