sleeps enough, is paid enough, or is stable enough for this job. I do not think I am stable enough for this session. By the end of our conversation, all we have talked about is how Iâm doing in school and if I ever fight with my parents and if any relatives ever touched me as a kid. GoodâSometimesâNo. She promises to come to see me again, real soon, like a manager bidding farewell to a customer who is passing through town. She is lying. There is no time. The hourglass is running out, rapid and diseased. Not two days. Nightfall. Dawn. The walls are talking me into the air, to the edge of the bubble, to the end of this world. Weâchargeâatâdawn. Dana will be left behind; not me. Petraâs mattress is back in our room. We have breakfast like the events that occurred the previous day with the Clue board and the tiny weapons are an urban legend. Still, no one will speak to her without a tone of distrust. Petra mutters in Russian. Diamond mutters in nonsense. I dig into the tail-ends of their sentences, fueled and frenetic by the prospect of escape. My appetite is gone, tossed to the paranoia. I muster my voice and ask Diamond if she wants any of my eggs. She covers her face with her hands. She cannot look at me, or the orderlies, or the room, or the cold food, or the locked doors. All this to say:
glassworks 62
We are all ready to run. Only plans fall through. Petra and Penelope get into a fight over who deserves the solo âPâ name. Petra wants Penelope to go by Nellie; Penelope/Nellie disagrees. Both of them get put into isolation for the afternoon, into the evening. I go to bed alone. The darkness swaddles me as I calculate the ceiling. An hour later, shadow graces the doorway, a blurry silhouette of a girl, breaking free from the walls to consume me. Noâit is Petra. She comes to bed, sits up, refuses to lay down. She says her side hurts from her brawl with Penelope. She doesnât want to rest in a way that could make her stiff before our escape. I sit up, pitch forward, nervous and alive.
âI
on
will have to escape empty,
full
of
pronounceable pills, the numbers rattling through
â
my mind like bingo balls.
Itâs really tomorrow? I tried to get our shoes, she says. The closet is locked. Petra? Can you imagine staying another day? she asks. Can you even imagine? I-mag-ine. E-madge-in. I canât even imagine imagine. I am too tired.