by Maura Aradia

The sun sticking its hands into the windows of my sedan at 7am forces me awake. I awake to the unpleasant tickle of sweat pooling at my lower back. I awake hot and alone. I awake at 7am, three hours before I have to leave for work. 

The metronomic scan of beaming headlights compels me to keep my head below the rear-view window. A black pocketknife always sits an inch from my hand. I stabbed myself on it one night when I woke in a frenzy, kicking and panting. 

I fell asleep last night with a fear that crept up from my toes and sat on my chest. A fear that someone may feel tempted to break into my car as it sat in this hotel parking lot. I fell asleep with a fear that I would be busted late in the night and forced to find another lot to linger. A fear that I would be so exhausted by this shuffle that I would oversleep and lose my job. I worried and sweat and squirmed so fervently that I couldn’t lull myself to sleep until 3am. 

I report to work five days a week, occasionally six. I work eight hours then dillydally at a local bookstore until my paranoia of their suspicion drives me away. It is then that I retreat to the furthermost corner spot under the same oak tree in the same hotel parking lot, every night. I do this against advice, but I have no other choice.

I eat mandarin oranges and peaches out of a can for breakfast. I eat lemon pepper tuna out of a pouch for dinner. I keep my snacks and water tucked away on the floor; my clean laundry stored in my trunk. I shower at the gym. I stopped pretending to be there for anything other than a shower after the sixth month. I stopped misleading my friends and family about my living situation by the second month. I get a room at the same hotel I park at once a week, sometimes more if the heat becomes unbearable.

But it’s not a warm meal of penne with vodka sauce that I miss the most. It’s not the feeling of a mattress with clean sheets that I grieve. It’s not just privacy I yearn for. I mourn the memories of my life before it was solely survival.

Maura Aradia, a New Jersey native, has been previously published in The Word’s Faire, The Cathexis Northwest Press, The Closed Eye Open, Flash Phantoms, and others. Her work focuses on exploring the human condition. You can follow her on Bluesky @mauraiswriting.bsky.social and find more of her work on mauraiswriting.com