Hours as People - P.M.

"Nice sunburn," says One in the Afternoon, smirking. "How's Noon?"1

There's something indescribably off about him, and I can't seem to put my finger on it. I fumble in my bag for some more aloe vera, feeling his eyes on me. They are hazel, and he's attractive enough, with high cheekbones and a winning smile, and his clothes are simple but comfortable – they suit him. We're sitting on a park bench, watching passersby. Something just isn't right about him, though.2

"She'll end up in jail one of these days, you know, driving like that. Some cop's gonna take her license."3

I think that cop would need an awful lot of luck and one insanely fast car to catch her, but I don't say anything. He continues talking.4

"She's just trouble waiting to happen. You can't run around like that, screaming down the highway, and expect no one to notice you. You pull a crazy stunt like that, you get caught. You've gotta watch what you do. You wanna do something people won't like, you've gotta be careful."5

He folds his arms across his chest, muscles bulging faintly against the sleeves of his t-shirt, and smiles at me. I tilt my head to one side.6

"Gotta be careful," he says again, still smiling. It should be a pleasant expression, but somehow it isn't.7

"Like you?" I ask.8

"Yeah," he says. "Like me." And suddenly I know what it is.9

The smile never quite touches his eyes.10

"I suppose they've never caught you, then?"11

"No." One leans back, stretching, smiling his empty smile. "And they never will."12

*****13

"Nice sunburn," says Two in the Afternoon, smirking. "How's Noon?"14

There's something just a little bit different about him, although he has nearly the same clothes and only slightly lighter hair, something that lets me know he's only teasing. He's almost the mirror image of One – almost. But his smile reaches his eyes, and I know, somehow, that he's never done anything to be ashamed of.15

He tells jokes and feeds the pigeons, his smile full and warm. The hour flies by like an eager bird, or an old truck racing impossibly down the highway.16

*****17

Three in the Afternoon pulls his tattered raincoat more closely around his shoulders. He spits on the sidewalk, then glowers at the cement.18

"Sick of this place," he whispers.19

He smells sick of it, too, like cough drops and fever and sour milk. His hair, once neatly kept, is torn out in places, and his fingernails are chewed at and roughened.20

"So sick of it," he whispers, a little more loudly this time. "Sick of the food and the cars and the roads and the stores and the faces and the-" he shivers, "-the in-between-ness of it all. Makes me want to just climb out of my skin. Makes me want to get away."21

He makes me distinctly uncomfortable, as if I'm being squeezed through a too-small space and am struggling for air. The wrongness and not-belonging roll off of him like a stench. He fixes me with pleading, rheumy eyes, with wrinkles at their edges that have come much too soon.22

Feeling like I have to say something, I lick my lips nervously. "Can't you get out?"23

He gives his head a miserable shake, like a dog that's been kicked too many times. "No good. Wherever I go, they're bound to build a city there eventually. And I'm too tired to keep on running after nothing."24

I curl up in the gutter beside him, wishing my skin would stop crawling all over itself. Wishing the hour would end.25

*****26

Four welcomes me with an elegant smile and a wave of her ring-covered hand. "Oh, good," she says, "you made it."27

Barely. But I don't say this out loud.28

As I take a seat at the table, I marvel at how well-adjusted she is. She has all the ease and self-possession of royalty, though there is a languidness about her that reminds me of something else.29

A cat?30

Yes, that's it. A lean Siamese glancing coolly at her surroundings, secure in the knowledge that her coat (a blood-red gown that could probably pay my bills for a month) is pristine, that her claws (she drums her nails gently upon the table) are out and sharpened, and that her reign is undisputed. She treads the borderline between afternoon and evening like a feline on a picket fence, with unmatchable, enviable ease.31

Three is always too close to the day, too much a part of the sunlit hours to be able to handle the few flecks of dusk trapped inside of him. He could never be happy in that other world, yet it makes him restless and homeless where he is. But Four has enough of both in her to walk the thin tightrope between the two, smiling brilliantly all the while.32

She raises a glass of sparkling water with one slim hand. In the faintly dimming sunlight, it sparkles like diamonds.33

"Cheers?" she asks.34

"Cheers."35

*****36

Five's suit is not as well-tailored as Four's dress, but even more noticeable is the fact that he's unaccustomed to wearing it. He tugs nervously at his collar as he turns to me, and asks, "Did she say anything? About me, I mean."37

He looks so innocent and hopeful that I'm tempted to lie to him, but that would hardly be fair. "Not…really, no."38

Sighing, he fusses with his goatee. "I knew it."39

"Oh, don't mope," I tell him, though I can't help grinning.40

"I don't understand you women," mumbles Five. "And don't laugh! I really can't see what's funny about it."41

