In the dark, without the protection of her parents, the carnival games and fried food stalls lit by lamps and string lights took on funhouse proportions and the men running them had uncanny faces and loud voices that wouldn’t stop asking her to come over and pick a card, try some food, play a game, but she did not want to play a game, she wanted to find her parents and get out of this hellish strip full of watchful eyes and evil smiles belonging to a rodeo clown coming her way, skipping down the walkway, laughing manically, red shoes stomping, face paint bright and terrifying, and he was getting closer and closer until he bent down in front of her, her hands covered her face and when she peeked through her fingers, his painted face was right in front of hers a contorted smile asking if she was lost and so she screamed AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Alex always knew he was a good person, I mean it’s easy to be a good person and he actively tried at it so that made him a good person and that wasn’t debatable, no matter what Sarah or Emily or Dina or anyone said, he knew that he was good and they must just be dramatic, I mean he didn’t remember ever doing anything to them, sure he missed some calls and texts and cancelled plans and sometimes said “let me play Devil’s advocate” but that was a part of lively conversation and he knew that, he didn’t think they knew that though and that annoyed him but what can you do when you live by the local college and all the girls there think they’re so smart, smarter than you, even though a college education isn’t really all that meaningful and you could have been there too if you wanted, and done better than them probably because what did Emily know about politics and what did Sarah know about Aristotle and what did Dina know about sports commentary, I mean is she serious, sports are clearly out of her league, Alex always knew that he knew sports better than anyone around so he got a bit sensitive that Dina thought watching football made her qualified to talk on it, he knew you had to actively live football, paint your face green and yellow and put a prideful stuffed cheese on your head and yell at the refs and rip off your shit in celebration and throw beer on the man in front of you with purple and yellow face paint and throw a punch and both kicked out, you had to do all that to get it and he had but Dina hadn’t and he told her that and she stared at him like he was below her and that really annoyed him because he could go to UMich too ok, he had pretty good grades in high school and would have gone but his father was an army man and never gave him another choice so when he joined up he got shipped out to Iraq and he saw things and did things and doesn’t think about those things again he just chases girls that represent the life he might have had if he wasn’t busy being a man, because men like football and war and women don’t like either and his female commander would not have agreed but he left the army when he lost his leg and they sent him home and she had waved at him as his bus pulled out of camp and he had smiled back but it was fake, obviously, because they were taking him away from his life and back home to Wisconsin which he’d always hated just a bit even though he’d die for the Green Bay Packers and that’s probably why Alex moved to Michigan the year after he was honorably discharged, it’s not because his wife he met in high school and married before he flew to Iraq left him for a man with a college degree or because his mother was long dead and his father died shaking his fist at God and the establishment, really the move was practical and he’d wanted to live in Michigan ever since he went to the Cherry festival in Traverse City when he was seven and his dad won him a stuffed bear from one of those hit the bell games and his mom had cooed and he remembers smiling with both of them and it was the last trip before his mom left them, died or left them, and now he liked to recreate that moment and take college girls to local fairs and win them a prize with that hit the bell game and they grab the bears and coo and he smiles and then on the drive home tells them they remind him of his mother and they don’t like that but he means it as a compliment and they don’t have enough critical thinking skills to understand that, even though they’ve got fancy degrees and act all uppity because, frankly, that’s the nicest thing Alex can say to someone and they yell it back at him later in the middle of some argument that he doesn’t remember the start too and he tells them they’re being hysterical and must be on their time of the month and they call him disgusting and he calls them prudes and egotistical and they slap his face or stomp out of his house or slam his car door and he seethes and drives away and signs up for Tinder again and meets a new college girl, maybe another Emily, and he thinks about what might have been and they think about how strong he is and brave for losing a leg and they are all fine for a bit until he talks too much and they start thinking with their University minds and then it happens all over again and of course it’s all their fault because it’s certainly not his, it’s never on him because he’s always a good person, better than them.
