Saying Prayers

Life is supposed by certain philosophers to be a collection of moments. Little bubbles of time, interconnected mostly by our selves.

In times of distance, rich in the luxury of abstraction, this description sounds like something you might hold in your hand and gaze into. Bubbles, each of them holding your days and the deeds you did there. The emotions you felt. The ideas you dreamt of, the hopes you longed for.

But in the moment, when the days don't flow so much as they stumble together, and you can only hang on by white knuckle and torn fingernail? I suspect that no matter how high we fly, no matter where our futures take us we will still very much be human.

We'll always have days, dear reader, like the one Rhonda O'Neil has in this week's story. This is a story of a day where Rhonda moves from bubble to bubble, moment to moment, tying knots in her rope so that she might hang on just a little longer and then...

Saying Prayers by M. K. Dreysen

Ilya Young walked through the Tiger like he owned the place. Chest out, smile big, son you're doing good and feel like it act.

And all things flow to those who act and feel it, right? And so they did for Ilya. When he stalked the Tiger he ruled a domain that he didn't own.

Everyone who had any sense knew it. Rhonda O'Neil knew it. Or at least acknowledged facts she couldn't change.

"Wait, why's your nose bleeding?" Bella Tan asked.

Rhonda just looked at the youngster. And let the blood drops linger where they threatened to fall.

Bella turned back to the show. Ilya had followed Rhonda down from the upstairs room, slow and proud and strutting. His strides and rhythm had carried him over to a table in the back corner.

Empty, or at least it emptied for Ilya. Others would join him, Rhonda knew. Hell, Bella would be running for that corner soon enough.

"Hey Missy."

"Hey yourself. Need something?"

"Scotch, a double, water on the side."

Missy turned, frowned. "That bad?"

Rhonda shrugged, then licked at the corner of her mouth. Winced, from the split and the blood there. "Not as bad as it could have been."

"I think I'll go on over there and let him buy me a drink," Bella finally said.

Rhonda wiped the blood on the back of her hand. She didn't look at Bella's hesitant imitation of Ilya's self-conscious stroll to the back corner.

****

Higher up on Station, someone else for whom Ilya Young held certain... meaning... wanted to crawl under her own version of a rock. "Gwen, how'd you let it get this bad?"

Gwen Charle stood and faced the music. She'd known it was coming. Well, that there would be a moment of reckoning, one way or another.

She'd rather hoped that the Mars Colony, the one the Station sponsors had backed, would have been farther along. That had been her plan.

Ok, not a plan, so much as a dream. When the accountants showed up with their questions, before they called in the bigger guns... that's what Gwen had pictured in her mind.

Accountants, exit south for dirt. Gwen Charle, exit north for red dirt. Eventually. Only, the Mars Colonists hadn't quite held up their end of the bargain.

Not enough for a lady who'd become dreadfully accustomed to comfort, you see. And the little extras, like Ilya's cash flow. The good wines, the fine art, the little tastes of quality drugs when Gwen felt the urge.

The girls Ilya sent to deliver these things, and...

Gwen put the dream and the memories of the good times aside. Now was not good times, now was not a red dirt golf course and some little beer wench in a high high skirt to make dirty comments to on the back nine.

Now was Phil Ord and a dressing down.

If Gwen was lucky. "I of course take full responsibility."

Phil smirked. "Well isn't that nice of you. You lose our employers how many billions of dollars over the past three years, and you're all ready set go to take 'full' 'responsibility' for it." Phil shook his head. "Like it's business school or something."

Gwen interrupted before her boss could get too far down that road. "I know how stupid it sounds. This ain't white shoes business, Phil, I know that. But what else am I gonna do?"

Other than maybe have booked some tickets for anywhere else but here? Too late, Gwen, too late.

Phil stopped, then unwound the cap from his bottle of water, sipped, put it back. Gwen made sure the bottled water followed Phil whenever he came up for a visit, she knew how the air on Station played hell with his sinuses.

"Trying to survive, Gwen? Only way that works is if you've got an idea for where to make the money before I get back to 9.8. And they'll be keeping an eye on you forever after. Bad place to be."

"Better than where I sit now."

"Granted." He turned, in Gwen's own chair, and watched the blue marble rotate. "Think you can work a little magic in the interest of keeping alive and looking, Gwen?"

I'd damned well better, she thought. "Yeah, I'll come up with something," Gwen Charle said.

****

Missy knocked at the door.

Softly. They'd been in there too long, but Ilya... didn't react well to folks checking on him. Even when they worked for him. Or maybe that was especially.

Nobody said anything. Missy closed her eyes briefly, then leaned her head against the door and knuckled it again.

Nothing more, so it was time for the big sigh and the casual push with her foot.

And then the "Oh, Christ, Bella what..." when she saw the blood.

And Ilya Young's arms dangling over the end of the bed.

****

Rhonda volunteered for the weekly run upstairs. Supposedly it was Bella's turn, but she was otherwise indisposed.

Rhonda waited to smile until she'd cleared the Tiger and the deck it sat on. Ilya wasn't coming back, but the cameras never stopped and one of his friends stood to inherit. But when Rhonda did feel confident enough to smile, she did so fully and completely.

Hands in the air, laugh to the skies, yell and scream and not give a goddamn what anybody thought of it smile.

And then she put it away. Well, except for a little hint that followed her all the way to Gwen Charle's office. "Hey, Miss..."

No blood, and Rhonda's mind might have preferred blood to what she saw on Gwen Charle's computer screens.

"You know what the real tragedy of the Titanic was, don't you?" Gwen Charle said.

"No life boats," Rhonda replied.

"Not enough, anyway. They fixed that, after. From then on, any damned soul on ship had a seat on a lifeboat."

Gwen didn't turn, not even when Rhonda stepped up to her with the bottle, and a couple of other things.

She focused on the trajectory mapped out on the screen. "Nobody can clear a few billion in days. Well, nobody I know. Only way to clear the books is put her in the drink."

Rhonda wanted to snort. Like the Station's sponsors were the neat sort, the kind who kept up to date with their insurance payments. Or even had insurance. The real kind, rather than the storefront in Queens that made them look good on paper.

Rhonda waited until she knew Gwen wasn't violent to hit the button on her cell phone. The one she almost never used; it summoned the cops.

And recorded the conversation.

****

Rhonda sat at the Tiger's bar and watched false dawn rise on the screens. The little special effect that helped clear the place once a day.

She rolled a glass with a last sip of very old Laphroaig between her hands. "Long day?" she asked Missy.

The bartender finished wiping the bar, then eyed the chairs, stacked, and the floor, clean. "We've had worse."