Chell and Shara

     Her hair curved behind her ear, and her light snoring came from their single bed above the shop. They resonated in Chell’s thoughts behind the reggae jams and the grunts of the man in the chair. Chell let her mind linger on her three-year-old daughter, Shara, who was probably cleaning a bowl full of Fruit Loops and milk. The only way Chell would know her daughter had eaten was from the scattered cereal on the six squares of kitchen tiles, squeezed in the corner of the upstairs apartment. Chell’s needle glistened and penetrated the pale skin of the wide man in front of her; the ink spread under his skin as his breath shortened and he turned to look at the unfinished wings spanning across his back with each inked feather. Chell struggled to fight through the fog of her memory from the night before. Nothing was perfectly clear¬¬–– Jerry, Crystal, and Turner bringing pizza and the bong, some sort of argument, Turner crashing on the couch. One thing stood untainted in Chell’s memory: she had pulled herself up the creaking stairs to find Shara laying face down with her coloring book soaked slightly in a puddle of drool. The clown face was half green from the crayon still loosely clenched in her daughter’s fist. Power Rangers flashed on their small, staticky set. Chell flipped off the picture and then lifted her daughter into their single cot under the windowsill. She couldn’t help but pull Shara’s growing bangs into an arc behind her tiny ear. Chell could never remember her mother’s hand behind her own ear; in fact, she couldn’t recall much affection coming from her mother at all. The one person whom she had loved in Middleton, who had appreciated her sketching, her expression, would never return. For, he too, was afraid of the choices he’d made and the life he had created.

     Chell spun back into reality when the parlor door jingled. In walked a skeleton of a man with thin, tinged hair that fell right above the skull on the back of his neck. “Your ink,” he said, motioning for Chell to step outside. She let her wide black pants slip around the glass door of the shop. He was waiting for her with his arm leaning against the brick wall. “Closer,” he hissed through his crooked teeth until she could smell the mixed scent of nicotine and cola on his breath. Opening his coat, he passed her a crinkled brown bag, and after peaking inside, the closing of the bag ushered out a whiff of sweet leaves and ink. She needed more inking supplies, but she wished she had never asked him to come.
“Sixty?”
“The price is workable…”
He leaned his other arm across her right shoulder, closing her in. Before her slight squirming led to a violent kicking aimed between his legs, the bells jingled again.
“Mama Chell, the big angel man in here won’t color with me, will you? Please.”
Chell turned to see her daughter swaying under the weight of the door, “Now Shara…”
“Pretty please?”
Turning to face his changed expression, she handed him a weathered roll of bills and snatched away with the bag. Grabbing her daughter’s hand, she swung open the door to The Tattoo Escape. Her voice snuck out from the trapped wind of the door.
“Thanks, Harris.”




     The crinkled bag had resided in the corner of Chell’s workplace for the majority of the morning. The sun had sunk below its high throne and glared through the curved lettering on the glass front of her shop. Having spun the heavied chair to allow the man to see the final details on his feathers, Chell pulled her bangs away from the beads of sweat forming on her pale forehead. Turning to face the glare, Chell itched for a cigarette and wondered where Shara had disappeared to. Swinging, again, out the door, she removed a half-smoked cigarette from behind her ear. Her eyes lingered on the faint crescent of the moon that glowed behind afternoon daylight. Shara had been her normal self, animated and engaged, throughout the day, hanging on the wood table watching her mom work, entertaining customers with her new skill of hopping on one foot, and mostly sprawled on the floor coloring. Shara was almost through her fourth coloring book for the week; art always has been costly, Chell thought to herself. Although Chell had heard Chera’s short-breathed counting for every hop, “one, two, three, five, seven, eight, eleven…,” mostly Shara’s sweet appeals resounded in Chell’s thoughts. “Mama Chell, can you color now? Mama Chell, look what I did…” The thoughts of Shara’s pleading eyes dropped Chell’s emotions from the buzz of her cigarette, and she drained with regret.

     Chell’s gaze fell from the sky with the sound of the bells against glass. The door’s weight leaned against Shara’s back as she pushed pages through the opening. “Mama Chell––” As she reached for her mom’s attention, her drawings spilled to the concrete. Before real tears came to Shara’s eyes, Chell was on her knees gathering each paper. Noticing the cigarette between her fingers, Chell tucked the remaining bud behind her left ear, quickly revealing the crescent moon on her upper neck. “So you’ll color now, Mama?” Allowing herself to slide from her knees into a sitting position, Chell pulled her daughter onto her lap. She placed her hand over Shara’s chubby fingers, and together they guided a yellow crayon in and around the pages. After a while Chell leaned her head back onto the cool bricks and stroked the short bangs over Shara’s forehead. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the rectangular rooftops of New York’s cityscape.




