SOTF Mini

The year was 2021. The month was March. The day was Saturday. The time was slightly after lunchtime. The town was Bend. The state was Oregon.

As always, three goths plus a guy in flannel loitered in the shade, talking beneath a cherry blossom outside the world's last Blockbuster.

"Oh, huh. Last year, some guy in Massachusetts died from long-term overdosing on black liquorice." Astrid said, her face pointing down at her phone.

Ximena walked up to the video store (she would sometimes call it the Final Buster) crying and tapping on her phone.

Sometimes it would happen that some small thought would catch her like a stray nail snagging a thread on your sweater. From there, the thoughts would unravel and pile on one after another, becoming worse and leading her deeper down the spiral until it was hard to climb back out. All she could do was cry and have the bad thoughts well up and pull her under, like a grain entrapment made of depression. Things can be going fine-ish and then there's a sudden memory or seeing or hearing something triggers the first thought.

"You aren't dealing with the issues. You're just trying to keep going without addressing them," the therapy student on TikTok told her.

Until about a year ago, Ximena had lived in a nice house and had a picture of her family across from her bed that she saw when she woke up every morning. Then she woke up in a different house, with nothing on the wall across from her. Maybe worse than any of the cosmetic changes or the hardships was having to try and go back and figure out why someone did what they did. Am I not lovable? Was it always the plan to abandon me? Was my good life worth it if it was based on a lie? Is there something wrong with me? Can I live knowing that none of the questions I have will ever be answered and none of the questions I will think of in the future will be either?

There is something kind of liberating about just crying in public. You can wander around crying (not too loud) like some kind of pitiful wraith or sickly Victorian woman and people will kind of ignore you. You can make public your feelings and strangers will largely just allow you to do so in a neutral manner. They don't want to help you or hurt you, they want to get a copy of Avengers: Endgame on DVD.

As she wandered home crying, her mom had sent her a text.

"Can you pick up a movie from the Blockbusters for me?"

"Which one?"

She began walking there. Sometime later...

"The James Bond one with the lady."

"Need more info"

[TYPING]

Her phone screen went black.

Ximena stopped walking. She looked up from her dead screen and saw a group of some black-clad fellow youths and one dude in flannel. Her lip wobbled and she bit down on it as new tears rolled down her face.

"What?" Sarah asked, from her position sitting across from Astrid at the picnic table.

"He overdosed on liquorice." Astrid said.

"Like, literally?" Sarah asked.

It was at this point in the timeline that the crying girl from the preceding post stopped walking and glanced in the general direction of the goths.

Astrid pointed her face up from her phone and to Sarah, and also at anything and anyone that happened to be in the same direction as Sarah.

Sarah briefly leaned across the table and stared intently at her own reflection glinting off the black of Astrid's eyes.

Astrid shrugged.

"I guess?" She said. She looked back down at her phone. "It says he ''died after eating a bag and a half of black liquorice every day for a few weeks, which caused such low potassium levels in his body that his heart stopped.''"

In the meantime, Jared and Craig stood vaguely in the background talking about music or something else generally irrelevant.

Ximena walked over to the picnic table where the goth gaggle had gathered. She sniffled and tried to clean her face up a bit with the sleeve of her cardigan. It didn't look like there was anyone else in the immediate area to ask.

Present company, the best that you could find.

"C-can I borrow someone's phone for a minute?"

She shifted on her feet.

"I need to call my mom and my phone died. I'll Venmo or CashApp you for it."

She eyed the brick the one guy was holding.

"I mean, or give you a dollar..." she said, doubting that his phone had Snake on it let alone Venmo.

"Why would liquorice do that though?" Sarah said.

"I dunno." Astrid said.

"C-can I borrow someone's phone for a minute?" Someone who had just walked up to the picnic table asked.

Sarah looked over at the new arrival. Astrid brought her face up, shifted her hands under the table, and remained silent as the crying girl talked.

"You can probably use Astrid's." Sarah said.

Astrid froze completely, still facing towards Sarah.

"I -- hic -- Um... Astrid?" she said, to the girl the other girl had indicated. They all looked vaguely familiar and she knew they went to her school, but she didn't think she'd really spoken to them much, they kept to themselves and she kept to herself.

Alone and prone in the half light and late, late to your real life. She was kind of up against a wall, so even though she wasn't uncomfortable she resolved to press forward.

