1. Molly lying on the bed—on her stomach in the afternoon sunlight—Malibu curled up underneath her chest, Molly's fingers resting on the keys of her laptop as she considers typing. This little cat is a cloud, a flower cloud, a little flower-cloud in a circle and settled in beneath Molly’s neck, where long red hair gathers in a nest. Malibu rests a little marshmallow fluff paw on Molly’s forearm, and Molly is remembering, in this photo, that there are good things in the world.
  2. Samia standing in front of the stove with two screaming red steaks on the skillet, Samia’s fingers thrown up in a peace sign, staring at the camera as if to say: this is something I do all the time, and the way she’s saying it proves it’s her first time doing it ever. She’s got her Boonie Patch shirt on, the one she loves to wear, the cropped white one with wavy blue illustrations all over. Her head is freshly shaved. Blue light inserts itself boldly from the kitchen window—a passionate dusk. The bright blue pours into the sink like dishwater, it swims across Samia’s back and stains the once-white subway tile behind the stove, it repaints the kitchen cabinets cyan. The steaks, however, remain red.
  3. Molly staring up at the camera, kneeling on the floor, anger and amusement colliding on her face like shopping carts. Ash and dirty joint roaches pile a small black hole on the carpet—the fresh new pink rug they had just laid down on the floor for the very first time. Samia’s OCD ate her up the whole drive home because they had to buy the one from the showroom—the dirty one that strangers have touched. Now they’ve dumped the entire ashtray on it and Molly’s so mad she could dump it again but Samia won’t stop laughing, laughing and laughing and laughing, and she pulls her phone out and takes the picture. Molly’s hands are halfway clenched, her loose fists saying: It’s not funny! But you can tell she knows it’s funny.
  4. Samia doing an impression of Malibu the cat—her face half the frame and her mouth hanging open in a wide meow. Between her teeth is her tongue, a wet and dark pink oval. High noon light from the living room window illuminates each individual, bristling hair on her head, making them appear blond from their usual honey brown. Her sky blue sports bra pulls around the back of her neck, her skin sings with daylight, and, looking at the shape of her mouth, you can just hear the sound of this cat: Mraaaaaaaaaaaaaa! 
  5. Molly leaning over the coffee table, smiling, but there’s water in her mouth so she keeps her lips closed. The picture is blurry, so the stacks of cards before her blend together into red and black swatches, like thick brushes of paint. She’s playing solitaire, her golden glasses perched up on her head and holding miles of red hair out of her face, the midnight lamplight haloing her like a crown. By her focus, the way she doesn’t look up for the picture, you know she’s winning.
  6. Samia resting in the bedroom, mid-morning light on her skin, her mouth a pink tulip petal, her eyelids dew on yellow roses, the fluffy white comforter turning her whole body into a cumulonimbus cloud. The bedside table behind her overflows with potions: Vaseline, coconut oil, lotion. The lines on her face are peaceful—she’s sleeping in.
  7. Molly’s eyebrows bushy and unkempt, running laps across her face – too close up for a photograph. Her freckles are everywhere, like a whole universe got accidentally spilled on her, even on her lips. Her nose ring used to be gold and now it’s a faded, shining bronze, the evening light catching it from the left. Her mouth is mid-word, and the word starts with W. She looks happy, even with a camera four inches from her face.
  8. Samia’s legs cross up against the back of the couch, and windowsill snake plant stalks sprout up out of her white-socked feet like ornamental toes. She’s relaxed, phone in both hands and right up in front of her eyes, the white charging cord pulling across her arm and towards the wall. Her jeans are ripped and baggy, a sliver of her back visible below her gray t-shirt and wrapping around to her bare stomach.  On the hardwood floor is an empty bottle of wine and an empty bottle of champagne. There’s yellow cake and white cheese and remnants of fancy pink meats on the coffee table, there’s a red box of nice crackers open, there’s drunken love all over the picture, staining the corners of it—it’s in the tiny curve of Samia’s lips, the way her mouth tells her whole face as she looks into the phone: everything is good.
  9. This one is of no one at all. Just the living room, bathed in afternoon light. The curtains hold the light, they don’t let it pass, they glow—they become the afternoon in order not to let it through. Not thinking they’d ever be photographed alone, they shine and shine. On the coffee table, a newspaper crossword, unfinished, folded into a perfect rectangle, a purple lead pencil beside it. Three candles and a grill lighter huddle to their right, the ashtray clean and empty. There’s a laptop in a pink case, a blue water bottle. Outside the window, behind the curtains that have become the afternoon, a world goes on—Molly and Samia hear the motorcycles at the intersection, they hear the music from the cars. Sometimes they stop and dance to it, sometimes they cover their ears or pause their TV shows and groan—it depends on the song. They hear their neighbors laughing in the hallway, hear the census-taker knocking at the door, they don’t open it. Once a week, on Sunday afternoons, they walk down the three flights of apartment stairs and shake out the pink rug, on Samia’s request, and Molly picks up the newspaper from the front lawn. Other than that, Molly and Samia stay inside.

In the evenings, when dusk is over and the sun goes down, Molly walks back and forth across the pink rug and brews recipes for fast-forwards, ways out, she imagines the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern one too, she books trains into tomorrow and across every ocean, beyond even the intersection outside. Samia sits right there on the couch and takes care of the right now, capturing the hours in different bottles, crouching down to look at them more closely, studying the different light. Molly handles the past and the future, the boundless horizons, and Samia covers the present, the molecular truths. They brew potions, and they cook meats. They sleep, and they wake up.

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