By Anagha Rao & Anjali Krishna

Embrace me for what I am, not what I curate myself to be.

Every star has numbered days, even the sun.
Oh, to have spent a lifetime boiling and crackling
Keeping everyone light years away
She will not hesitate to incinerate you, consume you

The fluorescent lights in her office sting Elodie’s furrowed brow. Years spent in this corporate temple just ended with her as a discarded cog in the machine. How the mighty have fallen, she thinks, looking outside the landlord’s office. It is, indeed, just another trailer.

She looks outside, pointedly avoiding the man’s eyes as he explains her rent payments and examines the veritable array of farm animal statuary. Elodie glances back at her landlord and wonders where he got these statues, in dozens and in a variety of creatures. She catches the eye of a small golden bird, perched in the entry lamp, and glances away quickly again, as if it’s going to up and fly away. She feels a sudden urge to run — like free-falling in a dream and waking up, kicking her feet into nothing.

So much warmth for all to marvel at,
So much warmth that flames snake through her singed nostrils and ignite every synapse.
She’s always on, that Sun.
Fuel is finite, though.
Every star has numbered days, and the sun will make sure you know it’s her last.

Elodie has never felt like this before. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a dream; her mind was marred by babbling analysts and the opening bell. But you couldn’t even hear the freeway out here. The disconnect lets her lungs expand, her mind wander.

No longer captive but not yet at ease.
The light was once an embrace,
Protective yet destructive, I could soon smell my flesh burning;
Her fiery decree taught harsh lessons to me.

The trailer she’s been shown to is pink. Shockingly, ridiculously pink, and in a way, it’s adorable. It’s the animal statues, centered around a picnic table and a dated fountain, that scare her. There’s a leaping horse atop the fountain, spurting out water feebly through its open mouth. The angel looks like a baby, Elodie thinks, dribbling out formula onto its cheek. She remembers the black marble countertops of her previous rental and heaves her things inside.

While Elodie pops the tab on another Lonestar, she eyes the horse outside. From her kitchen window and the head of her bed frame, she can meet the fountainhead’s eyes. Elodie keeps her eyes on the horse outside until the moment she falls asleep.

On her second day, Elodie has to ask the park manager for a bandage in his dimly lit trailer. She knows he saw her kick the mid-sized goat statue near the entrance of her new home, saw her pull off her flip-flop to find her foot bleeding. Maybe he heard her yelling on the phone at the former colleague who had called for her new address to send the last of the checks. She wonders if this man — the fifty-something creature that controls her living situation — knows that she doesn’t have enough to cover next month’s payment. He hands her the bandages without question. His eyes speak enough: I’ve seen your type. His eyes glint with self-efficacy, dulled by the dust of pity, as if they’re not living a trailer away. Next time, Elodie decides, she’ll brave the animals’ wrath by herself.

From her incendiary clutch I flee
She dims, and I notice she is me
IN THE SHADOWS I DISCOVER LIBERTY

She sees them while she sleeps, flitting through and crowding dreams of her former offices. When she wakes, she’ll find them multiplied, stone birds perched on her clothesline and the baby goats inching closer to her trailer.

Elodie doesn't know a single person in this state. She spends the next few weeks with the cattle as the world descends to winter and names them. She fixes up the chipped paint on the chickens and leaves fresh lemonade at the picnic table for the sheep. She talks to the cows and she tells them that she’s being forgotten, how it feels less like a friend lost and more like a weight lifted.

I AM FREE LIKE THE SUMMER BREEZE
HEAVY IS THE HAND THAT MOLDED ME BUT NOW I AM FORMLESS
PROSPEROUS
I CURL UP TOWARD THE BRIGHT SKY AND MY GRIN TURNS WITH ME
I NO LONGER FEAR THE SUN — I FEEL SYMPATHY

If you lose everything on Wall Street, they respect you jumping off their buildings. They respect a splattered body on the pavement, but they would never respect her here: in cutoffs and uncomplicated happiness. You have to live and die on their terms and money. When you step outside of the rat-race, you’ve failed, and you’ll see it in their eyes while they watch you pack your desk. There aren’t any photos of Elodie’s to put away. The glint in their sly eyes signals that they know this is best for them, that they’re better than you for having it. Perhaps she always felt detached from the machine, and they could sense it. Maybe that’s why they kicked her out. Total buy-in is necessary from each cog in the machine. They obviously know everything at the ripe age of twenty-five.

I WAS THE SCORCHER AND I SCORCHED MYSELF ONCE
LIFE NEEDS LIGHT BUT LIVING NEEDS LEISURE
AND I AM FREE LIKE THE SUMMER BREEZE

Spring blooms in the trailer park and Elodie decorates her trailer in flowers as pink as her paint. Elodie wakes one afternoon to find the horse’s spout flowing again, and she smiles. She doesn’t see the hammer and cogs hidden behind goat hovels, or the nails bitten between the teeth of birds. They’re feathers and fur, rippling in the summer breeze. ■