Jan Petersen

The Darkest Hour

You wonder how much time you've got. Your hand strays to the right-hand pocket of your jacket. It's still there - but you know that; the weight of it presses against your hip. At the end of Wilshire you turn left, drive along Ocean to Venice and park under a streetlight. You get out of the car, walk across the empty boardwalk to the sand. You hear voices coming from the direction of the pier and turn left towards Muscle Beach Beach, taking care to avoid the scattered humps. Most likely they're harmless but you're glad you've got mace in your left-hand pocket. At the edge of the ocean you sit down and recall the voice of the woman. She sounded Russian but this town is full of actors. You want to turn your life around and will do exactly as she said. So you take the new trowel from your purse and dig a hole in the cold rippled sand - seven inches in diameter, seven inches down. It's still dark when you finish. Now you take the fruit from your pocket; roll it between your palms. The pitted skin, grey in the beam of your flashlight, looks like the aftermath of acne. It's hard to peel with nails bitten down to the quick; pith is left clinging to the flesh like thrush on a baby's tongue. You hope it doesn't matter. You count the pieces as you drop them into the hole - odd is good, even is bad. As the sun comes up somewhere over the Valley you squeeze juice into the hole. Wait seven minutes then eat the pulp from your right hand. Sit with your back to the ocean and wait.

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