The call of the void.
I can’t remember the Prench term for the phrase, but that’s the translation.
It’s that feeling you get when you’re standing at the edge of a long drop, and something in the back of your brain leans in really close and whispers: jump.
I’ve never really felt that ‘call’, and if I’m thinking objectively, that’s probably a good thing. I'm bad enough without the encouragement of a disembodied voice telling me to do something like that.
A cold, biting wind blows across my hunched shoulders, and a violent shiver runs through me. The fourth level of the parking garage in the Commons where I’d hunkered down for the evening is one of the less open ones, but that's not a particularly high bar. It’s getting late, though, which means I need to get moving.
I’ve been pretty good about getting to one of the four shelters in the area before they shut their doors, but sometimes things happen and I can’t make it. Things like I just can’t work up the energy to get up and move my lazy butt the few blocks down the road to try to secure myself a warm place to sleep at night. Things like just trying to convince myself that I deserve one of those spots since I know for a fact that those shelters turn people away every night once the beds fill up, and if I’m in one of those beds then that means I’m the reason that someone had to sleep on the street that nights.
I have that argument with myself a lot.
I lose that argument more than I probably should.
Tonight, though… it’s a school night, and I’ve shown up to school enough times after sleeping outside that I think Sunset is starting to get suspicious.
It helps that I normally look like a complete mess, so it’s kind of hard to tell when things get worse. There’s a theory called ‘Broken Windows’, where if you see a house with broken windows then you know that house is more likely to get graffitied or have squatters or something because it’s already been damaged.
That’s the key. The damage is already there, so ‘Broken Windows’ says that once that happens people stop paying attention to more damage.
My ‘house’ has a lot of broken windows, I guess is my point.
I should at least make an effort though. Sunset has been so good to me since the whole Memory Stone debacle. She knows I don’t have any friends… or acquaintances… or people who remember that I’m in their class, including the teachers, which makes getting decent grades kind of difficult.
So she goes out of her way to include me, even though I know I probably smell a little… bad. But the girls’ shelter I’m going to tonight has a good laundering service that runs on Sunday evenings like tonight, which means I can get a decent meal, sleep in a safe bed, and have clean clothes for tomorrow.
That should help.
I shiver again as I force myself to my feet, and my stomach growls weakly at me as I start to walk. I haven’t eaten today, but that’s nothing new. I’m starting to get used to the feeling of being hungry.
As I start down the stairs, that treacherous little part of my brain drags my eyes over to the edge of the parking garage and reminds me there’s a much quicker way down, but I grab it by the scruff and push it back to the rearmost quarters of my mind where it belongs. It’ll stay there for a few hours, at least.
Until dark, anyway.
Things are always the worst at night when everything is quiet.
I tug my hoodie around myself and do my best to tuck my rat’s nest of green hair into the hood. It’s wearing a little thin, but it’s all I’ve got for the moment. Maybe if I’m lucky there will be some extra clothes in the bins tonight at the shelter. They let the younger girls have first pick, so maybe… maybe if there aren’t too many of us I won’t feel so bad about picking something out for myself.
Fortunately, it’s not raining today, but it is cold. Winter in Canterlot is always cold. Not much you can do about that. I’m lucky most of the shelters make an exception for snowy days and nights. They’re willing to keep the doors open a little longer, or let a few people sleep in the lobby after all the beds are full even though they’re not supposed to do that.
It’s probably the only reason I lived through the winter.
The closer I get to Saint Easel’s, the more I can pick out the ones like me. Better than a dozen, and they’re all women, all ages, although only a few that are around my age. We’re all shivering and dressed in as many layers as we can reasonably manage, although for some that’s clearly been too few.
There are fewer faces than last time. I hope it’s because they’re already inside. The alternative is grimmer than I like to dwell on.
At the front door is a woman with a periwinkle complexion whose age I’ve never been quite sure of. Her name is Sister Willful, she’s one of the nuns who operate the shelter, it’s just her and about four others, along with a slew of volunteers from the area. The ones who operate the soup kitchen change day by day, and I guess they’re part of some non-profit in the area that helps staff shelters.
The sister is wearing most of her habit, her headpiece covering her neck and her long, black and pink hair, but beneath that she wears a soft white blouse and a long, ankle-length blue skirt. Her expression is a little sad, with her grey-blue eyes turned down a little even as she’s doing her best to give me a smile.
“Good evening, Wallflower,” Sister Willful says with a small smile. “We have a bed for you tonight if you need it.”
She says ‘if’ but she’s not fooling anybody. She knows that I don’t have anywhere to sleep that isn’t cold concrete.
“Uhm, Th-Thanks,” I say through chattering teeth. “I uhm… I…”
“The showers are still open if you’d like to wash up before dinner,” Willful says before I can ask. “And there are still a few good coats in the bins… if you need one, that is. Yours is looking a little worn, dear.”
“Th-Thank you.” I step inside the shelter, past Sister Willful, and into the warm air of the lobby.
As much as I’d like to go immediately to the showers, I have to wait. There’s a line up to the registration line with ten other women in it. They have to get out names down on a registry before any of us can go in, along with a few other things like making sure no one they’re letting in has been using. There are other shelters for that, although they’re usually a lot worse, and fill up a lot faster.
I wait in line for almost forty minutes before I finally get up to the desk and go through the now-familiar process of signing in. They ask me their little bevy of questions. I sign a form saying I answered them all truthfully, and then, finally, I’m let into the back where I can head towards the shower stalls.
They’re bare, spartan things, but they’re practically heaven for me.
Each one is a little private stall stocked with brandless soap, a couple of disposable packets of shampoo, and a small scrub.
The water is hot though. That’s the important part.
