One cold Autumn later...
As far as Gal knows, this lunch conversation near the factory bar could go on forever, what with her worker-friends continuously venting about how their lives are literally worse than the plague. And, though it certainly flipped some red switches in her, she wouldn't feel obligated to argue against it should the opportunity present itself again.
It was just too goddamn entertaining, a dragon waiting at their monthly rendezvous with her patience hanging by the slim tid-bits of a tether be damned. The coming snow could bury her alive for all she cared, though only through means of suffocation.
Anna's one tough cookie.
"…and you know what I told her?"
Two utterly entranced faces of glee stare at the storyteller's face expectantly, all shouting along the same line: "What, Krystal? What?"
"I told her," Krystal replies, pausing for the highest surmountable dramatic effect, "to fuck right off."
A mutual hilarity erupts among the group – repelling any form of bar customers that may come their way. "No shit?"
"Mm-hmm. And fucked right off she did. Sauntered away in tears. You lot should have been there: it was glorious. Stuck-up cunt probably forgot about it the next day, anyway. And you know what she had the fucking gall to say right after? 'I hope you have better choices later in life.'" She bursts out hysterical, slamming the table the three sat upon. "Bitch, in what world is that good enough? You have had so many shots at getting a normal-paying job at the factory, and you are telling me that you didn't have a choice? Okay, fine, British are opportunistic exploitative pigs that put a dent on Russia's good name and yadda-yadda, but you have to draw the line somewhere when you yourself are struggling to put food on the table and they are offering you a means to do that. You know, I don't even have the bother to visit her anymore. I am doing just fine making a living in the slums on my own. If she wants to put her smoking ahead of literally anyone else, she can knock herself out. I sure as hell am not losing any sleep about it," she says flatly, wrapping her arm over the person sitting nearest to her. "See? Eli can emphasise."
"Indeed, I can," Eli chimes in, removing Krystal's arm controllingly – further feeding to the flames in their weekly session of mass self-pity. "This time it was the dad that fucked my mother over. Pissed off somewhere to the mainland after he bludgeoned Mom to death. Piece of work, her body was. Glass shards and cigarette burns all over. I only managed to coax the town guards about it only four years after. I barely got past the part where she had a cross lodged in her… you know what? Never mind. I am willing to bet your mother was less happy-go-lucky than the uncle who took me in."
"I mean, that whore sucked cock for a living – her standards can't be that high. Fuck me, I doubt she even remembers the feller who knocked her up with me. Then again, it is not exactly the easiest of tasks…"
"Apples don't stray far if they are from the same tree, I suppo—" out of the blue, a running knee behind her clips with her should, bartering from her a yowl of pain. "Argh, holy... fuck! Look where you are going!" Silence. "Oh, and he is still going along his merry way! What is this, Black Friday?!"
Her two companions simply shrug.
"Ugh, this alleyway has been getting more people coming and going through than the whole of… ever. What's going on...?"
On that end, without so much as a hint of goodbye, Eli ups from her little seat and sprints from their little cranny, leaving her friends to choke on the dust she left.
Gal could only think of one response. "Probably just another hanging."
"Yeah."
Silence writhes the air soon after, both eating what little they have.
Krystal disagrees.
"So, Galina," she begins, redirecting her crosshairs to her with a stuffed mouth, "what's your sob story?"
"I am sorry?"
"Yeah. What's yours? Far as we know, you are the luckiest one here."
She raises an eyebrow to the remark in question, in the motions of ripping a chunk off her apple – mouth still open. "What makes you say that?"
"Well, when your mother went, at least she had an excuse for not being there for you. Tuberculosis, I think it was? And your father; good man. Once, when Eli and I were heading back to me alleyway, I saw him go into the coal mines in pitch black. I almost didn't recognise him apart from the hair. Ugh, if only he wasn't in that damned detention centre. His smile is infectious, I swear; best fixer-upper I have ever seen, bar none. But I don't believe for a second that there somebody that exists in the whole wide world that doesn't have a sob story to tell."
"Umm…"
"Don't have to hold anything back, Gal; our dignities are already soiled."
"Shit, umm… well. Other than Dominika… I guess it would be Vladimir. You remember 'im right? Lanky, slightly bleached hair…"
"Dude, it's only been half a year."
"Yeah? It sure doesn't feel like that way. Happened when we were young; before I met you. Got caught trying to steal a pear from the markets. We were just so hungry; got desperate. We weren't allowed a job at the factory cos we were young, and both of our parents were only getting enough for one meal. One thing led to another and I managed to coax Vlad into stealing the pear. Long story short, he got caught, I didn't. And now he isn't allowed to work in the factory. Like, ever. Because of, because of me. I… sentenced him to death. Even now he insists on not laying the blame on me, but—"
"Guys!"
A shrill voice down their alleyway before them the force of a whirlwind whacks the two girls square in the face, compelling them to helplessly turn their backs. The face of the running-from-death girl just with them soon sharpens. "Eli?!"
"GUYS! GUYS! You gotta come help!" she shouts back, still running.
Gal looks back at Eli as if scrutinising her under a microscope. "Wha...?"
"It's Vladimir! Our Vladimir! He's going to swing the rope!"
Their eyes rupture open in disbelief, their backs sinking under their weight and with their mouths wide enough for a rabbit. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"