He frowns uneasily at the sun as it sinks inch by inch towards the horizon. He's the opposite of Three, the start of evening forced to share a space with the dregs of the day. I wonder idly if Noon would love him for that, but the thought quickly dissipates. He moons too much after Four to have eyes for anyone else. It's endearing, in a way, but it makes him even more fretful than usual. I get a brief image of him as an old man, still nervous, but mostly content, with Four (aging a bit more gracefully) looking after him. They would be a happy couple – that is, if he ever worked up the courage to ask her.42

"You really should just tell her," I say.43

"What?! No! I couldn't!" Five swallows, toying with his shirt-cuffs, looking ill at the thought. "What would she think of me?"44

"I think it'll be fine."45

He hems and haws and hesitates, glancing every so often at the horizon as he waits for the sun to fade away.46

"…maybe," he says, and it isn't quite a yes-I'll-do-it, but it isn't a no, either.47

*****48

My stomach rumbles. The table between us is overflowing with food, a feast enough to feed an army. Joints of ham and whole fowls jostle for space between heaping mounds of greens, steaming loaves of bread, fruit that glistens in the light of the ceiling's chandeliers. There is rice piled on a silver plate to my left, slices of some strange vegetable to my right, and foods from all kinds of places in between. Some are desserts – Turkish delight sits pale and sugary beside a stack of wafers, both of them dwarfed by a cake crowned with an elaborate marzipan landscape – and there are drinks as well. Strong, dark aromas rise from a samovar at the opposite end of the table. Much of the food is new to me, but all of it is more than enough to draw another rumble from my stomach.49

"Don't touch it," Six warns, the words a low, savage growl.50

She is the only other person in the room, looming huge and sullen in the chair opposite from me. I clasp my hands in my lap, and, after eyeing me warily, she lunges for a roasted chicken, tearing a leg off and shoving it, bones and all, into her mouth. Her skin is grey, and her hair is grey, and her eyes, though wild, are the same dull shade. The only color about her comes from the flecks of food that begin to litter her too-tight clothes, swollen like skin over a tumor. Meat and crumbs and bloodied tomatoes seem to fly from the table to her hands, then into her mouth, and I wonder, shrinking back with disgust twisting in my stomach, how hungry she truly is. It's as if she's trying to make up for something, to fill some hole – but as the spread disappears faster and faster, I know that she isn't really looking for a meal.51

I'd ask her what it is she's searching for, but her maw is too full to answer.52

*****53

"Come in! Come in!" roars Seven in the Evening merrily, making a little bow as he ushers me through the door. The house is filled with light and warmth, and vague dinner smells drift into the hallway from the kitchen. "Come along now, girl, come along," Seven booms as I follow him down the corridor. "I don't suppose Six fed you, eh? No? Of course not – just my little joke, haha. You must forgive an aging man his idiosyncrasies. You'll just have to dine with us, then, won't you?"54

We enter the living room, and he settles himself comfortably in an armchair beside the fireplace, waving me towards a nearby sofa. He takes up his pipe from a small oak stand beside the chair, ruffling his moustache.55

"So! I suppose you saw my wife this morning?"56

I nod, smiling as I remember her cheery laughter. His hair, like hers, is red and beginning to grey, though his moustache remains a bright shade of copper.57

"Ah, good, good! She's in the kitchen – dinner should be ready before long. You saw the children too, yes? They didn't give you any trouble, did they?"58

The memory of bungee jumping leaps all-too-vividly into my head, giving my stomach a queasy turn, but I decide not to mention this, shaking my head.59

Seven knows his family well, though, and he studies me with one eyebrow raised. "Not even Nine?"60

I clear my throat.61

"What did he talk you into?"62

"…Bungee jumping," I admit, and Seven roars with laughter, his belly shaking beneath his waistcoat.63

"Ohhh, goodness. Well, my dear, don't be too ashamed. At least he never talked you into robbing a bank, or some such nonsense."64

Yes, thank goodness for that.65

"Come to think of it, that reminds me of a story from my younger days," he says, with a twinkle in his eye. "Now, let me see…"66

*****67

Eight is crouched in a tree, a dim, shadowy figure huddled in the night. I'm a few limbs below her, my hands clinging tightly to the boughs. "Up," she hisses, and begins to climb, as I trail carefully in her wake.68

Through the branches above me, I see her moving swiftly, surely, gazing ever upwards at the moonlight that tints the leaves and bark. She is wraithlike in her leanness, almost transparent, like some kind of spirit from an older, wilder, freer age. Her hair is short and dusted with pine needles, her clothes ragged, and she is silent – I can hear the rustle and creak of branches, but not her steps, not her breathing.69

