Amazing drabbles, every one. I've been a little behind.

This seems to be my theme, I guess (Nova, if you say something about how happy it is to see caustic people dying, I may have to hunt you down and shoot you.):

--------

Mother chatted quietly to Dad. His work-roughened hands gripped his knees and he nodded gravely in response. I sat beside them but watched my brother where he knelt, leaning against his chair with his face hidden in his hands, all the tension gone out of him. His wife hid in the bedroom.

When they arrived, men in dark suits carrying a stretcher, they scanned the living room with anxious expressions then turned toward the bedroom. My mother called them back, waving gently at my brother. “He’s here,” she said.

He wasn’t, though. He’d escaped. I could hear the bastard laughing.

I've got a couple of thoughts for future drabbles. One is "under the bed" and the other is "first time living on your own." My brain functions in drabble land when I get up in the morning.

This is more about an escape that hasn't happened yet. Up close and personal.
The reason I get nervous while writing is because it’s not just a book, it’s my get out of jail free card. I know it’s not. But part of me needs one. So that I can tell fourteen-year-old me that I’m not just weird, I’m an artist.So that every therapist who put her hand on my leg and pushed it too hard murmuring “My, you’re involved, aren’t you?”would know it’s not just meat she was shoving.(And anyway, anything would hurt if you squeezed it like that. Damn. Although the joke was on her, the one who used this word for the first time. Cause I was sixteen and told her about litmag, and well, whatever I considered my involvements...it wasn’t till I finished that I realized “involved” meant “physically fucked up.” Which was weird to me because I really wasn’t involved in that, at all. I just watched.)

And I could stop hearing those voices that say I have no skills, the little shudder I still get when I read paperwork that calls me “indigent.”And think of those times on food stamps as like my Mapplethorpe period, instead of thinking of how it felt in line having strangers eyefuck my purchases.God forbid I don’t dig for change to buy chocolate with.(Which I did, about once a week for a year.Because I want to be right all the time. I need to escape that, too.)

Indigent? Someone dared call you indigent? Grr... Stupid twit-brained idiots.

Do you have a name and address? I've got some vacation time coming up, and no one would suspect a middle-aged fat woman from Utah.

I really like that, erika. It's similar in style to another one you've done, I think. I like your style. I can't peg what's so unique about it, but it has this nice stream-of-consciousness-by-way-of-conversational feel to it.

"Stupid twitbrained idiots" are all they hire. I suppose you'd open a Ministry field office just to handle the overflow. (Having new sympathy for the Texas "He needed killing," thing.)ETA: Thanks, Polter-Cow. For your interest in these little lumps of my life. That was mostly for me, but I thought I'd share. And, hey, explains my obsession with "eyefuck"...I've gotten a few. Just not the fun kind.

So that every therapist who put her hand on my leg and pushed it too hard murmuring “My, you’re involved, aren’t you?”would know it’s not just meat she was shoving.

Jesus, erika. Oh, yes. Yes indeed. I thought about doing one about escaping that iron lung as a kid, but I think I already did, under the "revenge" catgegory.

I've got a couple of thoughts for future drabbles. One is "under the bed" and the other is "first time living on your own." My brain functions in drabble land when I get up in the morning.

Excellent. Have bookmarked.

I'm still trying to think of a good drabble based on my novel or ideas for future ones, but meanwhile here's a moment from my life:

June 1, 1989

Surrounded by ostentatious 18-year-olds’ grief, I’m all but dancing around the football field. Let the others mourn the end of high school. In three months I’ll be moving 900 miles away—the only one of my class to even go out of state. My world is bigger now, and filled with infinite possibility. Why did I struggle so long and hard to belong here, to be a good small-town Alabama girl? It’s finished. Philadelphia awaits. The world awaits.

Nova, if you say something about how happy it is to see caustic people dying, I may have to hunt you down and shoot you.

Huh? Why would you think I would say something like that? Despite all outward signs, I do have some semblance of taste. Your drabble was very good, though also with the pain.

erika, that drabble is gorgeous. I'm with P-C on loving your style. And with others on the bastard-hating.

Susan, your drabble is a moment from MY life as well. Well, mostly. Except that pretty much all of my good friends went far away from Mississippi - we had a pretty big high school.