Ashes Of The Phoenix. Jane Fade Merrick

exit, sheltered from the lenses of the photographers who worked for girls’ magazines. This also allowed her to avoid Ned’s approaches, which grew increasingly insistent and unwanted, and to take off whenever she wanted, without having to account to anyone.

      The girl decided to spend that evening out, in the cold. Skating on the wide streets of the city allowed her not to think of the absurd situation she was experiencing. Often she compared her old existence with the new one, but she forced herself to think of other things in order to draw the necessary sums. She accelerated, focusing on the obstacles in the street and timing herself to avoid them, blending into the wake of the objects that faded behind her.

      Although she now had everything she needed, she didn’t give up the habit of stealing things; she did it for necessity, so that she could still be her own mistress and stay independent. She took things with the indifference of a shadow that stretches out on the asphalt in the evening, and then ran away with the casualness of someone who is late for dinner.

      Having no more need to steal, she grabbed whatever she found without thinking over it too much; her only limit was to snatch small objects which were easy to handle.

      In a small supermarket she had seen the same diary of the first day she had arrived there and had taken it without a real reason. Once she got back home, she found a series of black pages to be filled. “The perfect secret diary for an emo” she had thought, throwing the diary on the bedside table near the bed.

      A few nights later, the girl wandered through the streets with an idea in her head, a fixed thought that seemed to her to be incessant and unhealthy. She slid into a dark alley and found herself in a neighbourhood she had never seen before.

      The dimly lit streets and the poorly cleaned place put her in check, she saw a store open 24/7 and slipped inside.

      The stench inside was indescribable, and as the girl quickly turned to make her way to the exit, she fortuitously noticed a jar on a shelf, just what she was looking for. She quickly grabbed it, slipped it in the pocket of her pants, but she hadn’t reached the exit when somebody shouted at her in a strangely unknown language. The “pointless escape mechanism” kicked in, but it was useless because a huge guy stopped in front of her and grabbed her by her hair. The man dragged her inside, ignoring her screams while she cursed him and ordered him to let her go. He led her into the back store and gave her a first loud slap. Confused and aching, Fade tried to react, but she was immediately struck by a kick and then another which made her drop to her knees breathlessly. He grabbed her by her hair again and dragged her out like a garbage bag and, as such, tossed her out onto the stinky garbage cans. She found herself on her knees trying to catch her breath, confiding that the lesson was over, but she was knocked senseless with an infinite set of kicks to her kidneys that made her collapse to the floor between the insults of her attacker, until another person forced him to stop, telling him that he didn’t want to be involved in a murder. The man struck a last kick, followed by a growl like a gurgle, and abandoned her “This is your lesson, you damned thief,” he concluded, slamming the back door behind him.