Except for the car wash attendant, Bruna’s alone. The other cars are gone: Nissan, Volvo, Alfa Romeo. She’s the last and it’s late. Earlier, hours before, when she’d handed the car wash attendant the discounted fee, he chose not to meet her eyes.

Droplets of soap continue their swimming; under the fluorescent lighting it’s reminiscent of the moment after sex, when the fluid drips down Bruna’s thighs, dripping, smelling of hydrogen peroxide. Or when it lands outside of her purple nipples. Her purple nipples are sore and swollen as she sits in the 540i, as they usually are during this time of the month. She is menstruating, and the smell in the car wash tunnel is unmistakable—hydrogen peroxide.

She thinks of her mother and of the name she decided to give: Bruna, Bruna, Bruuuna. As a child Bruna heard it being yelled in frustration. Her mother didn’t like the name, it was a name chosen to encompass her strong distaste for this child, a child who looked only like the father.

Bruna means dark-haired, dark. The name reduces her to her most obvious quality. Bruna was born with a dark mane of hair. She sometimes calls herself Una. Or Runa. Or Brun. Bru. Br. Na. Run.

In the 540i, Run’s hair is no longer dark. It was dyed yellow, with a bottle of bleach and peroxide it was dyed.

Yellow is the complementary color of purple, Run thinks, and so she’s delighted that her hair complements her sore purple nipples. As a habit, Run will sometimes touch her nipples while watching television in her bedroom.

Bruna’s yellow hair is stuffed in the mouth of her orange sweater. This creates the impression of short hair, the length being something she can reveal or suppress as she chooses, the artificial yellow.

Van Gogh used an abundance of yellow and purple in his paintings. Run likes The Bedroom with its violet walls and yellow chairs, and so she sometimes calls herself Van.

Van chooses not to show the length of her yellow hair to the car wash attendant. His hair is dark.

The mitter curtains approach, swaying and swinging like the drunk. Then they are upon her and up on the windshield of the 540i. With a loud thump, the curtains cover and uncover the glass, darkness and light alternating, the curtains standing, lying down, standing, hesitating, lying down again, heavy and indecisive on the windshield.

Van wonders what the car wash attendant thinks of this car washing technology, if he finds his job ridiculous, if he considers it unskillful when he prepares for work in the morning. If so, Van doesn’t agree with his impatience, she believes the job is functional.

Van has been conditioned to be complimentary and to sit still, for God’s sake, which is how Van sits now in the 540i, knees touching, ankles crossed, head leaning.