The Glitter Batonby bovabova "And what part of sneaking out of the house, stealing your brother's Fiero and FUCKING A GODDAMNED TRUCKER BEHIND AN EXXON STATION WAS AN ACCIDENT! Huh?! I'd really like to know Brittany. We never should have let you have that old CB radio in your bedroom." She might've been right about that. After my abortion, I went to see a school therapist. She was pretty nice to me, and everything like that, but I hated going for our "talks." One day she gave me a plastic baton--the kind filled with glitter and hearts and stars. She told me to stare at it moving slowly back and forth to center myself before I did anything stupid. They all thought I was too impulsive or something like that after I set fire to the couch on the back porch. That WAS an accident. I didn't realize just a touch of lighter fluid would go up like that. Anyways, I was putting on some new blush when Kylie Vickers walked into the girls room. "Oh, is our little trucker sucker fixing her makeup after another trick? You are so GROSS Brittany! Your vagina is smelling up the whole bathroom. Ach!" I stayed real calm and took the glitter baton out of my purse. I was staring deep into the glitter stars when she turned her back and laughed. "SHUT. UP. YOU. FAT. BITCH!" and I jabbed the baton in the side of her head. It kind of popped and then slid in her ear real far. I just thought it would scare her--shut her up for once. Two days later she died of glitter in her brain--a stroke. I didn't mean... that's part of your nonnieby s. banuana my parents have a shallow wooden box on the wall, and in it is the history of my little family. it's called a "printer's box"; back when print was set with blocks, this box would have been used to space letter blocks into lines of text for the printing press. it has always hung in our living room, and it covers my parents' childhoods and mine right up to present day. there's a tiny wooden lawnmover my dad built with his father. there's a sheriff badge/roach clip i wore to school on "old west" day in the 4th grade. there's a heart-shaped fuschia pin that reads "flirt" that my mom wore in the '80s, when she went out to flirt. there's funny amber vials that my father always maintained were for "gold flakes." there's an obit from when my baby brother died in 1981. there's some weird fake-voodoo "do as i say powder" i got my dad as a joke when my mom was going through one of her phases where she wouldn't do as anyone said. after my nonnie died in 1994, we had her cremated. a burnt-up body fits in a shoebox and is like dark gravel, the texture of kitty litter almost, but greasy and with some bigger chunks of blackened bone. they put it through a crusher, but some chunks remain. the kids gathered at nonnie's st. petersburg home with my grandfather, and they spread nonnie's ashes under a palm tree she had planted before they went inside to fight over her jewelry. a few years later, my mother went to visit her father and his new wife (and former mistress, but i judge and digress) at the house in florida. the new wife had spread sand around the bottom of the palm tree to make an outdoor litter box for her four cats. my mother waded in, scooped up what was left of her poor, peed-on mother, and flew home. i picked her up at the airport. i was driving along on the beltway and she said, "hey, hold out your hand, i have something for you." i looked in my hand and it was a giant tooth, with a cavity. it was a horse tooth. some man at a bar gave it to her, she explained. (it's in the printer's box, now that i think about it.) "hold your hand out again, i have something else." i looked, and it was a sharp, shiny black rock. "that's part of your nonnie." so i rammed into a jersey barrier. kidding, kidding. we got home fine and the nonnie hunk went into the printer's box. last spring, my parents repainted the living room, so down came the printer's box temporarily. when it went back up, i looked for the nonnie hunk and couldn't find it. we all looked, but neither of my parents seemed too frantic. "i guess i vacuumed it up when i cleaned before we moved the couch back in," said my dad. "maybe she's still in the bag?" but i don't think they ever checked. leg dreamby rebenga the tugboat pulled slowly away from the dock, sending small, frothy crests of saltwater fanning out along its sides. the ropes that had tethered its body to the dock made a dry and rustling sound as they were pulled along the splintering wood to sea, and i watched the wraiths on board wave lugubrious goodbyes, their empty faces obscured by the deafening sun. had i noticed myself standing dumbly inside the composite noose at the ropes' end, perhaps i could have saved my leg. as it was, the line suddenly pulled tight and i was strung up sharply, the noose having found its way up my left leg, clamping violently midthigh. and then the whole thing went and i came crashing down on the bony beach, confused and shaken, jeans intact but one leg severed, sliding into a fugue. i awoke in a cabin with the vague understanding that i would soon be prepped for surgery. the leg lay casually in my periphery, and i rose to find the scissors that would be needed to cut me free of my jeans. "it doesn't hurt," i said to my sister, who watched quietly. i knew it would once surgery began. i hopped back on one leg to the doctor, who instructed me as i lay down to cut along the seams with extreme care. "can you sew my leg back on?" i asked him as i began to cut. "no," he said. "legs usually cannot be saved, except in special cases." i hoped idly that i was special, and concomitantly planned for my suicide. sometimes dream accidents can fuck up your whole day. The Cheese Sculptureby deb "GODDAMN!" Deb cried out as she walked into the apartment. She threw down the groceries and surveyed the damage. "Who let Uncle Ira near my Cheese Sculpture?" The six-foot high sculpture of Jarlsberg was ruined, ruined, ruined. But what worried Deb most was that Uncle Ira was no where to be found. Could this mean he would come back and set fire to her six-foot high waffles and syrup rack? Deb wept, head in hands. Deep, sharp exhalations of hurt and tears. She should have never watched that video tape she had received in the mail. What was she thinking? She had read the warning. Now she was entered into the ring . . . of fire . . . as set by lunatic uncles. 5 accidentsby Shermanilla 5 accidents: blood
5 accidents: urine
5 accidents: animals
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