Excerpt of Pipe Dreams by Destiny Allison

Morning was a small mercy. At the window, Vanessa pulled a few dry crumbs of cooked, ground beef from her pocket. Lint covered and rank with garlic, they were a treasure. On the fire escape, the scrawny, gray cat meowed as he picked his way across the metal grate. Just out of reach, he stopped, swishing his tail.

"Here kitty. Here Hercules. Come on, boy," she called. Her efforts to coax him closer were futile. Until recently, she hadn't liked cats. Aloof, unresponsive, and arrogant, they had irked her. Now, she hungered for the warmth of his tiny, scabbed body in her arms.

He meowed again. Not wishing to prolong his agony, Vanessa dropped the meat onto the ledge and stepped back. Hercules pounced. Then, without a glance in her direction, he disappeared. Wistfully, she closed the window, twisted her abundant, auburn hair into a bun, and hurried out the door to savor a few, precious minutes in the park. Between the buildings, a shaft of sunlight cut the shadows on the street like a knife. Soon, pigeons would crowd the square and the callers would begin their chants. Vanessa shuddered. The callers were like her nightmares; a daily reminder of a life lived in fear.

At this hour, the park was empty. Tall trees towered above her. Their leaves shimmered in the early light. She settled on her favorite bench near the edge of the concrete square, opened her arms to the sky, and took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth, ocean breaths.

Did she still remember yoga? Had they gone for coffee, laughing and gossiping after class? Did she gather with her girlfriends to share tragedies that seemed important then? She rolled her head and closed her eyes. The sun warmed her bare neck. Stilling her mind, she imagined her grandfather's face. Rich with wrinkles and erratic hairs, it was her totem. He had died years before the rebellion, but she carried his memory like a prayer. He, too, had survived a holocaust. Perhaps she would also live to rejoice in life. Thinking of him, she whispered her daily mantra. "Let them come. Please god, let them come. I've earned my vengeance."

Something brushed her ankle. Jerking her leg away from whatever slithering thing had braved the morning, she slapped the pavement with her purse. Nothing moved and she dared a glance beneath her. Amid dead and rotting leaves, an arm was barely visible. Vanessa startled, but did not scream. She didn't need to rouse the callers from their dirty sleep. She just needed to leave. As she began to walk away, a tiny voice scratched out a noise that sounded horribly like, "Please." Vanessa froze. In the silence that followed, there was no voice, no wind, no movement. The hushed world waited, as if everything would take its cue from her.

She peered beneath the bench. The girl's naked body was thin, the kind of thin people protested about before protests didn't matter anymore. In those days, her pale skin and prominent bones would have been envied. Had she known proms and boyfriends, or gone to high school with a ponytail hanging river–sleek down her narrow back, the girl would have been beautiful. Instead she had learned to dumpster dive and cook rats. Born a fraction too late, she was just another street waif, a barely living legacy of human greed.

As instructed, Vanessa avoided the Fallen and their children on her way to and from work. They were the outcasts, the undesirables. By refusing to comply with the mandates, they had been relegated to the streets, fending for themselves without benefit of food, electricity, or other conveniences. The drivers, smug in their management positions, cautioned against them, warning of theft, disease, and other unsavory possibilities. Had they been warning against something else, something worse? Part of her suspected their horrors paled in comparison with her own.

"Please," the girl said again, her small voice a cold hand on Vanessa's throat. In the empty park, a piece of trash tumbled across the square. A bird landed in a tree. Warily, she squatted and pulled a wet leaf from the girl's pale face. One of her eyes was blackened. Dried blood clung to the corner of her mouth. Bruises colored her shoulders and neck. Vanessa could not avert her eyes. They were drawn to nipples, raw and red. Welts peppered the girl's belly. Her thighs were pressed close together and, around one ankle, a pair of dirty panties hung crusty and stiff.

Vanessa turned her head. In the square, pigeons wobbled this way and that in search of crumbs long gone. The sun lit the windows above the vacant shops. Her bus would be here soon. If she missed it, her driver would leer and offer her an exchange. The memory of his hairy hands, slick with sweat on her breasts, made her cringe. Each time he touched her she died a little more, but, in spite of the hurt, her heart still beat.

The girl whimpered. A tear trickled down her dirty face. How long had it been since Vanessa was so young? Six years? A lifetime? The girl should have been sneaking out of the house, kissing a boy behind the stadium, and learning to drive. Vanessa hesitated. Though fed, she was not strong. She couldn't drag the girl out and carry her anywhere. Compassion for the Fallen was forbidden and any effort on the girl's behalf would not be forgiven.

Pushing a strand of blond hair as fine as spider web from the girl's battered face, she felt her own eyes welling. The girl moaned, but Vanessa had to go. The sun was rising. The callers were coming. Her driver was waiting.

A call rang out from across the square. "Woo Weeeee! Gonna be a fine one!" Startled, she fell back, hitting the ground with a thump. The girl was well hidden under the bench and Vanessa had to move.