You Never Know About Some People
As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized how stupid they sounded. More than anything, she wanted to speak again to erase their sound from the air. If she should die before the spoke again, these stupid words would be her last. Even if nobody had heard them (and surely, in the empty garage, nobody had) somewhere they would be recorded. Perhaps they would be etched in the pattern of her tombstone’s granite.
On Sunday night, he carefully smoothed the ten dollar bill and placed it on the kitchen table. It was just an experiment, he reminded himself. Eat for an entire week — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — on just ten dollars. By Wednesday, he felt like a poor little match girl, clutching his garments around his scrawny body. On Friday, he broke the stretch of meager, morally filling meals with a vast feast in his favorite restaurant. While he scooped up forkfuls, he summarized his conclusion into one ridiculous sentence: poor people are better than rich people.
Out of nowhere, she began to smell like noodles. She had not eaten noodles in months. Wet noodles everywhere.
“They’re for my daughter,” he told the check-out clerk. She gave him a hint of a smile and bagged up his puchases. He stashed the bag under the bed when he got home and joined his family for dinner. After everyone fell asleep, he crept downstairs with the bag. In the basement, he unwrapped the two dolls and played for hours.
She assumed she was dying. Suddenly, the sound of the shower, which had been so harsh, became a distant, hollow echo. She did not know she was just fainting as she watched the ground get closer.
Comments are off for this post
