Ashes Of The Phoenix. Jane Fade Merrick

distracted her, allowing her to suffer less from the cold. She now passed the sponge over a long scar on her left leg. As if it was a kind of eerie path, Fade slowed her motions as she followed it; the girl followed the long trail passing over the cross marks of the stitches which had now healed, and in doing so she counted silently: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...”. Seven stitches were needed to heal the gash she had been inflicted. “Don’t harm other people’s lives” was the last point of her list, while the cold rivulets dripped from her legs to die in the shower tray.

      Once she put the dirty clothes to soak in a bucket, Fade left the bathroom wearing tattered pyjamas and the rollerblades at her feet, to find that everything was clean. That unexpected order made her reflect on the fact that she hadn’t even allowed the child to dry up; she took a better look and noticed that his clothes didn’t look wet, or dirty.

      â€œBut how...?”

      â€œIt’s a synthetic cloth: it doesn’t get wet nor does it stain” he anticipated her.

      She was puzzled, but realizing that it had been quite a while since she had stopped following fashion, she had no arguments to rebut.

      â€œWhere are your parents?” She asked finally.

      â€œIn a distant country” said the boy vaguely. After a moment of silence, he resumed: “I need to go somewhere, can you help me do it?”

      â€œAs long as you get out of here,” she replied disdainfully.

      â€œAlright, now let’s eat something.”

      She didn’t like that tone at all, for she found it quite bossy and demanding, but she merely grabbed a couple of packages of food and sat on the bed, which, fortunately, was spared from the earlier flooding.

      The child sat on the ground and opened a packet of paprika flavoured crisps.

      â€œHe has weird tastes” she thought.

      After having eaten a couple of chips, he asked, “What’s your name?”

      She hesitated a moment: she was no longer used to confiding in someone, more so with such an unsettling person.

      â€œI no longer have a name in this city. People simply call me Fade.” She answered.

      â€œThen you can call me Jag” said the child, in no way intrigued by the phrase he had just heard.

      Another endless silence stretched between the two.

      Following the hearty - and high in carbohydrates - meal, Fade stood up and walked to the door; she pulled back the bolt and, with an elegant and sarcastic wave of the hand, she invited him to leave. “You don’t mind sleeping in the lobby, do you? Surely there is no place for you in here!”

      â€œI don’t mind” said the boy standing up and approaching her. “But first,” he paused for a moment, “May I use the bathroom to wash my hands?”

      â€œI don’t mind” she said with a toneless voice “But don't use more than half a bottle of water!” she recommended.

      A few minutes later Jag came back, and, without saying a word, he walked through the door and closed it behind him; the girl simply slid the lock in place and listened to the boy’s movements in the hall, and as soon as everything was silent, she went to lie down on the bed.

      After a night of restless sleep, Fade got up at sunrise, quickly put her rollerblades on and went to check if the child was still there or if he had gone away. While she slid the security bolt open, she couldn’t fully understand which of the two possibilities she would have preferred.

      She opened the door very carefully, looked around and saw the boy in a corner, curled up like a cat because it had been cold the previous night. She felt no pity at the sight: too many times she had slept in those conditions, and she had seen hundreds of people acting in the same manner. “Come on, get ready!” She ordered, waking him up.

      The day didn’t start well for the girl: in her haste to escort Jag to wherever he wanted to go - and finally get rid of him - she didn’t have the time to style her hair in her usual hairdo, so she went around wearing a hat which was big enough to cover all her hair and a pair of sunglasses to avoid being recognized; a pretty futile attempt, for she continued to wear her threadbare purple and black rollerblades.

      She absent-mindedly followed the brat who walked before her carrying a big map with both hands. The child kept on speaking to himself reading the names of the streets and raising his nose in the air, looking for a match with the plates attached to the walls of the streets.

      This went on for a bit and, suddenly, Jag stopped with the open map still in his hands. So abruptly that she almost bumped into him.

      â€œWhat's the matter? Are we there?” She asked.

      He didn’t answer; he just stood still in the middle of the street. Then he finally admitted: “I'm lost...”

      Fade, stunned at first, burst out in a fit of rage: “What do you mean you’re lost? We’ve been walking around the city for hours and you realize only now that... Give me that!” She ordered, snatching the map out of his hand to understand where they were. Following a moment of confusion, she understood: “You idiot! This is the map of another city! How will you be able to find your way around with this?!”

      â€œHow is that possible?” He asked with the blank stare of a person who doesn’t understand what is happening.

      â€œYou tell me! It’s also the map of the city of another State!”

      â€œThat's why you speak with that strange accent” he replied tersely, without giving the slightest importance to the huge mistake he had made.

      At that further demonstration of total detachment from their problem, she crinkled the map with a single move of her hands and threw it on his chest. “I'm done with you! I'm leaving!” She finished, moving quickly back in the direction from which they had come.

      â€œWait!” He shouted before she was too far to hear him. She stopped, although she knew she was making a mistake, and stood still without looking back.

      Encouraged, the child ran to catch up with her, with the crumpled map under his arm.

      â€œYou were kind to me,” he said “Let me repay you.”

      He dropped the map on the ground and took out of his back pocket a ridiculous - in Fade’s opinion - portfolio with manga illustrations on it. To her great astonishment, it was full of large bills.

      Jag took one and handed it to one. “Here, this is for you.”

      â€œThis is a joke, isn’t it?” Was all she managed to say without the slightest hint of wanting to take the note. “Of course not!” He continued, “I think it’s the least I can do to thank you for what you did...”

      Fade stared at the bill. Of course, that would have been enough to get her by for a while without worrying and risking her neck or prison in order to grab a meagre meal, but inside her something was stopping her: decisions she had taken, mental chains blocking her actions, oaths, prohibitions and obligations that bombed her brain every day reminding her why she was in that situation.

      â€œGoodbye,” she said, walking away from that awkward position. This time the boy didn’t stop her, he just looked at her going away, while he soundlessly lowered the hand holding the bill. He stood there, with his usual neutral expression; then he snorted and smiled sarcastically and cynically at the same time: “Hm! She’s incorruptible.”

      Fade ran through the streets in a sweat, as if trying to escape the storm of thoughts that echoed in her head. She ran to escape from it, because sliding on the asphalt allowed her to