She sat down at the coffee shop and the table was a little sticky and she waited and waited finally he showed up and he looked a little different from his photos she thought he would be a little taller and maybe his hair would fall into place more perfectly but instead he walked across the room in an awkward pace and he had a curl of hair that always fell out of place but maybe she was being too judgemental but at the same time she met him on an app designed to judge by appearance and how she agreed to a date maybe it’s just that first dates are always awkward but she paid for her own coffee and she awkwardly fidgeted with her rings and her heart went ba boom ba boom and he wouldn’t look her in the eye rather the center of her forehead and then she felt paranoid she had a pimple and they talked about where they were from and family and majors and shit and the conversation was impossible to get out she was putting in an olympic feat with a brick wall who mumbled out minimal answers but maybe it wasn’t the brick wall it was her because she remembered sitting in this exact seat with Fiona who always spoke with conviction and they talked about the future and their fears and Fiona said how she just wanted to be loved and she noticed how Fiona’s hair fell in her perfect braids and how smooth her tanned skin was and her heart shaped lips as she sipped her coffee and her heart went ba boom ba boom like a defibrillator had just brought her back to life and that’s when she realized she would rather be on a date with Fiona but that would never happen because she was in love with her best friend who was way out of her league and so she downloaded Tinder and sat through the awkward first date at a sticky table and there won’t be a second one.
This room was way too big to fit all of six of us and I just wish that Katie picked a dress that was not light pink because mine is light pink and like ugh she knows that’s my color and how everything I own is light pink like she needs to get own personality or something or I don’t know like yeah obviously I love her and obviously I don’t wanna exclude her from friend group events especially prom because we have been looking forward to this night this entire year and mom finally gave me money for matching light pink acrylic nails which kind of makes it hard to apply my lashes so maybe Ashley can help me apply my lashes because she’s good at makeup but she’s busy in the corner curling everyone’s hair so maybe I can ask Lisa but Lisa is texting her boyfriend who was too sick to attend our prom with her so none of have a date since Lisa is the only one with a boyfriend and a hot date is such a rarity here like you would think there would be hot boys in our city but there aren’t any that are single and the ones left are the most heinous boys ever that will probably lead you on and dump you so whatever we are all going as a group which is going to be so much fun but ouch I just poked my mascara wand in my eye and now I need to sneeze and it’s too hot in here maybe I should have just gotten ready at home because my products are scattered everywhere and Maddie is playing Ariana Grande and I hate Ariana Grande and now I don’t even wanna go to prom anymore I just wanna go home.
She felt like a spectator in life, but she couldn’t tell you that was how she felt because she was only five years old and wasn’t sure what was really happening yet, often just watching life unfold around her and in front of her, then disappearing into her own little world where she’d start humming a song stuck in her head and unknowingly start pissing off the teacher who told her to stop without telling her what exactly to stop, leaving her more confused than anything else, before later learning that this teacher disapproved of her parents teaching her to write in cursive and insisted that they wait for the school to do it and this was probably one of the many many reasons why she wouldn’t attend that school for much longer but at the time she couldn’t tell you what was happening because she felt like a spectator who fell asleep in the middle of the movie that was life, then before she knew it she was home, and that was where she would remain for a good long while, which would gradually make her feel less and less like a spectator which was neat at first, knowing that she had an impact and could actually participate in the events around her, but then became scary, knowing that she had an impact and had to participate in the events around her and that she didn’t have a choice and she couldn’t simply be a spectator anymore, as the need to simply fade away into the background gradually increased as she grew.
Cary always hated when I bounced my knee, shaking my ankles at a steady pace it never seemed to bother me, it was like a reflex, a daily ritual, but as we grew closer her annoyance increased, there was never an explanation just blow ups, tension grew between us but she was my best friend, we would get over it, our trip to the Grand Canyon we talked so much there was nothing we didn’t know about each other at that point, I didn’t know we could get much closer, she was such a good driver even in the burning heat she looked beautiful the sweat falling perfectly through the crevices of smile lines, as we’ve never had a serious moment, I wish I wasn’t a hot sweaty mess, during that moment of thinking there was some silence in our smiles as the radio played, I resisted the urge to bounce my knee knowing that it would ruin the precious moment between us, she reaches over and rubs my knee as our next queued song begins to play, I never bounced my knee again the entire trip.
