Breath 23
Ploy’s head lolled against the cracked window,
a smear of dried blood at her temple.
The humming engine beneath her vibrated through her bones.
Her eyes fluttered, caught in the space between consciousness and blackness.
Her mother sat pressed against her, whispering in Thai under her breath,
her trembling fingers brushing Ploy’s face in desperate comfort.
The sedan lurched over a pothole.
Dust spilled in through the broken vents.
The desert outside stretched endless and cruel,
scrub bushes clawing the horizon.
Ploy stirred but didn’t wake.
In the front seat, the agent glanced in the rear view mirror,
eyes meeting the mother’s.
His face was unreadable, a stoic mask hardened by the night and silence.
The Indian guy’s wife lit a cigarette with hands that shook too much
to pretend she was calm.
Her eyes stayed on the cracked windshield ahead,
avoiding the mirror, avoiding guilt.
“We’re almost there,” the agent muttered.
“Where is there?” the wife asked, her voice tight, like she regretted everything.
The agent didn’t answer right away.
He slowed the car, swerving off the main road onto a dirt path
barely wide enough for the wheels.
The sky above Crab Point was turning the color of a fading
bruise—purples and greys bleeding into twilight.
Behind them, Ploy stirred again. Her eyes opened halfway.
her mother noticed her movements, in Thai, she whispered something.
Ploy tried to sit up, but her hands were bound.
She winced and gasped, her vision swimming.
The car turned sharply, and through the dusty rear window,
she caught a glimpse of something—barbed wire fence,
crumbling signs, and beyond that… the vast emptiness of the desert.
No lights. No town. Just heat ghosts on the horizon.
“What is this place?” The Indian guy’s wife asked the agent.
The agent leaned closer to the wheel. “This is where people disappear,”
he said, almost like he was telling a bedtime story.
The Indian guy’s wife flinched.
“You said we were just dropping them. Just scaring them.”
He turned to her, his mouth curling into something cruel. “Plans change.”
