Concrete Purgatory by Holly E

The weekly trade takes place in an uninhabited car park- my concrete purgatory. The buildings are cold and grey, and so is the car in which I wait, packaged up in a stale blanket ready to be transferred between worlds. The dispatcher always greets the receiver with a spiteful remark; I must attempt to look impartial, unaware, lifeless. There is an unspoken war between the traders concerning who is the better proprietor.

‘He is not mature enough to be a parent.’
‘Your mother only cares about herself.’

And yet at the end of the week we always end up back in that damned car park, breathing in past marital tension like carbon monoxide. I am hurled back and forth each week – their weaponised ransom doll. I am both Cain and Abel. Alas, I cannot choose a favoured creator, because it was both of them who made me in that very car park on a cold grey night thirteen years ago.