The knife is too dull, Elizabeth thought, not safe to use, you’re more likely to cut yourself with a dull blade, after all – her mother had always said – so she sharpened it, sliced through the onions, carrots, and celery with ease, sang softly to herself, and remembered sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, she was about ten, and sifting flour – they must have been making a pie for thanksgiving – while her mother sliced apples at the counter, remembered looking at her mother’s back, which would ache by the end of the day, as hers did now, and how she wanted to embrace her from behind, but didn’t, for she was holding a sharp knife, but Max and Stevie didn’t care much for apple pie, so Elizabeth never made it, and with that she put the knife down as Max entered the kitchen – he had just come home from practice – and he saw his mother standing at the counter, making chicken noodle soup, for Robert, his father, was getting over a cold, and he thought that she looked older, but he was older too, was about to graduate from high school, was headed to Vassar in the fall, then law school – his father was a lawyer – but the only thing he really cared about was running, he ran cross country, was the tallest boy on the team, and in the summer, he got very tan and it lasted a long time, and when he walked down the hallway at school, his blue eyes stared straight ahead, and he had a girlfriend, but he was going to break up with her because she didn’t put out, and, after all, he only started dating her because she ran too, and because Aaron and Lacy were dating and he wanted to double because he liked being in a group, but his brother, Stevie, liked being alone, and no one knew why Stevie – his real name was Stephen and he preferred it, but they always called him Stevie – walked in the direction of the woods after school, why he rarely spoke but was always writing, why he kept eyes on the ground, or when he stopped looking at the sky, and, no matter how often Elizabeth cleaned it, his room was always a mess, and sometimes he would sneak into his father’s study, take out his gun, stroke it gently, like a baby’s head, and put it back in its cabinet, until he started bringing it to his room, where, with one swift motion, he would aim it at his own reflection, and when he looked in the mirror, he saw that he had gotten thinner, that his hair was greasy and his skin was lighter than his teeth, that his clothes were dirty, probably from the woods, which he slipped in and out of like a ghost, and, as Elizabeth stood in the kitchen that evening, making chicken noodle soup, and Max broke up with his girlfriend with a text message, and Robert headed home from the firm, still sniffling a bit, and Aaron and Lacy made out in his father’s car, Stevie slipped into the woods for the last time.
The mirror shatters into shards that sparkle around him littering the floor in deadly glass and he wonders if it would be enough to draw blood if he let his body slump to the floor the way he so desperately craves, but he is to entranced by the drops of blood that well up where his skin met the glass moments ago when he tried to meet his own eyes only to find a slender hollow frame that he swore was not his own but now he can only see the bits of his image reflected from slivers of shards mocking his body, legs, arms, eyes, mouth, nose, hair, skin all marred up and messy from tonight’s affairs that are already fading to the back of his mind and tomorrow when his friends ask where he was he’ll shrug and say ‘out’ and pretend he remembers where or why or what time he got home or how he managed to not end up passed out somewhere that parents would never let their children run off to and his friends will all look concerned but say nothing because he’s done this enough times that they don’t care anymore but for now, he watches the blood streak down his hand as red and raw as the tears he refuses to let out because he doesn’t want to wake anyone or explain why his perfectly good mirror is in pieces around him or explain where he was or what he was doing because he already can’t remember.
I was too much like my grandmother for my mother to ever really care about me. That’s why she dropped me off one Thursday afternoon at my grandmother’s old overgrown house to live there for the summer. I had never met my grandmother before because my mother fled this home when she turned eighteen. Once spending time in my grandmother’s house I began to hear the voices of my grandmother and mother screaming at each other and me. My grandmother is not a very kind woman, she criticizes me and berates me; she has these uncontrol fits where she locks herself and sometimes me in the house for days. My grandmother’s craziness and the voices in the walls make me go crazy – I can’t live in this house anymore – I grab a lighter and a match and burn the house down.
