The Woman Who Sold Stillness [chapter 5]
Lilly had turned 20, but there was nothing to be happy about. She received an eviction notice one day after her birthday, for not paying the last two months of rent.
She was fired from her last job, after a discussion with her former boss that ended with these exact words: “I don’t give a fuck about your business”.
She was tired of everything: Jobs, people, herself. There was not enough money for daily expenses so she ate poorly, and sometimes she fed her cat, Gulliver, instead of herself. He seemed to be the only being on Earth that she cared about.
One night, walking on the streets nearby her building, she was approached by a man in a black car. He had the wheel in one hand, and a gun in the other. He told her to give him money or else he would shoot her.
She turned, slowly, and didn’t say a word. Lilly just stared at him for a while, and suddenly, he was quiet. Then she walked close to him, and whispered in his ear: “If it was up to me, you would stay still forever… but in this neighbourhood, I’m pretty sure you won’t survive the night… see you in the morning, perhaps…”.
Continuing her walk, as if nothing had happened, she got to her apartment, closed the door and lay down on her dirty mattress on the floor. She noticed Gulliver wasn’t home and thought maybe he had found food in someone else’s home.
It was almost two o’clock and the night was cold. Lilly stared for a couple of minutes at the mildewed ceiling, thinking about fungus and the fact that they were everywhere in her apartment. She didn’t mind them. In fact, she related to the destructive nature of that organism. She just didn’t know which one was greater: her will to destroy or her will to die.
She closed her eyes and hoped not to have sweet dreams, as they were a reminder of how far from sweet her real life was.
The sound of a cat crying loudly woke her up before dawn. She opened the door and there was a closed bag with a note on top of it, and she could hear Gulliver screaming from inside. For the first time since her mother died, Lilly was truly frightened. The bag had two locks and she immediately tried to break them with everything she had on her apartment, with no success.
She read the note in tears, while listening to the increasing sound of Gulliver fighting for his life. Then she picked up the bag and hurried to the address written on the piece of paper. Lilly was about to find out she wasn’t the only one feeding on destruction.
