Unknown Conviction

“Let’s get going. We will be late for the show,” William said.

“I have to return something first,” Emma said.

“What is it?”

“I ordered a tube of real-quality custard, but the store gave me the wrong item,” Emma said.

“What’d they give you?”

“It’s called mupirocin.”

William’s eyes protruded and he felt greed bubble within him, as if he was Golem from The Lord of The Rings.

“Show me!” William snapped.

“Since when were you into creams?” Emma asked.

“I just want to see if it’s actually that. Where’d you get it?”

“The store on south.”

Emma cowled at admitting to this. She was constantly cautious, about how she presented herself to William. Emma hadn’t been to school since she was 9-years-old; her parents could no longer afford it once they had had another child, adding to the accumulative 5. No child of theirs, apart from Emma, had been able to go to school; instead the children were set off to find labour work on their 10th birthdays’. The only friends’ they had, were each other. All the other children were studying during the day and with their families at night. Emma had managed to maintain a relationship with some children the first year she left. But as the topics changed at school and the dramatic discussion altered, Emma drifted away from the kids she once could relate to.

There were other children from poorer families who wandered the streets and set miscellanies on fire. Although, Emma’s parents had forbidden their children to scurry around the streets with rabbles. Her parents would say you can’t be sent to school but you must upkeep a sense of decorum. Emma had to ask William the meaning of decorum the first time she had heard it. He was her closest friend and she treasured him like the last sip of water on a hot day. Cautious to not overdo it.

They opened the box then rustled and teared the brown paper bag that was inside. The tube felt like a raw chicken breast. William sucked in a heap of air once he read the label.

“You have basically just won the lotto Emma!”

William swayed into her and embraced her fragile white body. Strands of black hair flew into his mouth and his blood began to pump quicker. His sunshine hair radiated beside her head. It was the longest they had held a hug, and her body was bubbling beneath him. She was laughing.

***

Rebecca slapped the box on the counter. The store was as small as two double beds and had brown-cinnamon hues. It sold foods and paraphernalia, but requests for scarce products were often made by customers that knew how the store was conducted.

Resources and supplies were limited in the area. When stock was sold by manufactories, it would go directly to the 4 leading corporations in the city. If someone wanted to buy a product they had to buy the service along with it. From already prepared meals being delivered to the door, to furniture that couldn’t be constructed by the buyer. And everything was always sold at the click of a button, like a concert that is going to be performed on an isolated island, once every 5 years.

“This is the wrong order. I was supposed to get a tube of ointment! This is custard! Who wants custard these days?”

Rebecca’s forehead was perspiring. Her eyes were dotted red and the skin beneath had inflamed. The little specks of beauty had vanished behind her despair. She had walked with glimpses of sprints, slashing her legs and arms through the air, slowing her pace every time the breaths inside her restricted. She was a stout woman with brown hair, which had appearing streaks of grey.

“Do you have the invoice?’ the shopkeeper asked.

Rebecca put a white piece of paper beside the brown box, it was damp from the moisture on her palms. The shopkeeper examined the paper and indeed, it was his handwriting. Even if it wasn’t Rebecca was dressed in respectable black, and did not seem the one to lie, but he was always sceptical about desperate people, as there were many around. On occasion, someone would return a piece of spoiled food or a box with mouse poo in it which he would easily fix with a replacement. He did not have a replacement for Rebecca.

It had taken him two months to find the ointment and he only committed to the order because Rebecca had paid for it in advance. She would also come in every third day, without fault, and ask if it had arrived. At certain times, he would offer her a refund but Rebecca would laugh off his suggestion and tell him she was as patient as a bee harvesting in a desert. With the intention to bribe him, once she brought in brownies that were coated with chocolate syrup; Rebecca had observed the rotation of chocolate products that always sat on his counter.

The store felt colder than usual. As Rebecca stood waiting, she noticed the white webs in the corners of the ceilings and the layers of dust that smothered the objects on the shelves. Her eyes tickled from the fragments of dust that floated in the air or perhaps it was the lingering heat from her tears. Her mind was rattling with words and thumping with pressure. She picked her nails, as she waited.

***

Emma and William walked along the street. It was crowded, but not crowded with people, crowded with muggy dark air and infinite plastic and paper bags. They had to swerve, constantly, to avoid sounding like they were dancing on top of bubble wrap. Emma’s feet stepped between the rubbish like how children avoid stepping on the cracks between pavements. A small taupe bag slung off her shoulder and inside it there was a set of keys and the little brown box.

“We should go watch the show. If you still want to return it tomorrow, I’ll come with you.”

