WORMS

Colorado College

The sidewalk blurred as four footfalls quickened their pace. Susana tallied each step from one to eleven until she couldn’t count any higher. At eleven, she would begin again, picturing the imaginary map that her scuttling feet were creating along the pavement. This, and her extended yawn caused her head to droop towards the ground, the two tufts of black hair her older sister had tied up earlier in the day bouncing in tempo with their quickening pace. She felt Malia’s firm grip on her left hand as she pulled her along the cacophonous roadside. The day was just on the precipice of night and most cars had, by now, turned on their headlights. Music blared out of windows that were partially rolled down; a plume of smoke jetted out of a lopsided truck and burned Susana’s nostrils. The beams from the traffic heading south left small spots in Susana’s line of vision. On the sidewalk, a piece of cement had broken off and now jutted straight up. Her Skechers caught on this point and her hand slipped away from her sister’s. A crack hovered just inches away from Susana’s nose. She had landed hard on both hands and knees. There was that warm sensation of blood starting from a new split in her body; the base of her pants dampened as it dribbled out and left its mark on the ground. She held her mouth open, not sure if she should cry. Malia hurried to lift her back onto her feet, brushing away the gravel that had impaled itself in Susana’s palms as fresh tears wet her blistered skin. “Look at you,” Malia kissed her little sister’s cheek. “You landed like a cat!” Susana wiped the back of her sweater against her eyes. Her knee burned—her leggings torn right through the center of a lollipop printed in that very spot. “I want to go home,” Susana sniffled, shuffling her feet. Malia said nothing, took her hand and kept walking. Susana repeated herself, but her sister's eyes hardly flickered. They made a sharp right moments later, and the little girl stumbled into a field of spotlights. They were standing in the gravel lot of a gas station. Only one pump had a car parked in front of it, and a man with a heavy mustache and a cigarette in his mouth eyed them carefully. The streetlights cast long shadows that trailed the girls like ghosts. One car was parked diagonally in front of the store between two spots. It had a large bumper sticker of a gun on its back window, which had a long crack running from one end to the other. Malia pulled her sister past the pumps, sending only a quick glance towards the man whose eyes still lingered. Her sister pulled on the front of her tank top where a line of sweat was forming, covering the top of her lacy bra. There was a strangeness to Malia’s gait, even though she wore sneakers.

Susana thought maybe it was because of the tightness of her jeans. She had walked in on her older sister earlier that day jumping up and down, trying to pull her jeans up over her thighs. When she had seen her peeking through the doorway, Malia had snapped at her with a splintered pitch and Susana had run away. But this walk seemed to have little to do with the jeans because her sister’s hips were wobbling heavily from side to side, seemingly unfazed. They approached the front of the store. There was a flashing sign in bright neon colors, the lights rolling through each letter over and over again. Susana quietly sounded out the letters to herself. Her sister pulled her through the swinging glass door. A bell jangled as they stepped inside. The glossy white-tile floor made the room seem to stretch an endless mile. A long row of fluorescent bulbs flickered overhead, emitting a low buzzing. The sound seemed to embed itself in the dips and ridges of the popcorn ceiling. Where the thick drywall seemed to collapse into itself, Susana felt the sound lingering, as though wavering on the precipice between white space and everything else. It seemed to bounce off the tall shelves, circle about the stacks of canned soup, and hover over the gauzy floor. She felt as though she had been dropped underwater. She looked around at the sparsely populated interior, the rapidly blinking figures posed at random throughout the space. It seemed that this inner world was a channel which had turned into her brain, and her brain alone. Her ears prickled. Malia marched straight towards the middle of the store. She turned down one of the aisles and vanished beneath a tall stack of cereal boxes. Susana felt her shoes lighting up beneath her as she walked towards where her sister had gone. A young woman stumbled past her, reeking of gasoline. The back of her hair was matted and oily, and she looked into the stocked rows without really seeing them. She caught Susana watching and took a few steps closer to her, moving her mouth with a syrupy mumbling Susana couldn't understand. The woman repeated herself, her eyebrows lowered over her eyelids. She grew frustrated and raised her voice again.

