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October 31, 2006
Tanya: Girls Who Wear Glasses
The young couple lounged in the abandoned basement, finally alone. They gazed longingly at each other, and whispered words of love. “Your eyes are like stagnant pools, my love. Your lips are like…”
“Yes, my darling?”
“Like sated leeches. Your skin is like a peach. A peach that’s been forgotten in the crisper for six weeks. And your hair is like… like that seaweed that washes up on the beach in late summer, and smells like a fetid sewer.”
She swooned, happily.
“But you know I don’t simply love you for your looks, beloved. I love you for your BRAAAAAAINS.”
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November 1, 2006
Tanya: Underground
They researched, interviewed, hunted, and x-rayed. They tried radar and metal detectors and god knows what else. Then they argued. They convinced the commission to let them dig, if they waited until February. And then they finally pulled up the Astroturf, brought in the jackhammers, and called me.
I’m the top forensic pathologist on the eastern seaboard, and they hoped I’d deliver good news. I took the bones back to the lab, examined, tested, and measured. The results were confirmed by our DNA testing, but I already knew the answer.
It’s not Jimmy Hoffa. So who the hell is it?
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November 2, 2006
Tanya: The Inside Back Cover, Oct 1971
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November 3, 2006
Tanya: Tinker
I’ve been driving since last week. Stopped in Vegas, then spent way too long in Arizona. Too many canyons and ruins. How often does a girl get to sightsee, though, right?
But now I have to rush. I left Tombstone this morning, and New Mexico and the panhandle were a blur. It’s too cold for touring now, anyway. I was going to stop in Oklahoma City, but it’s so beautiful tonight. The sky is so black and the roads so empty.
Just a few more miles, and then I’ll stop.
Oh, how pretty, a deer!
A deer in my lane.
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November 6, 2006
Tanya: Lost
She’d told them that there would be dire consequences if she didn’t get a pony for Christmas. She’d warned them. And then they’d had the nerve to ground her when she threw a tantrum.
Running away would show them, she thought, slipping into Kensington Gardens. She’d run away with Peter and his boys, just like in the storybook. They’d grow old alone, and she’d stay young forever.
She pulled her woolen coat around her and curled up by the famous statue. He’d be along any time now. She stared into the treeline, waiting, as the cold crept into her bones.
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November 7, 2006
Tanya: So Quiet
It’s going to be so quiet around here without John.
She leaned against the doorframe as her vision blurred with tears.
No one to take care of me. No one to kill the bugs and open the wine and rake the leaves. No one to open the salsa jar, or the pickles. No one here when I get home from work. No more hands to hold mine, and brush my hair. No one to watch over me. So quiet.
She straightened up and calmed herself. Then she re-hung the shower curtain and began scrubbing the blood out of the bathtub.
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November 9, 2006
Tanya: Metamorphosis
Today has been a Kafkaesque nightmare. Yet I awoke with not a carapace and six legs, but a hairy snout and cloven hooves. I fled my apartment, in fear that my landlord would find me, but was quickly captured.
I found myself here, after being transported wretchedly, and now the locals are attempting to welcome me. They push me toward a depression in the ground, a pit with a stench like the bowels of hell.
When I will not go willingly, they force me. I cringe, resisting, as my hooves sink into the filth, and yet… suddenly everything seems wonderful.
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November 16, 2006
Tanya: Traditions
Her voice croaked at me from across the room. Abigail and mother seemed to understand her, but to me it was just a rasp. Like static on an old radio.
Her skin was a pale grey color, and she couldn’t lift her head from the pillows. She was my favorite aunt. She would die at home, in this shabby room. Even the hospice nurse had given up.
I watched until she faded away, waited until everyone left. Then I ripped open the box of Pall Malls that still sat on her nightstand. I found her matches and lit my first.
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November 17, 2006
Tanya: I Suck at Titles
When the shooting finally stopped, Poppy carefully peeked out from where he was hiding. He was still out of view, and the rustlers hadn’t seen him.
Robert and Earl were dead, or faking really well, about ten feet away, and the rest of the men must be too. He watched nervously as the rustlers walked back toward their horses, planning to start rounding up the cattle. Damn thieves.
He waited for them to turn their backs, and then crawled out from under the chuckwagon, silently. With a quick one-two, he shot them both dead. Fools. They always forget the cook.
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November 29, 2006
Tanya: Untitled
She’d decided to desert him, calling his beloved country a fascist state that had betrayed her. He’d teach her.
He placed the altered bracelet back into its box and rewrapped it. A suitcase bomb would be overkill. This Cartier box was all he’d need to show his former love a slow and painful death.
Later, distracted from her packing by the delivery, she glared at the jewelry, horrified and offended that her traitorous ex would try to get back into her good graces with expensive trinkets. It took several attempts, but she finally managed to flush it down the toilet.
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