“I don’t know. Somebody paid a lot for it, they obviously want it.” Emma replied.

“It’s probably a big fat scientist, with a beard!”

William jumped towards Emma. He spread his arms out. Then tickled her. Emma slapped him as if he was a fly being swatted away.

“How do you even know it’s valuable?” Emma asked.

“They mentioned it at school, in a class.”

Emma halted. They stood at the corner of a verge. There was a large poster on the side of an eroding building with a woman holding a ripped bag. A trail of objects was scattered behind her. At the end of the trail there was a creature with the body of a fox and a human head. It had a smirk that extended to each side of its face, and it was gathering the items on the floor. In large block writing, ‘NO MORE!’, was written on the bottom of the sign. It was juxtaposing the sad and sly against the deserving and powerful.

If Emma and William continued straight, past the poster, they would reach a hill. If they turned left they would arrive at the corner store. They continued to walk straight.

***

“I’m sorry your package has been lost,” the store-man said.

“I need that package!”

“It may have been mixed up with another order, but the girl didn’t leave any details.”

“Just check again. Check the back again!”

“I’m sorry, It’s not here. I can give you your money back.”

“No! I need it. I don’t just want it. My little boy needs it!”

“I can look for more but you know how long that’ll take.”

“Just tell me everything you know about her!”

“Ma’am, I shouldn’t do…”

“You need to tell me. You’re the one that messed this up!”

“All I know is that her name is Emma. She’s got black hair and she’s young, probably 13-years-old. I know nothing else!”

Rebecca had no ears to hear it. She leant over the counter and hooked the sales book on the counter. But like a crane-machine toy it slipped out of her fingers.

The shopkeeper swiped the book into his arms and bounced backwards.

“You need to leave!” he exclaimed.

Rebecca stepped backwards, ashamed of herself. As she shuffled out of the store it seemed to darken with each step she took. The dimness had turned to bleakness. While she exited, her nose leaked with snot, and it dripped into her mouth. It felt like she was being tugged out, by a thin string, that was attached to the centre of her spine.

***

William and Emma sat on a hill that overlooked a crowd of people. The floor was rocky, they shuffled every several minutes. A rustle came from the bushes, and emerged a group of cats. There were 3 adult cats and a kitten.

“I wonder what that family dynamic is,” William said.

“Maybe it’s not a family and they just don’t want to be alone,” Emma said.

“If that’s the case those stinkers can’t sit next to us.”

Several large red fireworks flew into the sky and they popped into a picture of a broom, and then into a picture of a woman sweeping. The last image was a woman flying on the broom like a witch. Then the fireworks danced around higher in the sky and faded away as if the witch had flown off.

“That’s what I want to be. The witch. I want to fly away but I can’t because I don’t go to school. I’m stuck sweeping floors,” Emma said.

“You could fly away if you kept the box,” William said.

In the reflection of Emma’s left eye, a firework ignited, but when William looked at the sky there weren’t any in the silvery speckled darkness.

***

Rebecca laid on her bed beside her baby. The newborn slept with both hands tucked beneath its voluptuous cheeks. Every heavy breath that the baby took, a cough sprayed out of its soft pink lips. Rebecca had two older children who had both went to school. Her husband was a jewellery cleaner. One of the rooms in the house was her husband’s studio, which brought in more customers. The older children shared a room.

Rebecca knew it not to be wise if she had another child, but by the time her stomach had become plump, dreams about her baby had begun to circulate in her mind, while she slept. She could not bear the thought of ridding the foetus inside her.

The baby was born and then it was cursed with impetigo. The whole family cried along with the newborn for its pain. They cried for they could not afford clinical treatment. Both older children had stopped going to school and were promised that they return once the impetigo was cured.

Rebecca washed her baby with warm soapy water twice a day. She never redressed it in clothes that had been worn before by the newborn. The baby’s hands were constantly mitted, and its tears were more real than tears Rebecca had seen on her older children, when they were of the same age. The tears glistened on top of the wounds that were the cause of the baby’s pain.

The whole family had begun to eat less and work harder. Every penny that could be saved was kept in the hope that they could get mupirocin cream, so that the newborn’s life would not be stolen away by the red school sores. Rebecca cuddled and cradled her baby and did not care if she was to get the infection. A husky pop sounded around her and she looked down to see if her baby was coughing. The delicate baby rest as peacefully as it seemed possible.

The popping sounds turned to bangs and Rebecca listened to the fireworks that radiated throughout her neighbourhood. The fireworks made her cry, for she was not in celebration.