Playing House

They had only just meet. Not the brother and the sister but the rest of them.They were young and soiled. Damaged goods some might say. It begin with a simple car ride that they turned into a week long adventure. Pooling their money together, they rented a hotel suite for a week. The sagging two story structure formed a sad L on top of a hill. The white paint peeled in long layers exposing gray weathered wood. Weeds grew bravely in the patches of dirt outside the office. On the rickety balconies, drunks sat in plastic lawn chairs, paper bags at their side. Women with worn lipstick and sloppy bodies leaned over the railings, breasts almost falling out of tank tops, cigarette ashes falling to the ground.

Here they moved in with a few bags of clothes. They went shopping at the Shop N' Save down the road. They bought Ramen Noodles and potato chips. Cases of soda. They stole cartons of cigarettes and expensive, nice smelling body supplies. The brother's girlfriend lifted a fifth of Kahlua. They spent the evening sitting outside drinking milk and Kahlua and smoking. They ate dinner a card table.

As she lay in bed that night, she though that this playing house was a prediction of her future. A future spent in run down hovels with strange men pretending that she was creating home when what she was really doing was running away.