"I'm not gonna run away with it or call Serbia or something. Here --"

Ximena reached into her backpack and pulled out a ring with a few keys on it. There was what looked like a house key, a smaller key to a bike lock, and some other key that had had a decal on it that was peeling off. Aside from the keys were a few charms and keychains. There was an acrylic sand timer full of electric-blue sand, a small figurine that appeared to be Magneto from the X-Men, and a vintage motel key tag in black that read

"BATES MOTEL

OLD HIGHWAY 10
FAIRVALE, CA

1

DROP IN ANY MAIL BOX
WE GUARANTEE POSTAGE"

She put the keys down on the picnic table.

"You can hold on to them, "she said, followed by a shaky sigh. Ximena tried to focus on Astrid, hoping the others weren't staring at her.

Astrid fiddled with something under the table for a moment. In the meantime, Sarah's eyes scanned over the keyring and all the trinkets on it.

"You, you eat like a bird." Sarah then said, imitating a parrot imitating a Norman Bates who didn't sound like Anthony Perkins.

"That's Vince Vaughn's voice." Astrid stated.

"No," Sarah said defensively.

Astrid then retracted her hands from beneath the table, holding her phone with the dial screen already open.

"Who're you calling?" She asked Ximena, not handing her the phone.

The corner of Ximena's mouth twitched into a half-smile at the impression before slowly settling back down.

It was a little comforting to see people behaving like friends do, and it was a joke that had been prompted because of her keychains, so she was tangentially included. But there was still an acute awareness that she was not part of this group, she didn't really know them, and the joke wasn't to her. So it wasn't really her place to try and participate or respond to it. Ximena wrapped her arms around herself.

"My mom," she said, voice somewhat hoarse.

It occurred to her that maybe she should volunteer the number so Astrid could just type it in and hand the ringing phone to her. That way, there would be no danger of Ximena rifling around to see what Astrid's recent Google searches were, or god forbid go into the girl's Camera Roll. There were probably nudes in there. Ximena bit the tip of her thumb.

Or worse, there were memes. A person's memes should be private.

"I can give you the number."

"'Kay," Astrid said, nodding her head.

"Ah."

It took her a moment to recover and remember. Astrid had, in the end, agreed.

"It's, uh, five four one. Three one seven. Three five six six."

"541-317-3566," Astrid repeated as she dialed.

She hit the call button, and held her phone out for Ximena to grab.

In the meantime, Sarah eyed the old-timey magnet dude guy on the keyring.

Ximena looked at the phone being held out. The screen said that it was dialing the number.

She put out her hand and took the phone from Astrid, purposefully overreaching just a little so that her fingers touched the tips of Astrid's when she took the phone from her.

The fact that this person had actually done her the favor and the little jolt of human contact made her feel like she'd taken a sip of hot coco, but only for a moment before the voice on the other end pipped up.

"Hi, mom," she said quickly. "It's me. My phone died. No, i-it's someone's from school," she said, the last sentence a little quieter. "I need to know -- uh-huh. OK. Which guy is in it? OK... Was he old or young? OK... Christopher Walken or no? OK. Did the lady have a crossbow? OK. OK, I know which one. I'll be home soon."

Ximena looked at the screen and pushed the end call button.

"Thank you," she said, looking a little embarrassed and holding out the phone.

As Ximena thanked Astrid and held the phone out, a loud 'DING!' sounded. A Twitter notification popped down from the top of the phone's screen.

ℂ🌸ℍ🌸𝔼🌸ℝ🌸𝕐🌸𝕃 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℕ 𝔸ℝ𝕄𝕐 (@zoeee_____) wrote:@Gothlord666 ugh look what they made Archie do. literally character assassination tbh the writers butchered Barchie, 2nd best pairing on the show RUINED.

Astrid quickly snatched the phone out of Ximena's hand.

"Sure," she said, her face directed down at her phone. She flicked on silent mode, and then lightly pressed the power button.

In the meantime, Sarah continued eyeing the magnet guy.

"...Dr. Magnet." She said quietly to herself.

The phone made a noise. Instinctively Ximena looked at the screen, then looked away in slightly exaggerated way as if to pretend that she hadn't looked. Astrid took it back.

The other girl acknowledging her key ring made her somehow feel nice and bashful at the same time. She had no idea what that emotion would be called.

"Yeah," she said in response. Suddenly, a look of clarity went across her face.

"On sec," she said.

Ximena picked up her keys, having returned the phone as promised. She went into the last Blockbuster and emerged a few moments later. Ximena clutched a DVD in one hand and with the other, she quickly tossed two packages onto the table. She left in a hurry without another word.

One bag of Sour Patch kids.

One package of black liquorice.

((Ximena Rodriguez continued elsewhere))

Astrid's cheeks flushed red a little bit when the bags of candy hit the table. Sarah began reaching to grab the Sour Patch Kids. Astrid quickly snatched them before she could.

"- Nooo!" Sarah protested.

((Astrid hissed at her.))