Until it is buried and gone. Goodbye, you fascinating pile of rot! Thank you for playing with me, but now I can return to my room and pray that the rot did not settle. That the trace of you is gone and I can wait and wait and wait and hope . . .

She pauses, staring into the trash, thinking about what it would take to wait. How long she’d be willing to sit in her room on her mattress with her toys, starved of lollipops, for everything to return to normal. If normal is even possible now. How long would she be willing to wait?

. . . until death?

Something steps up behind her. She can hear the crunch of gravel and that thump-thump thumping. She freezes with full certainty that she is shrouded in enough shadow to be camouflaged. That as long as she does not move, it will not sense her.

And then that something speaks: “What are you doing?”

She drops the blanket and unsheathes a stick from the garbage bin. It comes up much shorter than she’d have liked, ribbed with skewered papers, but still, she uses it to confront the voice. A dark figure about her size stands in front of her. It’s backlit by a now blinding skyline that enters the alley and casts the figure in a voluptuous silhouette.

“Stay back!” she yells, but her voice cracks, so she whips the stick in an X.

“Hey, whoa! Calm down, will you?” The voice is pitched higher than a male’s, like hers. The figure jolts back and raises its hands. “Put the damn stick down! I’m just trying to help! You look hurt. You’re barely wearing any clothes and it’s freezing out. Where are your shoes? You’re covered in fucking blood for Christ’s sake!”

The figure hesitates, that thump-thump thumping accelerating in its chest. The sound of its thumping pounds in her ears and she squints at the discomfort but holds her ground. The figure takes a step forward, halting when she whips the stick at it again. It inhales and she can see its shoulders sink with its exhale.

“Come on. Stop that. Let me help you.”

“What do you want from me?” she demands. “Please, I don’t wish to fight, just let me be.” She squints, trying to make out the figure’s features, but the light is flooding in and blinding her.

“Fight? Who said anything about fighting?”

The figure takes another wagered step forward. She whips the stick again and it makes a noise of frustration.

“Goddamn—okay, come on. This is a little ridiculous, don’t you think?”

“No.”

The figure stops, processing the matter-of-fact answer, then throws its head back and laughs. She can see its chest throbbing, filling the air with misplaced emotion. Each laugh accents the now rhythmic thump-thump in its chest, and she thinks it sounds so lovely. So warm in this damp place.

So void of nothing.