I climb more slowly, drinking in the smells of sap and greenery, all mixed with the strange, unmistakable taste of the night. It feels like we've only climbed for minutes, seeking higher boughs with our feet and hands, but she stops, suddenly, and pulling myself onto the branch beside her, I realize that we've arrived. The branches above us grow thin, sparse, and most of the forest is spread out below us, stretching out towards the moon that hovers over the horizon. A cool wind rustles through the leaves, and the trees around us seem to whisper, humming in their quiet, ancient voices.70

I glance at Eight, and through the darkness, I can see that she is grinning.71

*****72

Nine and I huddle beneath an awning as rain pours down in a raging flood. It's loud enough that we have to shout to be heard.73

"What are we waiting for?" I ask.74

"The rain to stop!" he shouts, wincing as droplets sting his face. Sallow and harried-looking, with a long overcoat covering him nearly from head to foot, he licks the water from his lips.75

"Then what?"76

"I don't know!" yells Nine, not angrily, but there's a strange waver in his voice. I can't tell if it's fear or regret or both.77

We wait in uneasy silence as the rain quiets, but doesn't stop. The seconds pass, then become minutes, and the minutes stretch on and on. He is scrubbing a hand across his mouth, staring feverishly up at the sky. When he notices me looking at him, he shakes his head.78

"I don't…I don't know."79

And so we wait, lapsing back into silence. Nine fidgets and shivers.80

We keep on waiting.81

*****82

I'm bleeding on the pavement, my mind lost in a mist of pain and flickering shapes and confusion.83

Was I mugged?84

I vaguely remember fists, and punching someone back, then the cold shock of the ground and something sharp digging into my ribs. Everything morphs into static points of black and white.85

Something moves in my field of vision. I try to focus.86

…Ten?87

Yes, it's her. Someone else is standing behind her, a tall, dark shape, probably the owner of the fists I remember. She taps one foot on the concrete beside me. She's wearing heels – stilettos – and a bright pain lances through my chest at the sight of them.88

I try to sit up, but this is a mistake – I sink back with a sharp gasp. Ten shakes her head. My mouth opens (I taste blood on my lips), but she spares me the trouble of speaking.89

"I know you don't have cash, hon. That's not why. Just wanted the jacket."90

That's when I notice that my shivers aren't just from the adrenaline wearing off, but from the cold, too, and over fishnet sleeves and a purple tank, she really is wearing my jacket. It looks better on her than it ever did on me, though it's a cheap jacket, and hardly worth the bruises I know are forming. Maybe the heels bring out a bit of character in it. Maybe I should buy some.91

Or maybe I have a concussion and I'm not really right in the head just now.92

I try to speak, but swallow the words. Instead, I think at her as hard as I can. You didn't need to do this. You could've asked for it.93

"Oh, I know, honey." Ten runs a hand through her bleached blonde hair, and she laughs. It's a nasty sound. Almost as unpleasant as the green light dancing in her eyes. "I could've asked. But I don't ask."94

She nudges me in the side with one violently purple heel.95

"I take."96

Turning, she waves at the other figure. "Let's go. Don't wanna be late."97

They vanish into the night.98

*****99

Eleven begins to polish his glasses on his shirt after handing me a bag of frozen peas to press to my head. "She's a piece of work," he mutters, tsking. Then he yawns.100

Gesturing for me to follow, he wanders over to the two ratty sofas, nestled in a corner against the yellowed, peeling walls. I limp after him, with the icy bag of vegetables pressed ridiculously against the side of my head.101

"It's almost tomorrow," says Eleven with another yawn. He sprawls on one of the couches, though it's too short for him by far, and his bare feet dangle over its arm. "Just get some sleep. You'll feel good as new in the morning." Rubbing his eyes beneath the lenses, he yawns again, his jaw cracking.102

Sleep seems too easy to be a solution to anything, but I watch him curl up awkwardly on the couch, sandy locks blending with the patches on the cushions, and I start thinking that maybe I am a bit tired, after all. Just a little.103

Laying down on the other couch, I can hear Eleven beginning to snore. My eyelids flicker, then shut.104

*****105

I wake with a start. I'm in my own bed, bruise-free and in one piece, but something is…different. Something's changed.106

Midnight is sitting on the desk, with her legs crossed and an apple in one hand.107

She is a mix of light and dark, her skin pale, almost glowing, her hair as black as her name. A faint smile plays about her lips, quick and fleeting, and it's a sisterly smile, but with mysteries hidden in its depths. Through the open curtains, I realize that the moon is gone, and the stars have vanished along with it. But somehow there is still light enough for me to see by – it comes from her, as if she is lit by some inner glow. I stare out the window, at the strange, empty peacefulness of the night sky, and she munches on her apple and gazes out with me.108

Knowing that we don't need to speak, that words can't really describe this hour, we say absolutely nothing at all.109