Ophelia Ripples

She rose out of the water laughing, spitting up water and pointing straight up at the sky.

“Bitches used to worship the moon,” Emmy cackled, pulling long tangles of hair away from her face so she could properly address the three corpses perched at the head of the pond. She waited, respectfully, for someone to respond, but must have sunk back underwater before either could think of something clever to say.

She used to be a Sagittarius something, back when it mattered.

She twirled around in the shallow pool, taking large mouthfuls of water whenever it pleased her, letting the muck from the bank cling to her skin as she stirred up the bottom of her personal lake.

Candace used to screech at her whenever she did this. Droning on and on about how they needed to preserve the natural flow of the river, or whatever. But after a few days of finding their little haven, the water had turned a permanent brown; the once clear water becoming cloudy, a thin layer of algae starting to stretch from the pond’s edge to the mouth of the river it stemmed from.

The four of them knew it was irresponsible to sit in their drinking water. But it had been five years since showers were outlawed, and none of them had the strength to lift themselves out of the water after the first sensation of being submerged. Victoria called it the Sink, before she slit her throat anyways.

She told the three of them about how mothers would sit their baby’s in sinks, filled to the top with instant water, and bathe them. How people used to have private ponds, like theirs, wrapped in porcelain in their homes. Emmy was too young to remember, and Candace and August had only ever showered in the government bathhouses. But it was nice to pretend they were safe. Sitting in their Sink, being looked after by someone that could control water, no longer worried about where they’d get their next sip.

Emmy dunked her head underwater again for good measure, gulping in more of their pond before she dragged herself to the bank.

Every day it seemed harder to heft herself and her coat out of the water. When she first found the coat it was a rich red fabric shoved to the back of a thrift store rack to collect dust. Now, the velvet was stained with moss and mud, the gold fur lining matted and littered with twigs and leaves. In the beginning, she tried her best to keep it clean. Washing it in the stream next door and leaving it to dry in the sun. But it was no use, so it stayed on her no matter what. Protecting her from the night and keeping her company in the pool. It never seemed to release any of the water it soaked up, so now her only piece of vanity sat on her shoulders like a million pounds.

One of Atlas’ small prices to pay, as she was the last member of the group to die.

Ophelia ripples stretched across the water as she finally dragged herself out of the pond, her coat dragging along the ground like a cape. She rubbed the slime clinging to her hands off on the grass and shook her hair out like a dog, cleaning herself off before she approached her friends.

She stepped in between Candace and Victoria’s legs, mumbling her “excuse me’s” as she tip-toed between dead bodies. Emmy dropped to her knees beside August, smiling brightly as she laid her head in his lap, snuggling against cold denim. She could feel his skin sink beneath her head. Her stomach growled.

“Could I just have one more, Auggie? Pretty please?” She slid her fingers up his denim-clad leg, trying to entice a dead man, as she wiggled her hand into the purple pouch resting at his hip.

The drug purse is a cheap costume accessory. With a plastic gold chain and fake velvet lining—meant for kids playing dress-up. Emmy had wanted to stay in the thrift store where the pieces were collected. It was a quiet town, far enough away from the Wrecks and relatively untouched. But when she suggested it Candace had practically held Emmy’s face in the browning, rancid canal water, trapped forever in the lock of an abandoned town.

“Clothes don’t keep you alive,” she told a sobbing Emmy, before forcing a square-shaped pill down her throat.

They all had drug purses at one point, either paper bags or cloth treasures from donation boxes. Now, their path from DC to the Adirondacks was marked with empty purses. Emmy could remember a time when the pills felt infinite; when UPS stuck to the schedule of delivering a month’s supply in red, white, and blue pill bottles. Now, alone in her forest, she was quickly approaching life without her precious haze.

Her fingers curled around three pills, her fingernail tragically scraping against the bottom of the purse. “You don’t mind, do you?’ She asked August, knowing she should only take one, but knowing she’d be crawling back for more within the hour, anyway. She sat up with the tablets cradled in her hand, blood thrumming with the promise of bliss. She’d feel full for a few hours.

Now that she’d collected her meal, she scrambled away from her three corpses. They were starting to smell, and she was afraid that if she sat too close for too long they’d start to move. Emmy wiped sweat from her brow, shivering in the early evening air and crawling to the other side of the pond. There wasn’t much to do now besides get high and sleep. She plopped herself on a rotten log, directly across from where her friends were sat against the tree. Emmy swallowed one pill at a time, keeping eye contact with each of them. Each swallow felt like a betrayal.

“If looks could kill,” she told them solemnly, before falling backward into the grass.