Susana. Su. She turned. Malia was standing a few feet back, one hand resting on her hip. Susana hurried towards her and Malia took her hand again, setting off down a long row of small boxes and plastic bags. The tiles were just large enough that each step Susana took began and ended on a new square. On the other side of the looming shelves, she could hear a man’s raised voice. Malia had her finger on one of the items, but did not pick anything up yet. A woman’s voice carried across the store to counter the other. As the two tumbled into a high banter, Susana buried her face in between Malia’s legs, pressing the tip of her cold nose into her sister’s knee. Susana pressed her hands, hard, against her ears but Malia pulled them away. “Don’t be rude,” she muttered. After a long deliberation, Malia let out a long breath and snatched a small box from the counter, glancing at its shiny label. Susana watched Malia finger the cash in her back pocket as she led her sister past

the wall of buzzing refrigerators. They turned left, and Malia pointed at a long row of candies. “Pick one.” Susana tilted her head, studying the great rainbow. They all seemed so much taller than her now, all stacked neatly from the floor to the ceiling. There were too many options, too many colors. Susana’s stomach rumbled. “But I haven’t eaten.” She tugged on her sister’s sleeve. There was a bag of candied worms just level with her gaze. She wondered if they were really worms. She had seen worms before, in the storm drains after it rained, and she remembered that they were brown when they were still wiggling, grey when they were not. Here, they were blue and red and pink and green and yellow. A thick layer of sugar crystals coated their fat bodies. She squinted towards them, trying to gauge whether or not they were squirming. None did. Malia saw her staring at the bag of gummies and pulled them off the metal hook from which they hung. On the top shelf, a box of saltines was stacked precariously. Malia grabbed this, too, and headed towards the register. Susana followed after her, remembering the woman with matted hair. The register towered over the bridge of Susana’s nose. On the other side of the counter, a man with a missing front tooth smiled widely at her sister as he rang her up. Malia shifted her weight onto one hip, pretending not to see. On Susana’s right was a small cooler stocked with drinks bottled in plastic. She sounded out the label on a green and red bottle with a picture of a tomato and broccoli. V-8. She recognized the cover from a commercial she’d seen when Malia put on Looney Tunes for her early that morning. There had been a small woman, her hands gripping her waistline, dribbling the red juice onto a white countertop. Susana looked at the pouch that peeked out the bottom of her sister’s too-short shirt. She tugged on her sister’s sleeve, pointing at the glass. Malia peered for a moment to where she was pointing, opened the door, and pulled out a bottle of dark brown soda. Susana tried to shake her head roughly, but the cashier was staring at her hard and she could see through his missing tooth straight into the back of his throat. Susana pulled out a wad of cash from her back pocket, counted her change, and handed it to the cashier. “Smart girl.” His smile widened, and Susana counted two more gaps in his open mouth. He had blue eyes reserved for sirens, and dogs. Outside, each lamplight glowed like irises. Her sister leaned against the side of the building, pulling a long cigarette out of the pack she had picked up inside. A car pulled into one of the empty spots on the far side of the store. Susana recognized its shape from the one that often parked outside of their aunt’s house. It sat low to the ground, its engine grumbling. A hand leaned over across the dark windshield and opened the passenger side door. Malia slid in as though she had been oiled for that moment, pulling Susana to her side and into the backseat.

The inside of the car almost looked as though it were carpeted, and it

smelled it too. Of ash, and dirty socks, and something else that made Susana wrinkle her nose. "Who’s that?” The man sitting behind the wheel jutted his thumb towards the backseat. Malia shrugged. “Couldn’t leave her at the house.” “Fuck.” Susana watched her feet kick the seat in front of her. The man leaned across his seat, putting his lips against Malia’s. He had a thick layer of hair across his chin, and one of Malia’s long strands got caught in it as he pulled away. They got out of the car. Malia opened the door to Susana’s feet. “Hey, hop in the front and eat your food I bought you.” Susana had never been in the front seat of a car before. She looked around at the strange buttons and dials in front of her, glowing against the dark. Malia set the plastic bag down in her lap and pulled out the gummy worms. Susana heard both back doors opening, then closing again. She looked down at the bag in her lap, tore it open. “You’re so hot,” she heard the man’s heavy breath behind her, filling up

the car.

The windows were rolled up, and she imagined they were in a space shuttle, hurtling towards another planet. With her stubby fingers, Susana pulled a pink and green worm from the bag. Behind her, she could hear the rustling of two people moving about. She watched it closely against the fleshy part of her hand. The windows began to fog over. She popped it into her mouth. The car trembled—the side of the building coming in and out of focus over the dashboard. She remembered her scab, and leaned forward to see if it was still bleeding. Her fingers were damp as she pulled them away. She touched one of the red buttons by the steering wheel. An alarm went off. Susana closed her eyes. On her tongue, she could feel the worm moving.