nire leaned up against the doorframe, relishing the creaks of the wood, and said, "so."

"so," said nire, "jan's leaving tomorrow. poof." she kissed the bunched tips of her fingers, held them there a fraction of a moment, then let their joints scatter on the poof. it still wasn't dramatic enough. she wanted to try the whole entrance again, but it was, of course, too late. sama, never having been one to sleep conveniently through a farcically mediocre impression of misery, was awake and, worse yet, blinking, placidly and stickily, as though her eyelids were lined with adhesive tape.

"where o where is our jan going gone for?" she asked, musically, bored, a touch facetious.

"france. i told you. poof! france. she's as good as there."

"hrmm."

"on a trip. it's been planned and-- i kept forgetting. i--wanted to."

"you wanted to." pause. then, "who is jan?"

"oh you know." nire looked very pained and very much herself. she always looked more at home when she was in pain, imagined or otherwise. it was most often imagined, but nire always felt things so much more deeply that way. "how could you possibly miss it? ...maybe i'm the only one there when she's there. i always leave you the scraps. i'm sorry."

"i don't care." sama sighed and stared at something.

"don't you? i wish you felt badly about it. i want you to feel badly." still leaning against the doorframe, more for support now than for style, nire continued. "i'm a horrible, vengeful person and i want you to feel badly."

"i do. if you want. i do." a pause. sama had nothing but spaces for nire. "what will you do without her? whatever will you do without her here to rub your back whenever you've fallen on your ass, nire?"

nire rolled her back over the doorframe as she edged and spiked herself closer to sama in a way that could only be identified as the polar opposite of languid. her blue shirt had a large patch at the shoulder and the shirt bunched up when she moved.

"your shoulders stiff? your head hurt, nire?" sama allowed her lips to curl. "what did you expect, did you expect me to kiss you and forget it? pretend i'm sorry about jan? did you expect me to make you some soup or some god damned thing--"

"oh god!" nire's hands flew to her eyes. she rubbed the skin pink, then red, then absolutely blue. "mothers are the most wonderful things, aren't they? i wish i could recover some of those celebrated repressed childhood memories, i wish i had that. mother who put your hair in pin-curls for you when you were...and...read you stories until you were too old for stories and chased her out of your room with the book. made soup when you were diagnosed with cancer or some damn thing, because she always equated food with love--"

"and we aren't talking about you anymore." sama laughed, bloodlessly and devoid of humour. "i think we'd all like to recover those memories."

the women looked at each other sideways. nire slid to the floor, keeping her back in contact with the wall, and said, "you'll excuse me if i'm not feeling all that lyrical to-night."

"i though you were in top form, myself. are you through?"

nire snorted and looked away. "sama, what am i going to do."

"that's a question. put a question mark on it for christ sake."

"what?"

"like that. raise your voice a little at the end." sama glared. "you know how lucky you are that i can understand you at all? epo hates you, i want you to know that. epo can't... he can't stand you."

nire put up her hand to hit sama's face, but withdrew it when she found it had come up shaking. "i mean it sama. i really do."

"he can't stand you. if he could, he'd be here and i'd be outside walking about, or better yet, i'd be safely tucked between your ears--you know, you don't even remember my name when i'm out of sight! i'm sorry about jan, i really am. i honestly am. honest. sincere, candid, genuine and frank. i.e., e.g., i mean that you need to forget it. you can't bloom without a vessel full of water and that's me, and you know it, that's all me."

nire touched the patch on the shoulder of sama's yellow shirt. her fingers bled freely, and she held them to her lips. blood repulsed her; she had forgotten that. when she took her fingers out of her mouth, she remembered, and vomited on the floor.

sama smiled. "i love your hair in pin-curls." taking between her fingers a strand of nire's straight, brittle hair, she said, "now, see, it falls. when it's been in curls it...o...overflows."

"but..."

"but now--it just falls--"