[Fiction] Departures
Read the third-place entry for our week of May 25 contest, A Truth Between Strangers
Departures
by Grace “West” Lyde
The forty eight hours Dolores spent in her hometown had all but shoved her soul through a siv. She loved her sisters, but spent every second here with raised hackles and an eye open. A four A M. flight out really was the kindest thing she could do for herself. Everyone in the airport was too tired for pretenses, the one small comfort she could squeeze from the journey.
She was washing her hands in an almost empty bathroom when a woman came out of a nearby stall. She clocked the hair first, curly black fringe framing her face and two long braids. Then the freckles scattered across dark olive skin. The broad nose and full lips.
Good god. That was Dolores’s face— Dolores’s body hoisting a backpack half its size, nearly tripping over itself halfway to the sink, wearing clothes so drab Dolores wanted to burn them on principle. It wasn’t until the water was running that the woman realized Dolores was watching her. She blinked, glanced sideways at Dolores, then saw it in the mirror.
She froze.
Dolores smiled first. “Well, one of us has gotta change.”
The woman laughed, high and tinny and terrified. She angled her body away from Dolores’s.
Dolores pulled out the look she used on her toddlers when they had nightmares. “You grow up superstitious?”
“Very. My mother was.” The woman’s voice was higher and clearer than hers. Her face relaxed a bit around the eyes.
Dolores snorted at the mention of a mother— one who must have had a face like theirs. An involuntary sound that washed fear right back over the face they shared. Dolores rushed to explain, “my mother was in a cult.”
Great job keeping the conversation light and reassuring.
The woman blinked, a deer in the headlights. She stopped watching Dolores in the mirror and turned to face her. “I’m in a cult.”
Then it was Dolores’s turn to blink.
“I mean. I’m leaving. I board in half an hour.” A hard flush covered the woman’s nose and ears. Her voice quivered.
Dolores snatched a paper towel— her hands were mostly dry by now. She searched for a pen and somewhere dry on the countertop to write. “Here. I’m gonna give you my number. I’m up in Seattle now. You ever need anything, even just to talk, call me.”
“Oh… okay…” The woman’s eyes gleamed, a little bloodshot. She glanced down at the towel as she took it. “Thank you, Dolores. I’m Mary.”
“Course, Mary.” Dolores’s smile went lopsided the same way Mary’s had. Her throat tightened. “You’re doing the right thing.”
A Note From Our Guest Judge,
I love the concept of meeting yourself, of seeing yourself as a kind of stranger, and I love that it happens in the airport. A place where it feels like we could meet just about anyone! I love the way the story interrogates what it means to be a person or a character, and how there are some many aspects of ourselves we could know if only we found ourselves out in the wide world!
About Grace “West” Lyde
Grace “West” Lyde is a Creative Writing MFA1 at Calarts. They are a playwright and short story author whose work is deeply concerned with the divinity and monstrousness of love. When they're not hiding under a desk, scribbling furiously in a notebook, or talking to themself: you can find her acting on stage, voice acting, or fighting things with a lightsaber.
This piece was written in response to the prompt A Truth Between Strangers.