101 Words

“Hi, Mom.”

Face averted, she flicked her fingers at me. “Zzzzzz! I’m waiting for Sheila!”

I sat down beside her bed and sighed. I missed her so much! I had everything to tell her.

“I am Sheila,” I informed her. Again.

She frowned and squinted out the window, my red Beetle a splash of color amid the green. She turned back, frown lines creasing.

“Sheila?” Her voice doubting and hesitant.

“I’m here.” Mine whispered inside my heart.

“Hey, Sugar Pie.” She held her arms out for a hug.

After she released me, I looked in her eyes.

But she was gone.

“Are you okay?” She asked me as I sat in the passenger seat of her car crushing my face and doing my best to hold back an oncoming migraine so I wouldn’t throw up.

“I’m fine,” I said, not even bothering to open my eyes to see how she was driving or where she was driving us to.

I was hearing my father’s voice in my head. He’d warned me. He’d said she was trouble.

She pulled over and shut off the vehicle.

“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I just never thought we would be robbing a bank on our first date.”

He flashes me a carved sneer, gliding across the smooth asphalt lake in black-and-blue Heelys that match the dark whorls under his button-down. The kindergarten class freezes in the Floridian heat, kickball forgotten, as they stare transfixed at the hunter.

“Who fucking cares if it’s Father’s Day?” he snarls, savoring the rich taste of the word.

Flushed cheeks meet his shadowed emerald glare.

As the recess bell rings, a female lamb wobbles forward, unflinching eyes swirling to a watery gold. Gauzy ribbons from her lacy dress flutter as she clasps tiny, white hands around the wolf’s waist.

He flinches. It hurts.

Grass grew around me and worms slithered underneath. I was called Rock. A witness, soon to be a weapon. The first born stared at his mother’s growing stomach. He was up to no good.

The older boy never smiled, while the little one never stopped.

One day, after the boys had become men, the jealous one stormed around me in a rage. Two hands tore me from the ground, and he lifted me toward the blue sky over his brother.

Then rain poured down like tears for a month straight. When the sun finally struck the horizon I was stained red.

Sitting in the barber’s chair, Theodore introduced himself to the apprentice hairdresser and recited the same instruction he had given for thirty years, “Square at the back, thanks, and part from left to right.”

Isabel froze, her electric razor buzzing near his ear. The mirror revealed girlish amusement in her eyes, stubborn determination in Theo’s, and a blinding light reflecting from his sparsely populated, white dome. Isabel covered her mouth with her free hand. But it was no use. Her laughter could not be quelled.

Leaning forward, Theo peered at his reflection, then laughed with her. “Okay, just shave it off.”

Jackdaw observes the terrain below with marble-polished eyes. Patience brings reward. First comes the screeching cry of a female Homo Sapiens. The male replies with deeper, bestial squawks. Jackdaw’s head tips. They lack Jackdaw’s black majesty, but intrigue, nonetheless. From within their stone nest comes a rumbling to chitter at Jackdaw’s claws, and around the twirling female’s middle, a layer of delicate skin lifts upwards, revealing legs that step to and fro, tempting the male. His bobbing head mirrors the mate. They sway. They twist. Flailing, flightless wings intertwine as the male draws in. Closer. Closer still, connecting beak to beak.

“I’ve been waiting for you your whole life,” Gerry’s toothy smile was as grim as his dark clothing. “No one’s told you that before?”

Of all Mary’s Tinder dates, this had to be the creepiest. She glanced at her phone. “I have to check my parking meter.”

“Your time has expired. Take a look.” Gerry’s red eyes motioned outside.

Beyond the window, Mary watched herself feeding money into the parking meter. A car careened down the hill. She saw herself bracing for impact: squealing brakes, the crushing blow, the screams.

Mary dropped her phone.

Gerry’s scythe tattoo glowed. Another soul harvested.