This story lost a lot of key plot points, emotions, and imagery when it was shortened. The length gives depth to the story.
Ryan walked over to the car, slid down the side and sat down in the dirt, he lit a cigarette and sat there thinking and thinking and thinking about what the hell he was going to do now, he’s made mistakes before, like many mistakes, but never this bad, never this serious of a mistake, as this one could end his relationships his journey his career his life in whole, if it ever got out he was a dead man in every way an alive man can be, what was he going to do, nothing for now, he would sit here in the dirt and finish his cigarette, that was priority one, Ryan never really liked cigarettes, at least the taste of them, but he loved the way he felt while smoking one, he felt like a rebel without haviing to really break any laws, his mom didn’t know he smoked them though she would kill him before anyone else got the chance, he knew they were bad for you but I guess that didn’t really matter now, so he just sat there in the dirt and smoked that death stick to completion and then he sat there and thought about what the hell he was going to do with the body, does he burn it does he bury it does he confess to the police does he just run for the hills or for mexico and never look back on his life that was but instead look forward to the life that will be, but he had to escape and get out, or do something, someone was going to come after him, so what was Ryan going to do?
She started off at a fast walk, conscious of the people around her, knowing they would stare if she broke into a run, but maybe a jog would be ok, she quickened her pace and her backpack started awkwardly jostling and hitting her back in rhythm with her pace, she approached her car straining her eyes for that little slip of paper, sometimes tucked under the windshield wipers, sometimes stuck in the driver’s door, whatever place was most convenient for the officer; it was impossible to see so she gave up and receded to a walk the rest of the way and as she wove between the other lines of parked cars to hers, there it was, soggy and limp from the rain, fuck.
11 responses to “1-Sentence Story (Tues)”
In the dark, without the protection of her parents, the carnival games and fried food stalls lit by lamps and string lights took on funhouse proportions and the men running them had uncanny faces and loud voices that wouldn’t stop asking her to come over and pick a card, try some food, play a game, but she did not want to play a game, she wanted to find her parents and get out of this hellish strip full of watchful eyes and evil smiles belonging to a rodeo clown coming her way, skipping down the walkway, laughing manically, red shoes stomping, face paint bright and terrifying, and he was getting closer and closer until he bent down in front of her, her hands covered her face and when she peeked through her fingers, his painted face was right in front of hers a contorted smile asking if she was lost and so she screamed AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Alex always knew he was a good person, I mean it’s easy to be a good person and he actively tried at it so that made him a good person and that wasn’t debatable, no matter what Sarah or Emily or Dina or anyone said, he knew that he was good and they must just be dramatic, I mean he didn’t remember ever doing anything to them, sure he missed some calls and texts and cancelled plans and sometimes said “let me play Devil’s advocate” but that was a part of lively conversation and he knew that, he didn’t think they knew that though and that annoyed him but what can you do when you live by the local college and all the girls there think they’re so smart, smarter than you, even though a college education isn’t really all that meaningful and you could have been there too if you wanted, and done better than them probably because what did Emily know about politics and what did Sarah know about Aristotle and what did Dina know about sports commentary, I mean is she serious, sports are clearly out of her league, Alex always knew that he knew sports better than anyone around so he got a bit sensitive that Dina thought watching football made her qualified to talk on it, he knew you had to actively live football, paint your face green and yellow and put a prideful stuffed cheese on your head and yell at the refs and rip off your shit in celebration and throw beer on the man in front of you with purple and yellow face paint and throw a punch and both kicked out, you had to do all that to get it and he had but Dina hadn’t and he told her that and she stared at him like he was below her and that really annoyed him because he could go to UMich too ok, he had pretty good grades in high school and would have gone but his father was an army man and never gave him another choice so when he joined up he got shipped out to Iraq and he saw things and did things and doesn’t think about those things again he just chases girls that represent the life he might have had if he wasn’t busy being a man, because men like football and war and women don’t like either and his female commander would not have agreed but he left the army when he lost his leg and they sent him home and she had waved at him as his bus pulled out of camp and he had smiled back but it was fake, obviously, because