The Planetarium

She stared into the greenhouse. It was her favorite part of the house that was not hers. She stared at the cactus, water dripping drop after tenuous drop onto the spines and fuzz. It was tedious. 

After a strenuous bout of watering and staring at the cactus, she lay in the garden for an hour or two. 

It was not her garden, either. 

After the layabout she went upstairs to change for dinner. Canned soup, as usual, but it was nice to pretend. She had found the dress she wore for dinner in a forgotten closet. Pale silk, peach-hued and glowing, it had beads on the bottom hem. The dress was crumbling along with the house, but with the help of some thread in a drawer, she could keep it together. 

She kept it together, mostly. She watered and laid about. There was little running water (the pressure had ceased long ago), so she collected cactus water in an old coffee can on the back porch. She and the cactus had plenty of patience. 

After dinner, she lit a candle in a canning jar and walked down to the garden. In the center was a massive, open hulk of a building. She called it the Planetarium because of the sun-tower-of-time in the middle. Bleached by the sun, it was the same color as her dinner dress, and it was very simple. 

The planetarium was cold blue concrete. It was meant to look imposing, she guessed. The fantasy of a rich man who could not afford real marble. It made her feel real. Here, under the bloody moon and with her candlelight, she could count herself among the living.

After the planetarium, she would walk back up to the house, making lists of imaginary repairs. She would climb into bed after that long, hard day and feel the tension in her bones. The muscles had knit themselves into hard structures, like her body had been replaced by blue marble. There was no water to spare for a bath to relax in. And that was where the spiders lived. 

———————————–

She had gone through every room at first, frantically scanning. Man stuff in one, woman stuff in the other. Separate. 

The house was already old. The woman had been very elegant; pearls and silk and fur and fancy, well-made leather shoes. She considered using the silver hairbrush, until she realized that there was the hair of a dead woman on it. 

The man’s room was less organized, and more useful. He must have been a weekend hunter. Weekend warrior?

There were five guest bedrooms. All the blankets and pillows were rotting from a leaky roof, and there was only one decent mattress. She scavenged anything she could and took it downstairs. The beds were chopped for firewood. Everything else she dragged up into the attic, and she did not label the boxes. She needed her space. 

————

She woke up nervous in the quiet morning. Unsettled. Wandering back to the porch, she shook the coffee can. There was no water for the cactus. A hot summer. 

Water in the running tap might be spared, for just this once. Hand on the door knob, she hesitated just once–and turn around. Water must not be spared. 

She allowed the calm and the quiet, the comforting nothing, to draw her under the planetarium. She began imagining the stars that no longer existed. She lay on a cold concrete bench, and her bones were not chilled. 

A sharp clap broke the air. 

“Goddamn if this isn’t beautiful. Goddamn.”

She scrambled up sharply. The heat was smothering. Her eyes swam like crooked fish.

“And what a view! By god, this might be the only place on earth worth dying in.” 

She slid off the bench and into the hydrangea.

A low chuckle from the intruder. “I do see you, miss.” She heard the click and scrape of metal against metal.

“Do you have any tea, milady?” His mocking words were rough and wrong. She hated him. 

She cleared her burning throat. “Fuck off.” 

He sighed, scratching his head with the hand that was not holding the revolver.  “So–not a lady. I’m gonna ask some questions, now.”

“Go on.”

“Do you live here alone?”

No sense in lying. “Yes.”

“Have you lived here since it happened?”

“Yes.”

“How are you doing?”

This caught her off guard. 

“I’m doing–well?” 

The very word caught in her throat. 

“Ah, so like the rest of us.”

The humidity was swollen with his hunger. 

“Pretty good setup. Didn’t expect much, seeing the house from out front. But I’m gettin’ so much more than a house.” 

She stilled her muscles as her finger grew tired, tense on the trigger. She would not fail. 

“Took the luxury of checking your food supplies. You’ve rationed well, if those crazy post-its are any indication. Calendar and everything. You’ve thought it all out. No perimeter though. Nothing to indicate two or more people. You are telling the truth when you say you are here alone.”

She cursed silently as the bush trembled a little. 

“Whaddya say? Should I just take my chances alone here and bury you in this bee-YOO-tiful garden? I’d do that much for you.” The silence was not deafening, could not be–because she could hear her heartbeat echo and ping around her head. “You need some security. Maybe a man’ll do you some good, too.” He laughed and spit a long wide arc. 

She spoke, the words uneven but strong. “I’ve been my own keeper for quite some time now, and it agrees with me. Will you follow my rules, as a guest? Or will you simply slit my throat when I disagree?” 

He laughed through his one word answer: “Maybe!”

She shot him in the leg, twice–and then followed through with his right shoulder. She scrambled for his mouth so she could stuff cloth in the gaping, screaming hole. When he was finally quiet, she left him in the garden. 

The sun was hot. He could wait to be drained until after dinner. 

The cactus needed watering.