Before I head in, I stop by the office near the bathroom to get one of the sets of pajamas. They only come in four sizes, and I grab the smallest one. I’m ‘petite’ if you want to be nice about it, and scrawny and malnourished if you want to be honest.
“Thank you,” I mumble as one of the volunteers passes me a bundle of cloth over the counter, and I clutch them to my chest as I make my way to the showers.
I can smell whatever’s cooking in the kitchens already, though, and it’s making the pain in my stomach unbearable. The worst part is, I know I’m not going to be able to eat very much. If I try to, I’ll probably just throw it up. I think my stomach is about the size of a walnut by now, and shoving a bunch of soup and bread into it is a really good way to have that soup and bread make a loud and unpleasant encore performance a little while later.
“Ignore it,” I say under my breath. “J-Just ignore it.
My teeth are still chattering. I’m cold but I barely feel it, which is a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong, it stinks to feel cold all the time, but you know you’re actually in trouble when you stop feeling cold even though you know you should be. That means your body temperature is starting to drop, and that’s how you go to sleep and just… don’t wake up.
A hot shower and some warm food will help though.
I claim one of the stalls near the back and crank the water on to lukewarm. The way I’m feeling, even that will probably feel scalding, but once I get used to it maybe I’ll turn it up a little.
The water pressure isn’t the best but once it gets warms up and gets going I step underneath the tepid stream and let out a soft sigh of relief. I soak for a good few minutes, relishing the feeling of the water sluicing over me for a moment before grabbing one of the scrubs and some soap and starting to work away at the layer of grime I’ve managed to accumulate over the past few days.
The shelter I went to on Friday was unisex, so I didn’t shower. Which means I haven’t showered in, oh, about five days. It’s a small miracle Sunset never noticed, but I guess I just kind of always smell like dirt. Plus, it helps that I spend most of my time in the gardens of CHS. There’s plenty of other, better, smells there.
Once I feel reasonably more alive, I try to use the small comb in the shower to work out the worst of the snarls and knots of my hair while I stand under the flower of water. The colour of what’s flowing out of that tangle is probably a bad thing, but I try to ignore it as I work through the mess, and eventually, I feel like I’ve got it to the point that using the shampoo won’t just be another waste.
Twenty minutes later, I emerge from the showers, shaking and starving, but clad in a set of their one-size-fits-all pajamas and ready to finally get something hot to eat. I put my shoes back on, a little happy to have found they’d left me a new set of socks.
The less said about the ones I’d walked in here in the better.
As I head towards the cafeteria, I pass by the bins and pause. There’s a nice green canvas jacket in one of them, folded up and freshly laundered by the look it. The cuffs are frayed and there are a few rips along the sides, but they’re all superficial, and it’s loads better than what I was wearing.
“You want it?” The girl across the counter manning the bins is a bored-looking twenty-something with a fair complexion and bubble-gum pink hair.
The way she says it isn’t mean, exactly. Just tired-sounding. I guess seeing people like me all the time would be tiring. Maybe just emotionally exhausting.
“Here, take it,” she says, scooping the jacket out of the bin and shoving it at me. “It’s probably one of the better things in here and you look like the wind goes right through you.”
I stare at it for a long moment. It does look nice but… there are so many others and… and the only reason I’m here is because…
“N-No, I’m alright,” I say after a moment, then step back. “I have something else, it’s just being washed, I’m alright.”
She raises an eyebrow. It’s clear she doesn’t buy it, but that’s okay. I don’t need her to. She won’t push the issue, anyway. There’s always someone else who needs things like that, and unlike me, they might actually deserve them.
I move past the bins, wrapping my arms around my stomach as I step inside the cafeteria. It’s a quiet place, despite the fact that almost twenty-five women are all packed in the relatively small space. This is one of the smaller shelters in the Commons, but you have to meet some pretty strict criteria to be let in.
The smell is almost unbearable in the cafeteria, but fortunately, the lines are already forming which means the cooks and servers are about to start coming out and setting the food out.
Everyone gets the same portion sizes, that way there’s enough to go around, so the staff does all the serving. Usually, it’s just more volunteers, and half the time it’s people doing community service for one reason or another.
I get into the line, situating myself at the back, and grab a tray. I hope there’s something that isn’t too greasy available. My stomach doesn’t handle that stuff very well. Worst case scenario, though, is that there’s always some kind of kosher dish or soup that will fit, though.
I’m not picky.
The servers are all chatting and talking and smiling, most of them are regular volunteers and I recognise them, as my gaze drifts over them before it gets swallowed by my hunger pains again. I pass by the greasy foods and wait for the stuff I know I’ll be able to keep down near the end of the row.
The line moves slowly, and everybody is polite enough to wait for their turn, but that means my stomach is practically eating itself by the time I get to the food.
Have you ever been so hungry that it’s a sound?
Not like, an actual sound. I mean like you’re so hungry you stop registering noise, and sometimes even sight. You’re just existing in this lightless void of hungry darkness and waiting, and hoping, that it will be over soon.
That’s the kind of hungry I am when I realise the mistake I’ve made, and that realisation is triggered by the sound of a voice.
A painfully familiar voice.
“Wa-… Wallflower?”
I look up from the line, the food tray shaking violently in my grip as I stare across the food counter.
Her hair is tied back in a tight, low ponytail, and she’s wearing a soup-stained smock and a hairnet. I’ve never seen her in a hairnet and at any other time it might be funny. Now though, with the shocked and horrified expression slowly growing on her face, I don’t think I’ve ever felt less like laughing.
A soup ladle crashes onto the floor from Sunset’s hand and her face goes pale, so I do the only thing I know how to do in situations like these.
I drop what I’m holding, then turn tail and run.