my microsoft word isn't working so ...shit this is a easy place to save stuff..
The call comes
We walk toward the burnt outhouse . My dad sees her before I do and starts to run, takes his water from his Jansport .
The stall doors are too charred to give us splinters. Unlike so many things I touch here ,the charcoal feels clean on my hands. Worming things scrubbed away permanently by fire. Anita is the skinniest girl I have ever touched. She is grinding the soft insides of her cheek with sharp molars. My dad lifts her sweating body from the toilet and hands her to me and I can her teeth working away fleshy muffled sucks. My dad gestures for me to hold her while he cleans her buttocks, her legs, gives her water.
His face droops , his look of lost control. A sadness I rarely see in his strings of constant power trips, there is no power left. Anita accepts our intrusion with silence. Her small body leans on me while my father dresses her, embarrassed. I feel her sleepy breath in the back of my nose.
" Ok Beta, here we go"
My dad speaks to her like he speaks to dogs. Free of human weight. The air outside is rubbery and stagnant. A storm's coming.
" Are we going to a doctor?" He looks at me and raises his eyebrows , he's so worried he has no lips . He nods like I gave him the idea and we wrap her into the front seat.