they were taking him away from his life and back home to Wisconsin which he’d always hated just a bit even though he’d die for the Green Bay Packers and that’s probably why Alex moved to Michigan the year after he was honorably discharged, it’s not because his wife he met in high school and married before he flew to Iraq left him for a man with a college degree or because his mother was long dead and his father died shaking his fist at God and the establishment, really the move was practical and he’d wanted to live in Michigan ever since he went to the Cherry festival in Traverse City when he was seven and his dad won him a stuffed bear from one of those hit the bell games and his mom had cooed and he remembers smiling with both of them and it was the last trip before his mom left them, died or left them, and now he liked to recreate that moment and take college girls to local fairs and win them a prize with that hit the bell game and they grab the bears and coo and he smiles and then on the drive home tells them they remind him of his mother and they don’t like that but he means it as a compliment and they don’t have enough critical thinking skills to understand that, even though they’ve got fancy degrees and act all uppity because, frankly, that’s the nicest thing Alex can say to someone and they yell it back at him later in the middle of some argument that he doesn’t remember the start too and he tells them they’re being hysterical and must be on their time of the month and they call him disgusting and he calls them prudes and egotistical and they slap his face or stomp out of his house or slam his car door and he seethes and drives away and signs up for Tinder again and meets a new college girl, maybe another Emily, and he thinks about what might have been and they think about how strong he is and brave for losing a leg and they are all fine for a bit until he talks too much and they start thinking with their University minds and then it happens all over again and of course it’s all their fault because it’s certainly not his, it’s never on him because he’s always a good person, better than them.
She sat down at the coffee shop and the table was a little sticky and she waited and waited finally he showed up and he looked a little different from his photos she thought he would be a little taller and maybe his hair would fall into place more perfectly but instead he walked across the room in an awkward pace and he had a curl of hair that always fell out of place but maybe she was being too judgemental but at the same time she met him on an app designed to judge by appearance and how she agreed to a date maybe it’s just that first dates are always awkward but she paid for her own coffee and she awkwardly fidgeted with her rings and her heart went ba boom ba boom and he wouldn’t look her in the eye rather the center of her forehead and then she felt paranoid she had a pimple and they talked about where they were from and family and majors and shit and the conversation was impossible to get out she was putting in an olympic feat with a brick wall who mumbled out minimal answers but maybe it wasn’t the brick wall it was her because she remembered sitting in this exact seat with Fiona who always spoke with conviction and they talked about the future and their fears and Fiona said how she just wanted to be loved and she noticed how Fiona’s hair fell in her perfect braids and how smooth her tanned skin was and her heart shaped lips as she sipped her coffee and her heart went ba boom ba boom like a defibrillator had just brought her back to life and that’s when she realized she would rather be on a date with Fiona but that would never happen because she was in love with her best friend who was way out of her league and so she downloaded Tinder and sat through the awkward first date at a sticky table and there won’t be a second one.
This room was way too big to fit all of six of us and I just wish that Katie picked a dress that was not light pink because mine is light pink and like ugh she knows that’s my color and how everything I own is light pink like she needs to get own personality or something or I don’t know like yeah obviously I love her and obviously I don’t wanna exclude her from friend group events especially prom because we have been looking forward to this night this entire year and mom finally gave me money for matching light pink acrylic nails which kind of makes it hard to apply my lashes so maybe Ashley can help me apply my lashes because she’s good at makeup but she’s busy in the corner curling everyone’s hair so maybe I can ask Lisa but Lisa is texting her boyfriend who was too sick to attend our prom with her so none of have a date since Lisa is the only one with a boyfriend and a hot date is such a rarity here like you would think there would be hot boys in our city but there aren’t any that are single and the ones left are the most heinous boys ever that will probably lead you on and dump you so whatever we are all going as a group which is going to be so much fun but ouch I just poked my mascara wand in my eye and now I need to sneeze and it’s too hot in here maybe I should have just gotten ready at home because my products are scattered everywhere and Maddie is playing Ariana Grande and I hate Ariana Grande and now I don’t even wanna go to prom anymore I just wanna go home.
