a paper cup and an empty world: Ashley, an extract — starting a fire in the morning 🔥 (published December 14, 2011)

an extract from my 2011 novel

Ashley woke up naked as the morning light illuminated her body. She was shivering. Her soft, pink comforter was beneath her. Her pillow was on the floor. She had a headache. She turned her head to the side and she saw him. He was sleeping next to her. He was snoring lightly beneath several of her blankets. He was drooling steadily on her pillow. The pillow had pictures of her and Shaina. It was a birthday gift. Two used condoms were lying close to her face. Fresh white snow was falling slowly on the other side of the window. She could hear cars driving in the street. Someone honked on a horn and cursed.

​She sat up quietly and she looked toward her bathroom. Light orange vomit covered part of the toilet seat. She stood up quickly and she tiptoed toward her dresser. She looked at herself in the mirror. She saw the messy hair extending in different directions. She saw the hickey on her neck. She saw the bite marks on her shoulders. She saw the scratch on her breast. She saw the stubborn and scattered remains of her make-up. She saw strings of semen sticking to her bangs and to her nose.

In the reflection, she saw her black dress, her thong, and her bra lying in a pile on the floor at the foot of the bed behind her. She saw him rustling beneath the blankets. She raced to put on a fresh pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and an old, “Upper Peninsula” hoodie. She grabbed her purse with her keys, with her wallet, and with her Marlboro Reds. She walked quickly out the door and she shut it behind her.

​No one was in the living room. The empty shot glasses and dirty dishes sat undisturbed and together on the table as before. She washed her face with soap at the sink. She flushed the semen down the drain. She stood on the balcony in the cold and she breathed in the morning air. She gazed out onto the parking lot. Cars were half-buried in snow. A pickup truck was clearing the road, but the snowflakes just started falling faster. The city always left her parking lot for last. She lit up a cigarette and watched an invisible force carry away the smoke and dissolve it gradually into nothingness. She tapped the ashes over the edge and watched them dance purposelessly and pointlessly in the sky. She felt a salty tear slipping down her cheek. She wiped it into her sleeve, and she inhaled again. She became dizzy and lightheaded, and she inhaled again. She turned around, looked through the window, saw the boy emerging from her bedroom, and she inhaled again. Something chunky and wet was moving upwards in her throat, so she held it down as best as she could, and she inhaled again. She coughed violently and ferociously, and she inhaled again. She sniffled, she shivered, she wiped another tear from her cheek, and she inhaled again. She threw the finished cigarette into the snow below. She walked coughing into the living room.

​The boy was sitting at the table with the dirty dishes. He was reading yesterday’s student newspaper. He was twirling her favorite shot glass around in circles. “Good morning,” he said. “Did you know that Professor Meyers died of cancer Thursday night?”

​Ashley whirled around and she threw up on the balcony. She fell down onto her knees, coughing frantically, and she vomited again. A long string of orange extended from her lips to the wood at her fingertips. Some of it was on her hands. A chunk was sticking to her hooded sweatshirt that she had bought on a trip with her mom in high school. “Get out of my apartment!” she screamed suddenly with a desperate and vicious gasp. She turned her head around to look at him. Her eyes were full of fire and fury. Her lips were dripping bits of vomit. “Get the fuck out! Get out now!” She shouted before turning back around, staring down at the ground, and coughing.

​The boy looked at her with wide eyes and an open mouth. He stood up quickly and he walked to her room. He left the student newspaper on the floor. The photograph of the newly dead yet smiling face looked up toward the ceiling and nothing beyond it.

Another door burst open and Shaina stepped into the living room. Ashley heard her best friend screaming at the boy in her bedroom. And she felt safe. She felt her muscles relax. “You need to get the fuck out of here right now!” screeched her friend.

“I’m sorry!” he said furiously. “I’m getting my things!”

“What the fuck do you have here?” demanded Shaina.

“Would you shut the fuck up?” the boy shouted. “I had hardly woken up before your friend started acting like the fucking slutty ass cunt that she obviously is! That stupid bitch fucked me twice last night, okay? I came all over her face! She’s a slut! And now I have to find my goddamn wallet! I didn’t expect to be – ”

“Get the fuck out!” Ashley screamed so loud that her voice echoed throughout the entirety of the apartment complex. Total silence ensued. It was disturbed only by the sounds of cars driving in the desolate distance and by Ashley’s continuous coughing.

The boy found his wallet in his pocket. He walked quickly out of the apartment while Shaina filled a glass with water and brought it to her friend. Ashley drank half the glass. She cried and she buried her face in her roommate’s warm arms.