Petrichor

Trans Issue 2015


I’m sitting in a bar and I can hardly breathe because the guy next to me is chain smoking and the images on his cigarette packet gross me out but I don’t say anything because if I do I’ll draw attention to myself and to be honest that wouldn’t really be ideal right now. I push my scarf against my face and I can smell tobacco and tar in it and I curse the man next to me but I do it silently because I’m trying to listen to the television in the corner but it’s awfully hard to hear over the din of the bar and the smoker’s irritatingly loud laugh. The TV’s set to some free-to-air channel because I guess this bar can’t afford satellite and it’s playing some documentary about the recent attacks on the capital city’s citizens by ghouls in the western suburbs and the narrator’s talking over a shot of the harbour when a news bulletin interrupts the program to bring us the latest breaking news. The pretty white girl in a weird designer dress that matches her weird designer earrings speaks in a very calm and cool way and I’m guessing from the pitch of her voice that she’d be a contralto if only her accent weren’t so nasally and then I think she’s actually kinda pretty until she starts talking about the latest victim gobbled up by a ghoul who was apparently a man who just so happened to be wearing a dress and a face full of make-up with long black hair and heels. The Smoking Man shouts something obscene probably and spills his drink on me and I guess it’s okay since my jeans are black and it’s hard to tell when they get dirty but I shoot him an even dirtier look and start to leave when he starts to flirt.

I don’t remember how I died because the brain honestly just can’t deal with that kind of trauma and live to tell the tale and before you ask how I could be conscious if I weren’t alive then I’d just like to say that what I do isn’t really living anyway. I’d never really had any experience with addiction before because my life had been so sheltered and there wasn’t anything I could’ve gotten addicted to but the moment I woke up alone on the concrete in the rain and saw the world with a few less colours I could feel something deep inside me like a thirst that could never be quenched. I’d never ever been truly hungry but I suppose that’s probably pretty similar to how I felt when I tried to stand up and walk down the street at 3am in the middle of winter and go home without remembering my name or age or address. The man who was smoking next to me follows me outside because he was unhappy with my lack of reciprocal flirting and the way he smells sorta reminds me of the first person I killed after I decided to see if the thing that could satisfy my hunger was flesh and realised that I too was a ghoul after all and I toy with the idea of eating this man too. He’s sounding kinda angry and I feel like if I were still a human I would probably be scared but there’s no fear in my gaunt face when I lead him down an alleyway to let him feel like he has the upper hand but really I’m just waiting for him to lay his hand on me so I can justify breaking it. Cats have a tendency to play with their food and I can’t really say that I’m any different because I let him spin me around and pin me against the wall just so that I can see his face because I wanna see the fear flash across his eyes the moment he sees the veins in mine and the daggers in my jaw. My eating’s been a bit disordered lately in that I haven’t been doing much of it so I decide to take it slow and enjoy this meal as I don’t know when my next will be because there hasn’t been a ghoul attack this far north in a while and it’ll probably make the news and then the police will investigate and it’ll be all sorts of trouble for me. I can tell he’s trying to back pedal because he’s saying he was never even interested in me and trying to insult me as if a girl who looks like a man is a bad thing to be but then he starts to say that I probably am a man albeit a fucked-up one though I put a stop to this pretty quickly and he can’t say anything anymore because he’s screaming too much but it’s alright because it’s late and no one’s around.

I guess I’ll have to get a new scarf because this one smells like cigarettes and I guess having this guy’s blood and bodily fluids on it isn’t exactly great either but blood is easier to wash out than the smoke smell but then again this is my favourite scarf and I have trouble letting go of material objects so I’ll probably just soak it for a while when I get home before I throw it in the wash. I put a lot more effort into looking like a human than I do into looking cisgender and I probably would’ve dressed differently had I stayed human but I’m not scared of being murdered anymore because it’s them who should be afraid of being murdered by me. This guy tastes like a bad McDonald’s meal but I’m sorta just guessing there because I can’t remember what McDonald’s tastes like and normal food is kind of a turn-off for me now but if I had to try and explain it to someone then those are the words I’d use. The man stops screaming so it’s pretty quiet now and it’s started to rain.



Letter to Self

When Asked to Defend Your Position
On Why You Are Non-Binary
Trans Issue 2015