She felt like a spectator in life, but she couldn’t tell you that was how she felt because she was only five years old and wasn’t sure what was really happening yet, often just watching life unfold around her and in front of her, then disappearing into her own little world where she’d start humming a song stuck in her head and unknowingly start pissing off the teacher who told her to stop without telling her what exactly to stop, leaving her more confused than anything else, before later learning that this teacher disapproved of her parents teaching her to write in cursive and insisted that they wait for the school to do it and this was probably one of the many many reasons why she wouldn’t attend that school for much longer but at the time she couldn’t tell you what was happening because she felt like a spectator who fell asleep in the middle of the movie that was life, then before she knew it she was home, and that was where she would remain for a good long while, which would gradually make her feel less and less like a spectator which was neat at first, knowing that she had an impact and could actually participate in the events around her, but then became scary, knowing that she had an impact and had to participate in the events around her and that she didn’t have a choice and she couldn’t simply be a spectator anymore, as the need to simply fade away into the background gradually increased as she grew.
Cary always hated when I bounced my knee, shaking my ankles at a steady pace it never seemed to bother me, it was like a reflex, a daily ritual, but as we grew closer her annoyance increased, there was never an explanation just blow ups, tension grew between us but she was my best friend, we would get over it, our trip to the Grand Canyon we talked so much there was nothing we didn’t know about each other at that point, I didn’t know we could get much closer, she was such a good driver even in the burning heat she looked beautiful the sweat falling perfectly through the crevices of smile lines, as we’ve never had a serious moment, I wish I wasn’t a hot sweaty mess, during that moment of thinking there was some silence in our smiles as the radio played, I resisted the urge to bounce my knee knowing that it would ruin the precious moment between us, she reaches over and rubs my knee as our next queued song begins to play, I never bounced my knee again the entire trip.
The knife is too dull, Elizabeth thought, not safe to use, you’re more likely to cut yourself with a dull blade, after all – her mother had always said – so she sharpened it, sliced through the onions, carrots, and celery with ease, sang softly to herself, and remembered sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, she was about ten, and sifting flour – they must have been making a pie for thanksgiving – while her mother sliced apples at the counter, remembered looking at her mother’s back, which would ache by the end of the day, as hers did now, and how she wanted to embrace her from behind, but didn’t, for she was holding a sharp knife, but Max and Stevie didn’t care much for apple pie, so Elizabeth never made it, and with that she put the knife down as Max entered the kitchen – he had just come home from practice – and he saw his mother standing at the counter, making chicken noodle soup, for Robert, his father, was getting over a cold, and he thought that she looked older, but he was older too, was about to graduate from high school, was headed to Vassar in the fall, then law school – his father was a lawyer – but the only thing he really cared about was running, he ran cross country, was the tallest boy on the team, and in the summer, he got very tan and it lasted a long time, and when he walked down the hallway at school, his blue eyes stared straight ahead, and he had a girlfriend, but he was going to break up with her because she didn’t put out, and, after all, he only started dating her because she ran too, and because Aaron and Lacy were dating and he wanted to double because he liked being in a group, but his brother, Stevie, liked being alone, and no one knew why Stevie – his real name was Stephen and he preferred it, but they always called him Stevie – walked in the direction of the woods after school, why he rarely spoke but was always writing, why he kept eyes on the ground, or when he stopped looking at the sky, and, no matter how often Elizabeth cleaned it, his room was always a mess, and sometimes he would sneak into his father’s study, take out his gun, stroke it gently, like a baby’s head, and put it back in its cabinet, until he started bringing it to his room, where, with one swift motion, he would aim it at his own reflection, and when he looked in the mirror, he saw that he had gotten thinner, that his hair was greasy and his skin was lighter than his teeth, that his clothes were dirty, probably from the woods, which he slipped in and out of like a ghost, and, as Elizabeth stood in the kitchen that evening, making chicken noodle soup, and Max broke up with his girlfriend with a text message, and Robert headed home from the firm, still sniffling a bit, and Aaron and Lacy made out in his father’s car, Stevie slipped into the woods for the last time.
