text: After the attack, every new job started the same. When she filled out the hiring forms at the grange, her new boss Monica leaned against the counter and made a habit of nodding every time she flipped a page. Dust was rolling in from the windows whenever a car drove past, and the she would occasionally shake the page to clear off the dust. Monica nodded when she did that too. She mentioned how her aunt had learned sign language back in the 70's. "It's like any other language," she said, rolling her knuckles on the hardwood. "If you don't keep up with it, it fades like anything else." She wanted to say then how she hardly knew sign language. Around the time when she was first hired at the grange, she felt almost completely useless in social contexts. She mentioned it in one of her sheets. Monica had already briefed the others on the fact she couldn't speak. "You don't have to worry. They won't be asking you any questions." She imagined how some of them might have taken it initially, especially after she'd gotten to know them in the weeks since. She had a good idea of how it might have gone: who would have nodded, who would have asked questions, whose eyes would have widened as they remembered the story from a year ago. But Monica was right: no one ever pressed her about on it. Coworkers still conversed around her, though. The grange was right off the highway and when there weren't any customers perusing in the dust, the others would slowly congregate to whatever plant she was tending to. One of them, Cass, always gave her an expectant look when she wanted back\-up on a point she was making. In return, she would close her eyes and nod, making an 'OK' sign with her hand. Eventually Cass would slide little sheets of paper to her with little dinos drawn on them. Not after long, she'd been asked out for drinks. It only happened a few times: twice by Cass and Rob who were about as casual as you could get, and once by Cass and Mitchell, who after she politely declined the most recent time had stopped asking. The only other time it happened, it was a coworker named Johnny who approached her. It was around 8pm. He walked up to her quietly, saying hi with a hand in his back pocket. She felt her body tense in his presence. The sun was below the mountains at this point, and they were clearing madrones from the tabletops inside the greenhouse. A few customers were still roaming around under the white tents that were now grey. He brought up how a customer had spotted a praying mantis earlier. "It was resting on her shoulder, staring at her with its big eyes, and in a panic she swiped it away. She didn't mean to kill it, but it was dead before it hit the ground." He said he'd been thinking about it all day. She flicked on an LED light and turned to him, the orange glow lighting up his beard. He stared out into the distance for a second, opened his mouth but said nothing. Finally, he sighed. "You think it would have lived if she'd just taken a second? Even if she brushed it off anyway?" His silence hung in the air. She joined him staring out at the sky, at the black mountains that glowed with the sun behind them. He started to shift like she could hear his mind racing to pick up the mood. She knew he meant well by coming to her. Still, she declined when he asked her for a drink. Her body was still tense when he walked away. In the shifts after that, he'd continuously been friendly to her, and sometimes she thought about the way his beard had looked that night, like it was set ablaze. \*\*\* There was a reason she'd grown cautious with what she told people, especially coworkers. Before the attack, she made a promise to herself to stop telling meaningless lies, withholding things even if they were small. She had opened\-up about her history to some, and some kept it private while others didn't. "I'm not sure if it's mine to tell..." is a phrase she would often hear from her coworkers. Soon she would hear it from herself. It wasn't like she had anything obscene to hide\-\- she hadn't killed anyone. She just wanted to break out of that reflex, and the movie theatre felt as good a place as any to try. This led to a kind of conversation she grew to crave from others: conversations she would have avoided altogether were now the only ones she ever seemed to have. She talked about her mother and father, how they both slept around yet stayed together. She heard stories from her coworkers about their parents, about how one of their fathers would flail wildly for the remote during sex scenes when they were kids, yet had the loudest sex they'd ever heard. In a small circle, another coworker explained to the group that they had never kissed anyone\-\- never even felt the urge to. They were four years older than she was. On a night that reminded her now of the one with Johnny, she remembered how she stood outside of the theatre doors, waiting for her break to end. A couple were watching a show in a hotel room across the street, and a few floors above them three children stuck their heads through the balcony guard rail, pointing at the people below. Another worker approached her, someone she'd talked to a few times. He mentioned there was a concert after the shift that he and a few friends were going to. He said it like he didn't really care if she'd say yes or no. They slept together during her last chunk of time there. When they first spoke about it, she was relieved when he said he felt the same: he didn't want a relationship, just something casual. Soon she figured this wasn't the case. She didn't