Impuls

Aster

There's a little more left. Just a little longer, and she'll climb under the covers, close the gray blinds, and fall asleep.

She'll deal with everything tomorrow.

The shower room fills with smells – apricot shampoo, milk shower gel – and sparkling foam swirling around the drain grate; steam rises into the air and remains hovering somewhere at head level; Emily pulls on her towel, miraculously not slipping on the slippery tiles.

She just wants time to go faster.

But as she wraps the huge striped scarf around her neck and prepares to slip into her coat, Emily notices a white stain in the corner of her locker.

The white robe, borrowed from Clark for the rest of the day, causes only tired irritation – I should not have taken it at all, and now, apologizing a thousand times for the inconvenience, carry it back.

To Clark.

To the Underworld.

* * *

She stands with her arms around her shoulders, still wearing her light green surgical suit, looking out through the endless veil of fog. A carved statue, shattered, splintered.

No trace of the unbending surgeon remains; Lorraine seems too human – sharp shoulders, skinny arms, thin, skinned bones; and in her enormous form she is lost. She dissolves, desperately embracing herself, almost scratching, straining her long fingers with the swollen ring mark – and the bandage finally loosens, leaving barely visible white threads on the thin fabric.

Emily can't take her eyes off of her.

Clark gets under her skin. Under her ribs, bypassing the arteries, it slides into her heart; it sprouts through, pierces her bones, and that's it, the point is reached, you can't get it out if you want to.

Stubborn grass through concrete.

And then she clutches her mouth with her palm, covers it with another and breaks – with a thin, barely audible crunch; bending in half, clutching the cold floor with her knees, with a choked sob, frantically pressing her hands on her trembling lips so as not to give herself away.

To tell those inadvertent, ill-timed visitors: I just lost my earring.

And to wipe the gray bandage of salt from her cheeks.

Emily catches up with her in an instant – even if she scolds her, pushes her away, screams, it doesn't matter – and cradles her.

It is so torn, shattered, cracked; and this stone shell crumbles, showering everything around them with gray sand; and Emily repeats everything as she goes along, absolutely not knowing what to do, but holding the thin body to her as if to protect her from the whole world:

– It's just a scratch, come on, it will heal… It's just a scratch, tomorrow it will be easier, and in a few days we will take the stitches out… I will help, in everything, really, really. I may be silly, I may be stupid, but I'll do anything and everything…

Emily knows that everything you're afraid of will happen tomorrow, but tomorrow is hours away, and now all her fears are receding, and even Clark, who seemed so arrogant and prickly before, turns out to be human.

– It'll heal," Emily whispers into Clark's hair. – You'll see.

They sit on the floor of the office.

And autumn smells like salt.

Chapter 13

I can't help thinking you're stronger, you're the most beautiful thing in the world, your eyes will sell the whole world for you, but I'm a coin from a purse.

I can't help thinking that you are the most important, they will fight in a foreign country for you, they will drown for you, they will burn in the fire.

I, alas, can never reach you.

And if yesterday was war – Emily gets out of bed, shattered with lead. Her arms and legs are disobedient, her head is buzzing, every bone threatens to break at any movement. The clock reads twenty past seven, the time she has allotted for sleep running out all too quickly.

Everything is so familiar and gray, unchanging, unnecessarily stable-even the dust between the blinds lies exactly as it did before. The actions, reduced to automatism: to get out of bed, take a shower, pour a cup of coffee; to glance at the calendar – there are a couple of days before the rent is due; to try to collect my thoughts – to glance at the empty bag, to throw things into the backpack, to drink a diluted dark slurry, remotely resembling a normal drink; to go to the misty Trinity Street.

Except the nasty swamp turtleneck smells like Clark – and Emily feels like a neurosurgeon somewhere near her: menthol, lemon, and iron.

Crammed into the farthest corner of the bus, Emily cradles her backpack and closes her eyes, going back to last night.

There they sit – half-dead, as if on burnt grass, staring with unseeing eyes at the sky – black, starless, bottomless. Sitting there, stilettoes under their ribs, broken bones, glands between their vertebrae; and Clark speaking, barely audible, not in his own voice, or, conversely, in his own, real, not artificially icy, not eternally ironic:

– How I hate all this.

Emily does not specify what; she is afraid to do anything at all; she knows: one move and Clark will fly away, disappear, dissolve; she is a damn bird with chains on her wings.

Clark warms up, becomes softer, lighter; he thaws, relaxes his head on Emily's shoulder, closes his eyes.

And as she buries her fingers in Clark's hair, the scent of her shampoo lingers on the tips of her hair.

And then she shakes Emily off, like shaking off useless, irritating dust; stands up sharply, slaps her palm against her palm, straightens her shoulders-a snow queen, a grin, a piercing look; tilts her head sideways and, her lips open, spits out an ice cube:

– I think it's time for you to go home.

And everything collapses again – or builds like a wall, brick by brick, bloody blocks, impenetrable, monolithic, marble; Emily nods, mutters "goodbye" – and walks out.

She is in so much pain that her stomach cramps and her mouth becomes unbearably bitter; but the sun persists in warming her pocket, as if to remind her that even people like Clark know how to feel.

The familiar gray building of London Royal Hospital unfriendlyly greets her with bustling corridors and the smell of buns in the break room.