>>6111361<span class="mu-i">It doesn’t make any sense. A gun. Why a gun, here, why a robbery here, in this stupid place? It’s stupid. It goes against the script… then her instincts, dulled by almost fifteen years of civilised caging, kick in and she screams — she can hear it in her skull over the drumming music — the robber can hear it too, he raises his gun, pushes her out of his way, punches her gut, runs past her, into the dull blue sky, steps into her parents’ yellow car, and the tires screech and there — it’s gone.</span>
<span class="mu-i">That punch… she groans. Ouch. That fucker got her good, she tries to say, she tries to feel angry, but it’s like anger is a foreign concept, slipping out of her weak fingers.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Her t-shirt is wet.</span>
<span class="mu-i">And she feels a stinging, did he use a… knife.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Her fingers are painted red. Stained crimson, stark and shiny under the sunlight. The crimson spreads from some spot on her t-shirt, which does not make sense, because her t-shirt is white, not red…</span>
<span class="mu-i">It’s getting pretty red.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Her head falls on the floor. She feels so tired. Dulled. Something wet keeps dripping beneath her. </span>
<span class="mu-i">She got shot.</span>
<span class="mu-i">This is absurd.</span>
<span class="mu-i">She is—</span>
<span class="mu-i">She can’t get shot!</span>
<span class="mu-i">She has a life ahead of her! She can’t get shot like a stupid nobody!</span>
<span class="mu-i">Opening her mouth to protest, only a wet gurgle spills out. The edges of her vision turn dark as her father and her mother rush to her, holding her up, her father’s grip presses against her wound, squeezing more blood past his fingers, her mother’s arms wrapped around her neck, calling her name over the music, her name, telling her everything will be alright, to stay awake, stay with them…</span>
<span class="mu-i">She’s dying, and she’s not even listening to her favourite fucking song.</span>
<span class="mu-i">This is pretty fucking stupid.</span>
<span class="mu-i">The notes stretch, bloat, and the black tide encroaches her. Her head falls back, like a doll’s, and her vitreous eyes glance at the clear blue sky, the white circle of the moon hanging from below, and as her memories shifts and entangle like roots, the last moments of her previous life on Earth painted over the memories of her encounter in the well,</span> the Kiengir woman from the other side, with her sable skin and blue eyes and long black hair stands out there on the road, holding out a long grey thing on her opened palm, her remembrance mixed and broken, <span class="mu-i">and then the darkness rises and it drags her down, down, down…</span>