feel clear about it either, but something in her gut nudged her away from his embraces. Text messages that ended succinctly would be needlessly stretched on by him, and he would reply so enthusiastically about things that really didn't mean anything at all. It felt selfish when she admitted it to herself, but she knew she wanted to feel comfortable enough in her own body to have casual sex, to sleep with someone she didn't love. It didn't need to be with him. She needed to communicate clearly and transparently with him though, and this would be the way she'd avoid hurting him. During one of their late\-night discussions, she told him what she meant. "I want it to be something I can go out and do all these things with and come back still feeling good. Casual, you know. Not life or death like it's been." She hoped it would click for him then, that he would remember how she'd always put her shirt on right after they'd finished, or how she'd break away from him to turn a lamp off before they went any further. He stared thoughtfully at the wedge between the floor and the wall. "I just think my insecurities are what's holding me back from experiencing more things," she continued. "I would probably have more good sex with more people if I wasn't so hung up about it. I don’t want that to be the reason I say no." She made sure to tell him when their clothes were on and they weren't in the bedroom. He nodded, but she could tell he was hurt. He later told her that what she said had made him sick. \*\*\* They had been unloading several new ferns from a truck when Monica suggested this would be the last thing they did that day, cutting the day short by an hour and a half. They swapped uncertain glances at each other, but she quickly insisted she'd pay for the extra time. Everyone eased up then, thanking her. She lowered herself down, hoisting up another fern. As they filtered out into the central room of the greenhouse, she spotted Cass and Mitchell pulling out their phones to see what to do next with the rest of their day. She stared at the sun for half a second then felt herself walking towards them. They hadn't even noticed her when she saw something racing out from the corner of her eye. She spun. Her knees buckled, and her arms surged in front of her face. Her legs slid out from underneath, cutting a line out of the dirt. Dust kicked in the air. She was breathing in short, shrill gasps when they came for her. Rob was standing only a few feet away, looking stunned. "Why did you run up to her so fast?" Cass shouted, pushing him. "Give her some space." She heard him say sorry many, many times, swallowing then going silent, muttering 'fuck' under his breath. He was crouching, his arms over his head like a diamond. She felt Cass' palms press against her back, keeping her upright. Her own hand pressed over her heart, and she didn't know it then, but she had said something--what it was no one was sure, but they all agreed on it sometime much later. When it all settled down and she could breathe again, she saw Cass wiping her eyes. She hadn't even noticed Monica behind her, breathing slowly, having rushed in to grab a bottle of water from her mini\-fridge in the office. She handed it to her, repeating "You're okay. Breathe. You're alright." They discussed it with each other, but after she had continuously nodded her head no, they decided not to call an ambulance. They did speak with her mother, who lived across the country. She ended up writing on the back of paper lunch bag some things. As she and her coworkers sat in the hot office with nothing but the windchimes and light hum of traffic to fill the air, Monica had taken it to closing the grange herself. It wasn't until then, in that moment in the office, that she understood something. She knew they were aware of what had happened. But it hadn't occurred to her how they felt about it, how it sat in the back of their minds just like it did in hers. "Are you sure you're okay?" This time it was Mitchell asking. She looked at him and nodded, giving a thumbs up. Cass was sitting by her side and gave her hand a squeeze. Rob was still frazzled, leaning on the counter in the same way Monica had when she first got the job. He breathed out, distressed. "I'm sorry," he said tiredly. She brought her hand up, waving it to the side, then signed *I'm the one embarrassed.* It was simple enough by the way she moved her lips. She thought they understood. There was a huge part of her that wished it hadn't happened. If she'd spotted Mitchell running sooner, she might have simply stood still as he glided past. But it did lead to them asking yet again for her to join them as they figured out what to do with the rest of their day, and this time, she nodded yes. \*\*\* She saw the white gleam of a blade for months afterwards. If she could feel a sound, it was the sound of steel, the light flaying noise as it cut into something soft. When she closed her eyes, she saw it moving through the darkness without a hand to guide it. Every night her dreams replayed the attack with all kinds of subtle changes. Sometimes the crowds were sparser or gone completely. Sometimes they didn't react the way they had. Other times it was night instead of day, or she was in her hometown--not in the city. It was never exactly as it happened. She was moving through the sidewalk on a Saturday, looking at her phone as it mapped out a route to her friend Nina. It had been a week since she'd left the theatre. She had a backpack, nothing extensive, and a water bottle she was periodically taking