Blue Raspberry - by Samantha Green

“What are you doing?”

Seven is a significant year. Children stop asking why just because they heard their parents say the word. At seven, the why becomes a reason on top of those three letters.

“What are you doing,” she asked again. Her mouth was blue from the slushy held up by little hands. “Did you know there are blue raspberries? I never knew. Ms. Myra at the station told me so.” She had her pink cowboy boots on, like she always did, even in the summer heat. Mama said snakes will bite my toes if I wear sandals, but I walk barefoot when she’s not lookin’, and the stickers are worse. Her bracelet was coral and blue. Three beads were in the middle that read, ‘P+M’. It stands for Poppy and Milk. Milk is my best friend. It’s not his real name…nah, he’s lactose tolerance. We aren’t friends anymore…cause I went into the pantry to get a roll-up, and Milk’s mama was kissin’ a pool boy —Milk told me a pool boy is someone who gives his mama swimmin’ lessons, but the water stops at her ankles — and she told my mama that I hit Milk, and now we can’t play. 

The sun was setting behind Poppy’s head. A gas station with flickering lights was to the side. It was almost closing time, which meant it was almost time to poor the gas. He had to get rid of Poppy, but the poor girl thought that raspberries were blue.

Go home, Poppy, is what he should have said, but instead, he said, “I’m pourin’ gas. What are you doing, Poppy?”

“Mama had to work again, so she dropped me off at the station. Ms. Myra says I can eat whatever I want.”

“Hm. When was the last time you ate a veggie Poppy?” There was no reason to be concerned about the girl. Her life was already mapped out for her in this 504-population town, and even if it weren’t a town like that, even if she lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, Poppy’s life would still burn up, eventually. It was quicker this way, like ripping off a bandaid and bleeding out. 

“4th of July ‘cause I was bad,” Poppy put her empty drink down, “Can I have a drink of that?”

The green in his eyes gleamed in the bloodshot white, “You could, but then what would it make me?” What would that make him? His friends were probably already done circling the town with gas, too, but it was 94 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was already 10 pm. No one would know.

“My mama drinks that too,” Poppy said. “Makes her sick. Why are you pouring the gas?”

Or it cured her from the sickness, he thought. It did, though. The man drank a whole bottle right after he cut the cords on the fire truck. The buzz never made him forget, but it did shape the memory into a dream.

“Why would you want to drink it if you know it makes your mama sick?”

She shrugged, “So I can stop wondering what it tastes like…Why are you pouring the gas?”

Go home Poppy, is what the man should have said, but instead, he said. “I want to get out of this town.”

“Why?”

“Just shut up and go home, Poppy!’, is what he should have said, but he was too drunk at this point to care. “I think this town killed me.”

“You don’t look dead,” Poppy didn’t stutter. She didn’t know how to yet. She was just popping off questions like the answer had no consequence. “Why don’t you just leave? The road is right there.” She pointed to the long stretch of dirt. There was only one way out and one way in by car, 40 miles to the nearest town, though it was evident no one would be coming through that road for quite some time. There were ten cars in that town, nine since the fire truck incident, but that was past. It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was getting rid of Poppy and lighting the gas. A car was waiting for him a mile away, one that didn’t belong to the town. Most people couldn’t afford a car like that, one that was capable of carrying a man away without sputtering and breaking down, only to have the one tow truck in town bring it back to a place he’s supposed to appreciate because the city’s not like this. The city is full of concrete slabs that people blend into, with no sense of community, only conformity. But they live the high life where tacos, Chinese, and samosas are right down the road (not that he would know what a samosa tastes like). The city folk with all their rules and uppity standards of living. They expand the architecture and suck all the water from the desert to fill their fancy bathtubs. I want one of those tubs that stand up on brass legs; a marble floor would be nice, too. It was better than waiting a week to wash, only to get dirty an hour later from the dust forming in the tan sky.

The man began walking up the hill while Poppy followed, “When was the last time you had a shower, Poppy?” The dirt was caked on her face, arms, and hands, like a lizard that’s baked in the sun and can’t seem to get clean no matter how much water you give it. The lizard is only dirt that moves.

Poppy thought for a moment, “It hasn’t rained for a while now.”

“You know Poppy,” the man said. “There’s a place where it rains every day, whenever you want it to.”

He didn’t know why he told her that. She already knew too much. He had to get rid of her.

“I like the rain,” she said. “It makes me forget the sun’s so hot.”

It was getting dark. A snake slithered out from behind a rock to greet the night, and Poppy grabbed a flashlight from her pocket. She shined it on her feet and then under her chin. She barred her teeth at the snake. They were blue, sticky, and rotting, but she laughed anyway when the snake retreated, “Milk taught me how to do that. Smile at a snake before it smiles at you, and it’ll run away.”

“Why do you think that is?” the man found himself asking out loud, but he already knew.

“Cause snakes only smile when they’re hungry. I watched one smile before he ate a mouse, then his tummy was big and he stopped. When you smile back at them, they stop being hungry.”

The man felt his hand loosen on his bottle. He knew how to get rid of Poppy, “Here, take a drink…take a couple. Your mama won’t know. This one is sweet. It feels like when it rains.”

Poppy looked at it for a moment, unsure, because why would something that makes her mother sick feel like when it rains after a drought? But she was still thirsty, even after the slushy. She grabbed it, “Mr. Alan? They got water in the slushy machine, but I only take a bath when it rains.”

She took a drink and coughed it up. Mr. Alan watched the twinkle in her eyes drain out. He didn’t think she would take another drink, but she did.

“That’s enough,” he took the bottle from her, feeling guilty, but that feeling would go away soon because he was going to get rid of Poppy.

They walked to the top of a hill that overlooked the little town.  Poppy had to sit down. Her mama told her not to because the scorpions might bite her fingers, but they had already dried up anyway, nails whittled away from wondering if she was going to eat some bread or just some crackers that day.

“Poppy?”

“Yeah, Mr. Alan?”

“They tell you that raspberries are blue because they want you to rot your teeth, and once that’s done, it eats up your brain too, and then your teeth fall out. You can’t do nothin’ about it, though, 'cause that’s the only thing that tastes sweet in town.”

Mr. Alan heard howling from the other corners of town. He howled back. There was just enough alcohol left in his bottle, so he stuck in a rag and lit his match. Poppy watched the bottle light up, and she could see his bloodshot eyes watering. Mr. Alan threw the bottle down the hill, and the town lit up in all four corners of the sky.

“Come on, Poppy,” he picked her up and began to carry her in the opposite direction, down the long road. It was time to get rid of Poppy. She smiled at the flames, which seemed to get bigger and smaller all at once. Before Mr. Alan walked more than a fourth of a mile, she had fallen asleep to the smell of burning sand and a bitter taste in her mouth.

When he reached the mile mark, a car was waiting for him, one with tinted windows that lowered slowly to reveal a pair of eyes.

“You were supposed to come alone,” they said.

“I need to get rid of her,” Mr. Alan replied. “She’s asleep, won’t remember a thing in the morning.”

“If she goes, you don’t.”

“I know.”

Mr. Alan heard a laugh, “I don’t understand. You said you would do anything to get out of town.”

“I know, but I had to get rid of Poppy,” he could feel his feet molding to the dirt. 

Mr. Alan walked back toward the flames as the car drove away, not looking back, only smiling at the place that consumed him. No one would come. He knew that. But he had to get rid of Poppy. The blue raspberries had already rotted her teeth.

When the ash settled, and everything was swept up, they put a sign near the road leading into that old town. It read:

Desert Rain Resort

*Thanks for listening to this bizarre existential tale!