The mirror shatters into shards that sparkle around him littering the floor in deadly glass and he wonders if it would be enough to draw blood if he let his body slump to the floor the way he so desperately craves, but he is to entranced by the drops of blood that well up where his skin met the glass moments ago when he tried to meet his own eyes only to find a slender hollow frame that he swore was not his own but now he can only see the bits of his image reflected from slivers of shards mocking his body, legs, arms, eyes, mouth, nose, hair, skin all marred up and messy from tonight’s affairs that are already fading to the back of his mind and tomorrow when his friends ask where he was he’ll shrug and say ‘out’ and pretend he remembers where or why or what time he got home or how he managed to not end up passed out somewhere that parents would never let their children run off to and his friends will all look concerned but say nothing because he’s done this enough times that they don’t care anymore but for now, he watches the blood streak down his hand as red and raw as the tears he refuses to let out because he doesn’t want to wake anyone or explain why his perfectly good mirror is in pieces around him or explain where he was or what he was doing because he already can’t remember.
I was too much like my grandmother for my mother to ever really care about me. That’s why she dropped me off one Thursday afternoon at my grandmother’s old overgrown house to live there for the summer. I had never met my grandmother before because my mother fled this home when she turned eighteen. Once spending time in my grandmother’s house I began to hear the voices of my grandmother and mother screaming at each other and me. My grandmother is not a very kind woman, she criticizes me and berates me; she has these uncontrol fits where she locks herself and sometimes me in the house for days. My grandmother’s craziness and the voices in the walls make me go crazy – I can’t live in this house anymore – I grab a lighter and a match and burn the house down.
This story lost a lot of key plot points, emotions, and imagery when it was shortened. The length gives depth to the story.
Ryan walked over to the car, slid down the side and sat down in the dirt, he lit a cigarette and sat there thinking and thinking and thinking about what the hell he was going to do now, he’s made mistakes before, like many mistakes, but never this bad, never this serious of a mistake, as this one could end his relationships his journey his career his life in whole, if it ever got out he was a dead man in every way an alive man can be, what was he going to do, nothing for now, he would sit here in the dirt and finish his cigarette, that was priority one, Ryan never really liked cigarettes, at least the taste of them, but he loved the way he felt while smoking one, he felt like a rebel without haviing to really break any laws, his mom didn’t know he smoked them though she would kill him before anyone else got the chance, he knew they were bad for you but I guess that didn’t really matter now, so he just sat there in the dirt and smoked that death stick to completion and then he sat there and thought about what the hell he was going to do with the body, does he burn it does he bury it does he confess to the police does he just run for the hills or for mexico and never look back on his life that was but instead look forward to the life that will be, but he had to escape and get out, or do something, someone was going to come after him, so what was Ryan going to do?
She started off at a fast walk, conscious of the people around her, knowing they would stare if she broke into a run, but maybe a jog would be ok, she quickened her pace and her backpack started awkwardly jostling and hitting her back in rhythm with her pace, she approached her car straining her eyes for that little slip of paper, sometimes tucked under the windshield wipers, sometimes stuck in the driver’s door, whatever place was most convenient for the officer; it was impossible to see so she gave up and receded to a walk the rest of the way and as she wove between the other lines of parked cars to hers, there it was, soggy and limp from the rain, fuck.