sips from. It was her first spring break on the East Coast, a change her and Nina felt similarly about since they moved from the other side of the country together. They were two hours away by bus, but it felt good to be close enough where these little trips could happen. She was scanning to check her surroundings every so often, stopping when the crowds did and shifting her eyes up when a car honked. She heard a scream which caused her to jerk suddenly. A man in a heavy sweater was stalking towards her. His eyes were wild, red. She saw the knife in his hand too late to react, and remembered freezing slightly, almost falling to the right towards the cars. "Beautiful bitch" was what he said. The next parts people had to explain to her. She had her own version, though: one taken from a nightmare she would have in the hospital. She was grazing the rivet in her neck, slowly moving her hands up and down it. She thought of how it might look white like the belly of a fish if shined in the right light. She felt the cut was dry, like it had happened a long time ago and never healed. The crowd was motionless. The man stood across from her holding the blade. She stared into this man's eyes as if he were reflecting. Reconsidering. She shook her head, as if saying no: you don't have to hurt me. And some nights\-\-good nights\-\-she would hear the tatter of the blade as it hit the sidewalk, and the soft steps of the man as her turned his back to her, joining the crowd as it once again started to move. \*\*\* She didn't remember the last word she said. She supposed it didn't really matter now. She watched from the trunk as Mitch and Cass passed a cigarette between the two. The way the wind caught their smoke and whirled it into the air gave her a chill. Rob was leaning beside her, scratching a blot of dried mud off the Dodge. She wanted to fold her legs on top of the trunk and rest her hands against the rear window glass. Somehow he could tell. "You can sit on the back, I don't mind." She gave it a thwack, jumping on. After settling herself, she looked down at him. He was looking past her, gazing at the town that rested at the bottom of the hills. From where they were, it looked like a small river of lights. When she ticked at the car a few times, his eyes met with hers. "It's an old car. But yeah, car's a car, right? What do you think?" She signed to him, but he didn't follow. She pulled out her phone and jotted some things there instead, then passed it to him. He smiled. "Huh. No, don't have a name for it. What do you think it looks like? A Fred?" She shook her head. He folded his fingers and pressed them to his mouth. Mitch and Cass were still working on their cigarette, talking now about an artist. Rob pressed his face together. "He's more like an old man, isn't he? Like a Maurice. A grandpa type." She shook her head rapidly this time, furrowing her brow with a smile. "What, you don't have a grandpa named Maurice?" For the next hour or so, they traded the phone back and forth brainstorming what to call the Dodge. They started running down a list of other topics, things they had never talked about. Mitch and Cass were out of a cigarette by then and joined them by the trunk. They were passing the phone back and forth until she looked at the battery and reluctantly tucked it in her pocket. Cass had reached for her phone then, but suddenly moved off the trunk and took a few steps forward. There was something about them walking through those hills, the way they stopped at some houses and guessed how much they were worth, or speculated what kind of person lived where, that made the daylight burn away. The fields were growing red by the time they came back to the car. When Rob jumped in the driver's seat and revved the ignition, everyone went quiet as they heard the engine putter, then die. "Fuck me," Rob said, pushing his head towards the wheel. When he rolled the headlights switch off, everyone burst out laughing. One of the homes ended up coming to the rescue. As the man attached the jumper cables to the battery, they realized their predictions were mostly correct, save for Cass' insistence that one of the homeowners was a sculptural artist. He said he collected art and had a small gallery in his home, but never really thought much about doing it himself. This got Cass to talking with him, and this is how she found out Cass was going to school for sculpture. As Rob revved the car back to life, he let out a gasp of relief. They thanked the man and drove off into the hills, racing the sun as it fell back down below the mountains. When she found out later Rob had called the car Putter, she smiled. It was a good name. In her apartment that night, she sat by the wall of her bedside and wrote out the whole story to Nina. She included everything: the scare at the grange, the Dodge, and the man who brought it back to life. She even went back and mentioned the time Johnny approached her about the Mantis. She didn't remember exactly when she fell asleep, but she did remember the feeling when she woke up: an implacable sensation of images surrounded by dark movements and sound. She liked to think there may have been something there, something from the other night gliding in and out of the darkness. A car driving through a black scene, or a cigarette burning until its ashes caught in the wind like dust. She was looking forward to seeing where that would take things, and so she got in the habit of writing it down--to tell them how it happened, so the next time they could speculate together what it meant.