Rust

Maven will never see the sun. She had accepted this fact years ago, knowing that no one in the slum ever did. The clouds and smog from the factories and landfills towering over them, far too dark to ever let a light as bright and beautiful as the sun come through. While the wealthy got to live amongst the sun and watch the smoke in the distance, splendidly draped in cluelessness to the hours Maven and many others in her small area of the world worked to find even just a scrap of metal to sell.

There she sat, knees down in a pile that the trucks had dropped off an hour ago, filtering through the pieces of food, plastic, and the every so often body part in hopes of finding something to bring back to her father’s shop. Fire was ignited in her nose, the smell so strong and fresh that anyone from outside this lifestyle would retch from it.

“Phone parts.” She heard a boy call his friend from a few feet away. She cursed to herself, as though she could have possibly known there was something good sitting only a little to her right. Broken phones were valued in a way almost nothing else was.

After the war almost all phones were taken and burned, seen as devices used to spy and converse secrets. All that Maven would want with one would be to see if there were any photos or videos of that time… well, also to see if there were any games, for she would take anything for entertainment at that point.

She huffed in frustration and went back to stuffing old soda cans and razors into her duffel bag. Fifteen years. Fifteen years she’d been at this same damn task, picking up metal, dumping it into her bag, crushing it at home, and taking it to the recycling plant for nothing more than a couple dollars at a time. If there was any positive to it, it was the small forgotten treasures she would find. The amount of excitement she would get over finding a ring, or even a chain from a watch was immeasurable. It was a rush in her stomach, a bubble in her brain, an unnamed emotion that she used to feel every time her father brought home a new ‘well loved’ plush for her to stuff in the corner of her room.

Badum, badum, badum, her heart crescendoed at the glint of a golden chain sticking out amongst the garbage pile. Her arm darted forward, gripping onto the chain and pulling it harshly towards her. She shoved into her pocket and kept sifting through.

She leered to the side, checking on the young boys by her side. They hadn’t seemed to notice anything, the two of them still happily speaking of their earlier discovery. Maven didn’t even care about that anymore. Something told her that whatever she had just found would have made those boys mess their pants, and that made her smile.

***

Her home was average, a small square stuffed between many others that looked alike to it. The metal sheets that were plastered up to serve as walls rusted, depressed at how time had treated them. Maven’s father didn’t mind the way the house looked at all, because in his words ‘at least we have a house over our heads mija, many others aren’t as lucky’. Lucky? Hard Work is more like it, Maven thought. Her and her father had worked hard for everything they had, and him chalking it up to simply luck always irked her.

Her father sat in his usual place, a beaten down leather recliner in the corner of the room facing the front door. Many a time Maven walked in at almost midnight and swore she had seen the face of the devil himself in her father’s enraged face. That hadn’t happened in a while, especially since Maven turned eighteen and in her father’s eyes were well old enough to know what to do to stay safe. After all, every time she was ‘late’ was because she was trying to feed both him and her for the night.

“Anything good?” he asked.

“My day was fine, thanks for asking.” Maven sighed, dumping the bag by her father’s feet.

The piece of jewelry jumped in the pocket of her large jacket and she paused. Hand it to him. It could be worth something. You guys have no food for the next couple days. This little piece of gold could possibly get you guys some better walls. Every single reason why she should take that little chain out and hand it to her father without a second thought was screaming at her, and yet she continued walking to her room.

Selfish. Yes, selfish. But for once, she was ok with being selfish. God forbid she wanted one thing for herself, one thing that she had found and got to keep simply because it made her happy, because it gave her that heart racing, bubble in the brain feeling that for so long she couldn’t come up with a name for. But now it is all clear. It is being ‘ecstatic’, a word she had read in a dictionary once and never again thought of. Why would a girl from the slums ever have to think of that word? She felt ecstatic when she got those plushies from her father, she didn’t feel ecstatic when he would hit her the next day for not bringing enough cans home.

She stuffed her hand in her pocket and grabbed the chain once she was safely behind her door, out of view from her father’s ever peering eyes. She looked down at it, the gold reflecting a beautiful cast from her low lit lamp. There was something at the end of it, some sort of pendant. Maven picked it up curiously, flipping it front side up in her fingers. It was in the shape of a heart, with some sort of design indented on it.

In seconds Maven was by the sink in the bathroom, rinsing and scrubbing away what had to have been years of grease and grime from it. It cleaned fairly easily, only a few spots left when she had finished. The engraving was a crown with a rose inside of it, the design clean and straight. It had weight to it, and when Maven flipped it over again in her palm she noticed a gap between the front and back. At first she reasoned that it was just broken, probably having been crushed by some heavier piece out in the garbage yards. Now that it was clean, however, she couldn’t help but try to open it. The pieces stuck together at first, rusted together with decay. She pried it open, so very sure that it had to open. Finally, the front and back separated, opening as thought the necklace was a book.

A small folded piece of paper fell straight in Maven’s hand as though it had been meant for her all along. She wondered if it was fate for her to be standing here, holding the tiny piece of paper, not knowing what secrets it may hold. The thought sent ripples through her stomach and up high into her heart.

She unfolded the paper, fingers gentle and soft. The paper was wet, yellowed, and had several red stains. Maven kept unfolding in pure disbelief at how small whoever had done this had managed to get it into. She turned it over one last time, revealing the faded message.

Send me a message when you receive this, Maven. I’ll be awaiting your dutiful response. 2134053020.

S

Maven dropped the paper, eyes widening. What? A scream fought its way up her throat. She pushed it down. Her heart was still beating, but this time she was not ecstatic. This time… she wasn’t sure if she knew the word for it. The only one that seemed to encapsulate the full negativity she felt reading that note was one. Bad.