Witches lived inside her computer at work. They scared her. With the green screen popping out at her, she would type up letters to advertisers, a fake boyfriend, Michael Jackson and her dead mom. She never really got much work done. Her mother was a stubborn photographer who, before she died, could never have afforded a computer. Growing up she paid the bills by taking pictures for their local newspaper, El Diario, and never could spend money on her.
Olivia put the yellow pen back in her pocket, left the store and walked up a hilly street. Her shoes rubbed against her thin socks, making her feet sweat. Cars lined the tilted street, dimmed by a fading sun. Dogs barked and barked.

Two knocks and the white door opened. Meme, his poofy, black hair leaning to the left, tried to keep his eyes closed.
“Who is it?” he said.
“Me, idiot” Olivia answered, rolling her eyes.
Meme walked back into his apartment and turned down his boombox.
“You sound like a girl I used to know”
“Don’t be a dumb ass. I need my bus cash. The two dollars and fifty cents you owe me from last week.”
Crust stuck to the ends of his eyes as he opened them.
“Shit. Hey.”

Meme had on a dark orange T-shirt and thick, wide dark-brown glasses. Teachers, back in 8th grade, used to even laugh at his Coke-bottle frames. He was also dark brown, like a wizard’s staff. Jeans were way too tight and he stuttered when he thought of something fast.

“Y-y-y-ou need to listen to this record I bought! It’s by this death metal band from LA.” He knew Olivia since their days sleeping through biology.
“I need my money, Meme. Lemon almost called the cops on me. She busted me drawing on the windows.”
“Damn. That’s your third time this week!” he shouted.
“Stop fucking lying.” she said. “I can’t help it.”

Meme had dropped 182 hits of acid in one day. Once, he wore a bunny suit and walked around Haight-Ashbury asking homeless people for change. On job applications he would often say he was born in Paris. Last year, at 18, he shaved his head and wore a Star Trek mask to work at the library. He even sold weed to high school English teachers in the Mission district. Olivia met him when he was telling two girls that he had written Metallica’s first album from a few years ago.

“I don’t get paid until next week. Sorry.”
Olivia stared at Meme, his T-shirt starting to show a chunky stomach, wanting to punch him. But instead she dug her face into her palms, almost crying. The forty dollars in a shoebox in her filthy Oakland apartment was not enough for rent.

Buried in the sidewalk across from his apartment, Meme saw four purple trees. Dark leaves, violet branches. He looked confused and even Coke-bottle glasses couldn’t help Meme understand. He walked past Olivia, who looked up, an echoey ache in her stomach. Meme thought they might be making a movie in his neighborhood, but didn’t say anything because he was afraid Olivia would laugh at him.

“What are you looking at?” she jabbed, still standing at his doorstep, looking into his apartment.
He paused, then said, “The trees are, um, purple.”
“Oh. Well, of course they are.”
He would later remember the way her eyes squinted when she said that.
“What?” he mumbled. “Why?”
She said with a sigh, “I really need that money, Meme.”