Tomoboshi
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Ash
🕑 Added 2023-09-01 15:14:52 +0000 UTCFor many years I have not written coherent texts more than a couple of sentences.
And the texts on the subject of our loved fetishes are probably 20 years old (do not ask about them, they have long been irretrievably lost =)).
I had an idea for a little story of two girls suffering from loneliness.
My English is terrible so I apologize in advance for mistakes and all!
Now then:
The city outside the window was drowning in the night. The lights of advertisements blurred somewhere far below in indistinct spots. It drizzled rain. It was about midnight.
The girl climbed onto the shabby window sill, shivering involuntarily - it was cold from the window. She ran her hand over the black side of the guitar and placed the instrument in her lap.
The corridor with the same type of doors of cheap apartments stretched in both directions, slightly wrapping. Because of this, it seemed endless. “Fuck the system!” - someone left this call on the wall directly opposite. “Fuck yourself” - added below. Fluorescent lamps burned one after three, to save money, and created large gaps of unlit space. The girl had just settled into the lighted patch closest to apartment 1109. She rented 1109 a couple of days ago.
Miranda (namely, that was the name of the girl) lightly touched the strings with her fingers and the guitar came to life for a second. She sighed.
There were shuffling footsteps around the corner. Soon she saw a bent man with a sunken chest, who dragged past her, giving her a blank look. He looked like a junkie who only had a couple of months to live. If you're lucky.
She sighed again.
Seattle was not the most hospitable city.
“No problem Miri, we just need a decker.” “Well, yes, it’s clear that you have no experience... But the task is trivial!”
Yeah, and as soon as she arrived this Richie didn’t answer the phone or email. And the local board doesn’t even know anyone with that name (who the hell would doubt it!).
Miranda sighed for the third time.
So you have to while away the time in this bedbug hole, in the hope that this motherfucker will still appear…
She ran her hand over the strings again and played a couple of chords. The sound of the strings echoed through the empty corridor. Music, of course, is a hobby, but she loved to play.
She struck the strings again, more confidently, and began to play some old melody. She did not remember what kind of song it was - some kind of junk from a hundred years ago, grandfather taught these chords, while he had not yet completely fallen into insanity.
The music captured Miranda and she shuddered when a strange buzzing voice was heard from the left:
“We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries…”
She stopped playing, looking in the direction of the voice in surprise. A little further down the corridor was some strange object, a little lower than a man. Looks like it had wheels. Drone?
Again, a buzzing voice without intonation:
“Sorry, bunny, my voice is not meant for singing. And I didn't mean to scare you. I haven't heard this song since childhood.”
“Hello…” Miranda muttered in confusion, “and you…”
There was the sound of an electric motor turning on and a second later an unknown object appeared in the illuminated part of the corridor.
It was a massive chair with three pairs of wheels, a small monitor on one of the armrests, and a bunch of some strange devices under the seat. A human was sitting on a chair... a woman. But how little of she remains!
There were no legs at all, bundles of wires and some kind of tubes stretched down from under a short skirt, they all connected to the chair.
The left arm was also completely missing. The right arm ended at the wrist, but the stump of the forearm had been cut open to form two large pseudo-fingers that gripped a joystick mounted on an armrest. Most of the arm is covered with synthetic skin.
Several tubes also stretched to the stranger's neck, they were part of a carbon fiber neck corset.
The hair covered half of the face, and large eyepatch, but Miranda wasn't exactly sure.
The only eye burned with ironic curiosity, apparently the woman knew that she would be looked at, and was waiting for the reaction of her interlocutor.
“Oh sorry!” Miranda realized that she stared at the woman very tactlessly, “I just live here ... in 1109. Sorry again!”
“So the neighbor.” again this artificial voice, the woman spoke barely moving her lips, “I live in 1111.”
She slightly jerked her shoulder, indicating the direction.
“Ah... Yeah... My name is Miranda.”
"I'm Ash," the woman smiled slightly and raised her hand in greeting. "You're the new runner."
There was no interrogative tone in the voice, but Miranda guessed it was a question.
“Why do you think so?”
“Why do all young people come here? Or I was wrong.”
“No... but it’s not that simple,” and Miranda briefly described the circumstances of her arrival.
“The usual thing. But…” she became serious, “if you are so trusting of strangers, you won’t live long.”
“Maybe. But you know, for the first time in several days I can talk to someone... So…” her voice trembled, “you yourself were a runner.”
“I? Runner?” Ash's eyebrow arched.
“Well, your injuries…”
“I crossed the street at a red light. Never do that.”
Seeing Miranda's puzzled face, Ash broke down and laughed silently. After a short pause, the speech synthesizer gave out a strange grinding sound, apparently meaning laughter.
“Sorry, sorry, my laughter sounds disgusting even to me.”
Miranda shook her head and climbed off the windowsill.
“I think I have to go.” she took the guitar.
“Listen, bunny. Half of my innards have been removed, and the other half doesn’t work without this cart, and I shit in a plastic bag, but my brain still works as it should,” Ash touched her temple with her stump.
“Come see me tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock. Not before, my get a visit from that Social Security hag. I try to help you. I think I'll find a couple of contacts. They are all crooks and scoundrels, but there are no others here.”
“But why do you need it?” Miranda stood clasping her guitar, completely bewildered.
“I liked your guitar playing.”
The electric motor turned on again and Ash turned her stroller towards apartment 1111. But stopping halfway, she turned around.
“Besides, my friends don’t visit me now, so I haven’t talked to anyone in a long time, except for this hag from Social Security.”
“Cruel on their part.”
“No. They died. Good night, bunny.” Ash drove down the corridor.
Miranda watched as her new acquaintance disappeared around the corner. The noise of the electric motor gradually subsided.
The girl was left standing alone in the dim corridor. It was raining outside the window.
