Apocalypse of Jude

Audrey straightens her back from typing out the dictated voice of the law, and lifts her eyes to the blinded window in front of her desk. Strips of a world turning violet float into the office.

/all this law so carefully pretending to protect me and keep me safe/ /deliver me justice/ /but it cant give me justice from the culture that coughed up audrey hepburn/ /and then made my mother so obsessed with her/ /to try make me her/ /now with every guy i meet i know im not that image/ /and i feel guilty about it damn it/ /ive broken no law/ /but im guilty before even meeting a man just for not being born audrey hepburn/ /and you reinforced it mother/ /i thought the people of this town were supposed to be different/ /but youre no different from the culture of the world/ /just the way you always wanted to be one with the culture/ /i have spent my whole life trying to reconcile the two/ /but now that i have/ /im thrown to the wolves/ /he goes and screws janice/ /like audrey hepburn was just a façade to get me here/ /with no recourse to justice/ /and trapped as both criminal and victim in my own world/

Audrey swivels to face a woman exquisite in her features, elegantly dressed, silk scarf around her neck, and the radiance of peace in her face. Despite her being Janice’s sister, Audrey can feel no resentment against her, which she finds strange.

“Why does this day feel so long Evelin? It feels like it has been going on forever.”

Evelin pushes her chair out from under her desk and throws her arms out in a lazy afternoon stretch.

“Why don’t you go home. It’s after five anyway, and I saw you sitting there staring into space.”

“It’s called thinking. When I’m not a dictaphone, I do it from time to time.”

She smiles broadly at Evelin, already letting her hands begin the tidying of her desk.

“Anyhow, I’m going to take you up on that offer, especially as our gracious lawyers are enjoying their invitational round of golf.”

She gets up to go, feeling relief suddenly flood through her at the thought of a cup of tea at home.

“Bye Evelin, see you tomorrow.”

She walks by Evelin on her way to the door.

“Audrey, what you doing for Christmas?”

Turning at the door, Audrey shrugs her shoulders. “Nothing special.”

“You’re welcome to join us for Christmas Eve dinner. It’s just friends. You could get to meet some new people to hang out with.”

Audrey looks at Evelin unsure what to make of the invitation’s hopefulness.

“Sure. Thanks. That sounds nice.”

She stops a moment before as if to give the moment greater presence. Then she looks at Evelin and grins effortlessly.

“Oh to put my feet up and have a cup of tea.”

She leaves the office. As she walks past the salon downstairs she looks in the window, but can see only the reflection of herself, a human engine, trapped in her big-boned frame, throbbing, waiting for a phantom sense of freedom and hating the whimsical lightness of the one she knows is at work inside.

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 68