Synesthesia: Chapter Nineteen
serial fiction
“Let’s check inside the bus,” Amber said, and her voice was a thin whistle with the aroma of rising dough.
Wordlessly, I followed her inside, back into the suffocating heat and darkness and the sour-milk smell of despondence. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim interior, I heard her moving around, shifting things, touching things. Searching.
“What are you looking for?” asked Hoka guy from behind my left ear. He sounded like he was about six inches away, and I fought back the urge to punch him.
“Move back and give me some fucking space,” I growled, clenching my fists at my side and willing myself not to use them.
Amber didn’t answer. She just kept searching, checking beneath couch cushions and rifling through baskets.
I watched as she picked up a stack of envelopes, flipped through them for a minute. Standing near the doorway, I shifted my weight onto my right leg, and the bus responded by rocking in little waves.
Amber placed the envelopes back into the basket and stood up.
“Okay,” she said, the yeasty dough smell fading into freshly caught fish. “Into the car.”
I drove, Amber beside me giving directions, Hoka guy in the back complaining about dehydration. I glanced down at the case of bottled water in the floorboard of the passenger seat. Too far away, too busy now. I tossed him the half-empty bottle of water from the cupholder next to me and turned left, following Amber’s pointing finger.
By the time Hoka guy had finally settled down and shut up, Amber announced it was time to stop.
We were sitting outside what must have once been a fast-food restaurant. Judging by the color scheme, it had last been redecorated as a Taco Bell in the ‘90s.
“This is the place,” Amber said. I let the engine idle as I stared at the abandoned building, half its windows boarded over with plywood and the rest covered in a thick layer of dust.
She unbuckled her seat belt and reached for the door handle.
“Wait,” I said, stretching out an arm to hold her back. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to her. That it didn’t look right. That it might not be safe. That this place couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Gas Stove or her son.
But she turned her green eyes to me, verdant like jungles of endless summer somewhere far away from the desert where we sat, and I found myself looking back helplessly.
I had to let her do this.
She got out of the car and I killed the engine, trailing Amber and leaving Hoka guy to fend for himself.
She moved around the building like a prowling jaguar, a wild animal on the hunt, not for prey but for something far more primal and urgent.
Rounding the corner at the back of the building, she stopped in front of an unmarked brown door, took a breath, and pushed.
The door gave way and she tumbled inside, instantly lost in a cloud of dust and darkness. I stumbled in after her, and the door slammed shut behind us, metal screeching against metal.
My ears and eyes struggled to make sense of the nothingness, but my nostrils caught strawberry, mango, the wet scent of dead fish.
The smells of pain, and of bravery.
“Jacob!”
It was Amber’s voice, an animal cry, a roar in the darkness. I could hear her footsteps moving away from me. I followed the sound of them, the smell of fish still slick with the sea.
And somewhere in the building, a muffled response that might have been Mom.
The footsteps moved faster now, and I held my hands out in front of me as I followed, bumping into countertops and boxes left to rot on the hard floor.
Ahead of me, Amber’s voice came out garbled and warped, like her throat had melted. And I realized she was crying.
I stepped forward, through the metal-framed doorway of what must once have been a small office.
The smell of human shit hit me like a boulder, almost knocking me down.
I choked, gagged, held my hand over my nose.
In front of me, Amber knelt on the floor, holding a shape in her arms. Her bare back shivered and quaked as she cried and rocked, cried and rocked.
Then I realized there was a second sound, too, a second voice crying as Amber rocked it in her thin arms.
I looked down at the small round face, gray and murky in the weak light.
“Jacob?” I asked, still holding my nose against the onslaught of shit.
Through her sobs, Amber made a noise that sounded almost like a laugh.
We stepped out into the hot sunlight, Amber first, holding Jacob by the hand, then me, my hand up to my forehead to shield against the bright sun.
Hoka guy was standing outside the Mustang holding a fresh bottle of water. When he saw Amber approaching with the child, he hurried forward, knelt, and unscrewed the bottle for the little boy.
I looked at Jacob for the first time in decent lighting. He must have been about six or seven, though I’ve never been great at guessing children’s ages just by looking. He was almost as bony as his mother, but his face was round like the moon, his cheeks smooth and wide. Dirt and tears and snot were smeared across his face, and his eyes were rimmed with red.
The boy drank greedily, and Amber wrapped her arms around him, covering his face in kisses and jostling the plastic bottle. Water spilled out over a filthy yellow T-shirt, but Jacob just readjusted the bottle and kept drinking.
Both of them smelled like a backed-up septic tank.
I looked from them to Hoka guy, then back at the mother and son again.
Then I let out a frustrated sigh and took a few steps across the empty parking lot.
What was I even doing here? Why was I witnessing this touching family reunion? My car was destroyed, my plans were wrecked. I was stuck with nothing but these weirdos.
I put my hands to my head and felt like I could scream.
Behind me, a wave of vanilla caught me unawares and broke over me, threatening to drown me.
I turned, and Amber’s bony arms closed around me. Vanilla covered the scent of shit, the scent of fish. All the world was vanilla.
Wetness spread across my chest, and I realized Amber was crying into my T-shirt. Her tears were pure vanilla extract.
“What—?” I couldn’t find the words, but Amber seemed to read my confusion.
She looked up at me, her green eyes wet like the jungle after a rainstorm. Vanilla floated all around us, filling my nostrils, filling the whole desert.
“Thank you,” she said, and then I understood what the vanilla meant.
I hugged her back, wondering when the last time was that I’d felt human touch like this.
I closed my eyes, felt the warmth of her, breathed in the sweet vanilla of her gratitude.
It was almost as good as orange blossoms.
OMG!!!!!! Idk what else to say, this was absolutely amazing.💚💚💚💚