In the beginning, their pond felt crowded enough that sleeping in deep woods didn’t seem like a problem. Their noise kept any predators away, and they’d barely seen a soul on their trek to the mountains. It was almost like they owned the forest, it felt impossible for anything bad to happen to them. The worst had already happened 400 miles away in the Wrecks. If Emmy climbed high enough in the tree her friends rested against, she could see the speckle of black sky in the distance. The smog from the torched city was eternal—that’s why they had to leave.

Emmy didn’t grow up with the three of them. She was living in DC with her Uncle, stealing the pills he forgot to take and trying to scrounge by. She wasn’t old enough to get her own stash, but it didn’t matter. The government croaked just like her Uncle did. It wasn’t safe to deliver or hand out the bottles of pills anymore (mailmen were being eaten and the soldiers were too busy guarding the White House), so the government was dropping bags and bags of surplus pills in any abandoned buildings desperate Americans would go looking for food: restaurants, malls, and schools.

Emmy met the three of them in a McDonald’s.

She’d lied and said she was eighteen, watching them stuff bags full of pills while she made a meal out of ketchup packets. She wasn’t addicted to the pills like they were, not yet. Emmy’s main objective searching restaurants was finding packets of salt, trying to score any nutrients she could before she choked to death on air pollution.

Candace lured Emmy into their group with the promise of clean air and water, maybe some cooked rabbit if they were lucky (they weren’t). And, of course, the trio had the golden ticket—seven McDonalds to-go bags filled to the brim with pills. Emmy wouldn’t have to ration her Uncle’s dwindling supply anymore.

So, she gladly followed, popping pills as they marched up empty highways and through ghost towns. They only saw sixteen people the whole way up. Three of those sixteen were rotting on the pavement, and though Victoria claimed to know how to cook them, Candace insisted they kept going.

Emmy was six when she had to eat her dog. But if Candace wanted to preach about preserving her humanity, Emmy would take an extra pill and keep quiet.

Auggie had broached the idea of eating Victoria. But then Candace drowned the next day, and the idea soured.

Emmy was already used to taking pill after pill to chase away her hunger. It didn’t make sense to eat her only friends when she would be starving to death no matter what.

At least she had her pond.

She woke up with a pounding headache and a bird on each shoulder, squawking incessantly in her ears.

She used to wake up to the birds and think she was still dreaming, that they were merely nightmares. She knew better now. Emmy instantly started pulling at her hair, scratching her face, and shrieking as she tried to shake them off. The blades of grass were sharp against her bare legs and her beloved fur coat was suffocating. She held her breath, heartbeat in her throat as she crawled towards her pond, her only safety underwater. Gorgeous silence welcomed her there, bird caws trapped above ground. She would have stayed underwater forever, but there were still more pills to be had.

She rose out of her pond instinctively swiping at birds.

They were coming more and more frequently. Obnoxious hoards flocking around her, shrieking into her ears until she passed out. They lived inside of her head, not her stomach, so the pills were no use in keeping them away.

But no birds moved to swarm her, thank fuck, and the closest one sat perched on Victoria’s shaved head.

Victoria was the first to crack (like August predicted). Then Candace left (probably an accident). Auggie and Emmy each took five pills that day.

The three of them had dragged Victoria to sit against the tree, her throat stained red. She was supposed to be the guardian of the pond, but Candace died anyway. Auggie placed her delicately, making sure her heart-shaped locket sat perfectly across her collar bones. He would sleep against the tree, cuddled up with Candace. Emmy woke up one morning to him doubled over, one hand still in the purple drug purse.

It wasn’t hard work to complete the picture. All she had to do was heave the last of the trio upright and keep his grubby hands out of the stash.

The longer she looked at the three the louder her stomach growled. Emmy sunk to her knees, keeping her head above water as her vision swarmed. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She kept swallowing mouthfuls of the pond water, gagging at its disgusting taste. Panicked, she shook her precious coat off and struggled up the bank.

She needed more pills, she told herself, vision still swimming. She’d gone too long without food, and this was the only solution.

She slipped in the mud of the water’s bed and fell face-first into the slime lining her haven. The mud clung to her tongue and her teeth, her entire face covered in filth.

The bird caws grew louder as she crawled her way back into the water, her hands shaking as she tried scrubbing her face clean. Emmy plunged face-first back into the murky pond, hoping a final gulp of water would wash her mouth clean. Then another. And another.

She wished she counted how many pills were left in Auggie’s purse, counted how many more days she’d have to be alive. Perhaps knowing would have given her the strength to lift her head out of the pond.

Emmy tried to remember the way her throat would burn after swallowing a pill dry.

She wished she had her coat.