Some Girls: From outside it looks like a black dome covering the city

 Fear the sky

Mara, the oldest of the three girls, pauses from moving boxes to lean against the building wall. The wall is blank and smooth and solid under her hand, thick ceramic, shining and clean, merging into the pavement in a lumpy, melted seam. You could eat off this street, she thinks, and she can vividly picture herself vomiting violently without warning. She stands very still.

'Let's get you out of the sun or whatever they call it,' says Rachel, pulling at Mara's shoulder.

'I don't think it's that', says Mara, letting herself be led inside. 'Okay, it's probably that. I just got a little dizzy. Even though I didn't look at it.'

'Don't look at the sky during the day,' Rachel recites. The first sentence in their Hearthstown orientation brochures, repeated no less than five times. 'But it can still get to you. It's not safe. Why didn't we wait to do this at night again?'

'We're paying per hour for the truck,' says Mara, sitting down on the stairs. The stairwell is mostly worn old wood, smelling of nice oils and hot electricity, filled with the pale crackling hum of fluorescent lights. Much nicer than outdoors. 'I'll handle that last box, just have to find my balance.'

'It's no big deal,' says Ako, stepping down the stairs. With a hand on the railing she leaps over Mara's head, lands on the floor and keeps walking out the door, sleek and fluid in motion. 'Get it? Because you're small? Come on Rachel and we'll take the beds together.'

The sky is like the fluorescent lightbulbs, but infinite. Like static on a television screen in the old days, black-and-white dots rage over that abstract plane in an unending flood, blindingly fast, suspiciously quiet. Mara can't resist looking at it as soon as she steps outside, even with the nausea still swimming in her belly. The sky pulls at her, makes her feel like falling up, keeps her gaze even as her vision blurs, eyes filling with tears. But she keeps walking and when the doors of the moving truck comes into her field of view she wakes up, scratching her head.

And she lifts a compact box of books on top of her head with a heavy grunt and balances it there with little effort. A large, pale yellow shape appears and disappears behind the building before Mara can turn her head to look, and she chances to call 'Hello neighbor?'

But nothing more moves on the ground. She hurries up the stairs to the ninth floor, catching up with Ako and Rachel on the doorstep. Hurries home.

With the box of books taken care of there's only beds, tables and other assorted large pieces of furniture left to carry and the two larger women handle it more easily without Mara's help, leaving her to begin unpacking. She delights in the idea of getting to decorate the apartment according to her whims while the others are busy, but she doesn't seem very whimsical. Some colorful plates and candlesticks go up in the fake window in the kitchen, and she decides to mix everyone's books together on the bookshelves, and conversly puts up names on the closets to keep everyone's clothes separate - the only closet space is in the hallway, but at least more of it than they even need, six closets in a row, covering the wall from floor to ceiling, from the door to the living room window. And then she plugs in the television and the Internet machine at the same time as Ako plants the long four-seat couch behind her.

'So the couch and the Netflix are in place,' says Ako, sitting down with popping knees. 'Clearly the right time for us to take a break.'

'It's only fair we get to sit for a minute, Rachel gets to sit and drive for hours. And then ride the bus back.'

'It's unfair doing something as boring as moving should make you tired.'

'Totally. I'm going to file a complaint,' says Mara, without a thought. They say the silliest things when they are too tired to think, she reflects, and feels a little sad at the thought this hilarious conversation is going to be lost in the mist of dreams. She turns herself upside down in the couch, struggling to stay awake, but she's drifting. Ako slides down, almost lying on her back, and the brown skin of her bare belly is very warm and soft and inviting. Mara puts her head on here and curls up and the last thing she knows is Ako's large hand around the back of her neck.

If you can't hear the hissing, try zooming in

 

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