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Johanna Caruthers

Stopping for Directions on
a Rainy Night

The sky was gray that morning. That cold, unusual putty color that,
when seen from between slats of aluminum blinds causes a slowly wak-
ing sleeper to turn over and slip back into a more scenic dream, nothing
noteworthy in the forecast. I woke up with a shiver before my alarm
clock went off, its rainbow-colored digital numbers the only light in
my small bedroom. My mother had always warned me that shivers like
that, the ones that are able to rock you awake meant that something was
about to change, something big. I braced myself as I shrugged off the
thick knitted bed covers. I wasn't in the mood for any more changes.

I padded as quietly as possible down the narrow apartment
staircase, knowing how much Agnes liked her mornings quiet, especially
during the dragging winter. Each linoleum step felt like a block of ice
underneath my toes. Draftiness was one of the many consequences we
were forced to face when paying a rent of four hundred and twenty-five
dollars a month for the both of us. I could see into the kitchen before
reaching the bottom landing and was welcomed by the familiar sight of
my best friend, perched on the windowsill, looking lazily down onto the
dusty black top of the street. It was as if she was focusing on a distant
discarded fast food wrapper or chalk drawing, her eyes still, wide, and
glazed. A cigarette crackled faintly from between her bony fingers, the
ashes plummeting at their leisure onto the unknowing pedestrians that

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