     Reggae jams had long turned to deep techno beats, and Chell had felt the vibrations through the floor as she tucked Shara under her sheets. Looking up through the windowsill to see the moon glowing brighter, Chell had left her daughter’s side to join everyone downstairs. Empty bottles lined the wooden table, and smoke hovered among people in every corner. Most of them wore tattoos inked by Chell herself. Swaying under Turner’s arm, Chell pressed her palm to her squinting eye as crayons and colors spun through her head. Her mother’s face scolded her drawings as she felt herself spinning above Shara’s pleading eyes. She itched for that feeling. She knew she shouldn’t.

     Having made her way to the top of the stairs, Chell felt her lower back cold against the top stair. Ignoring her unsettled stomach, she helped Turner tighten the cloth tourniquet around her upper arm. “Squeeze,” he whispered holding his hand out to her. Grabbing him, she watched her pulsing veins ripple under the lettering on her exposed wrist. Yellow bubbles sizzled over the heated spoon. She allowed the thin needle to trace her vein, and then leaning her head back into the moonlight, she jabbed down her thumb, soaking in the liquid. A small drop of blood trickled down her forearm, and as she followed it drop to the floor, small toes cringed under her gaze.
“Mama Chell, the ink is in too far. Mama Chell? Aren’t you gonna take it out Mama?…Mama––

     Shara’s short arm moved toward Chell’s, and feeling her stomach lurch, Chell swung her arm away, making contact with Shara’s face and knocking her onto the tile. Chell watched her daughter’s shadow sink out of sight, and she felt chunks escape from deep within her throat. Wiping her dripping nose on her knee, Chell cast a staggering shadow above Shara. Shara’s eyes flashed with fear, and scrambling to her knees, she darted into the corner under the window. The cot’s springs catching pieces of her hair did not slow her.




     Her mother’s cold stare, colors, frightened eyes, green clowns, spinning, faster–– Chell lifted her head with a start. Ears pounding, she wiped the drool from her cheek and moved her tongue across shriveled lips. Shara’s light snore seemed on beat with the pounding in Chell’s ears. On her stomach in front of the cot, Chell peered into the dark corner where Shara lay sucking her thumb. Chell extended her arm to pull Shara’s hand from between her lips, but with the touch of her cold fingers, Shara’s eyes flew open. With a scream, Shara retreated deeper under the bed. She sat trembling, thumb replaced in her mouth. Chell thought to reach out again, but Shara flinched with her every move. Hoisting herself to her feet over the creaking springs of the cot, Chell moved to the windowsill. The moon glowed brighter, and its spots began to show. Chell reached for her bud behind her ear, but it was gone. She craned out into the night and breathed in the cold air. Shara’s eyes replayed over and over again through her head. She felt dizzy.




     Faces she could not recognize, laughing, more laughing, running, she was running faster, fast––darkness. Chell’s drooping eyelids stung with the light from the moon above. She could feel the wood window’s impression in her cheek. She remembered as the moonshine glistened over her blood-crusted arm. Unconditional love, Chell thought. She crawled under the small cot, her legs exposed on the side, and she let her eyes close beneath the soft breathing of her daughter.




     Her eyes felt blurry, but the slight tickle on the inside of her knee made her giggle. She felt a cool stroke slide in twirling motions. Propping her chin beneath her hand, she noticed Shara had left her spot under the bed. Slowly sliding herself backwards, she heard Shara’s giggle and then quick feet patter across the floor. Dawn only teased the room with light. Craning her back to look across the room, Chell caught sight of her daughter covered in marker. Scanning her own legs, she felt her cheeks peak into a grin as she saw the rainbows, suns, and moons patterned in every color across her skin. “We match, Mama, do you like my coloring?” Chell nodded as she stretched her arms forward only to discover more shapes and colors. Chell’s extended arms reached toward her daughter, and Shara accepted, leaning into her mother’s chest. Placing her grasp under Shara’s armpits, Chell lifted herself to her feet with Shara in her arms. She glanced out the still open window and then moved to face the bathroom mirror. The girls burst with laughter when Chell faced her purple forehead in the mirror, and she licked her thumb to smear away the ink on Shara’s own forehead. “You don’t need that to be beautiful.”

     Chell twisted the knobs on the bath, letting the stream from the water fill the small room. Shara held the shampoo, and they both stripped free of their clothes. The hot water nourished Chell’s skin. Turning to massage the shampoo into Shara’s soapy hair she whispered,
“a fresh start?”
“Does that mean you’ll color?”
“Yes,” she replied, as she leaned in to place a small kiss on the top of her little girl’s nose.

-Rachel