My head was pounding, I had too much at the bar during intermission. The lights go up, and that annoying guy, what's his name, is back at the podium.
"Welcome back everyone."
What was his name
"We are going to continue with the awards, and this one is nothing short of honorable."
I have worked with him for years. Carl? Steve? Mike? Fuck.
"And now we are going to give out the award for our employee of the year. This is nothing we take lightly, and we would like to thank all of our employees for the work they do...
She opened the envelope and screamed. This luxury was purely due to the rough edge of the foil having cut into her thumb before she'd completely broken the electrical contacts just inside the ripped flap. The Army man who'd come within minutes of that first scream, had peered over her shoulder down inside the folded card and taken in the plastic, the wires and the detonator. To his credit, though he was clearly Protestant, he had paid her more attention than any man in her rather drab existence. Everyone else had vacated, but finally she was the centre of attention....
My father was born. The pressed leaves of Limerick brushed from the crib. A mirage shimmers over the pond. Ships and flags and trucks. Red brick stoops on analog streets. Lamps on the corners.
We move and it is 30 years later. Soon the crushed leaves of New York gather. The east coast bleeds in tides, rushing us over the Plains.
In the West, we dry in the momentary sun, then open our mouths for the never-ending rain.
Lola was a name that grated on my ears. Most people considered it sonorous and calming, but after my teenage years, fraught with rebellion, Lola was a name uttered in exasperation rather than cooed.
THat is why I insisted Spencer call me Lara. It was a close sound so that I would still answer to it, but distant enough from my childhood that I could free myself from my past mistakes. He didn't seem to care either way. Lola, Lara, both names meant love to him and loving me was all he knew to do.
He found me in the...
She didn't look at him, just opened the back door at the (deeper than usual) scratching, but it wasn't the cat to which she'd turned her back.
Lola. When I think of her my heart doesn't beat right. It doesn't go bathumpbathump like on television. It goes beep beep beep because I'm a robot.
Wait. It's more like a clock than a heart. They've placed me in front of the Barking Burger. I'm supposed to bark every hour. Tell people about the specials and deals and what delicious meat we have. Come taste our barky patties.
Instead every hour I call out Lola. Lola. She walks by the window and cocks her head as though she can hear me.
They talk about me being defective. A chip...
In the 'old days' I would close my eyes and see colors and a land scape so serene that I dare not open my eyes. These vision were so vivid that they would take me and I could be in this peaceful and tranquil, but now I close my eyes all I see a world set in a haze void of color a bleak land warped by corruption.
What happen? where did my peacefulness go?
I open my eyes to a cold small room, water dripping from the eves, and wind that caries a foul smell. I step outside into...
The lights dimmed. Mary-Rose, in her black-and-white jail-striped dress entered the stage from the left. My left, not hers. I held my icy drink in my hand, legs crossed as I watched her nervously center herself behind the microphone. New Orleans was new to us, but they may have been a good thing, since we were the unknowns of the crowd. My manager Vinny got her the gig, after she promised that no one would start booing or throwing things at the stage. Normally I worked behind the swinging kitchen doors, but tonight, I was a VIP, front row to...
Lola, Lola. What have you done?
It was a day like any other, well if you account the slow, lumbering and brain hungry, zombies. Their presence no longer shocking just another danger living the city. I suppose. Well anyway Me and My Sister Lola have been hopping form building to building, only during the days mind you. We are looking for supplies food and water mainly. Lola, misses her friends and Mom. she really miss Mom.
Anyway like I said we were looting and stuff, when this dog comes out of a door I happened to open I knew where...
Trivia.
The whole day, every conversation, made up of trivia.
In the hairdressers, as she was washed, chopped, primped and preened, a plehora of trivia punctuated the air.
Holidays (of course) and the weather (predictably). The latest reality show shockers (nauseating) and trivia about cat hairs (surprisingly).
Over two hours she knew all about the hair stylists horrific corns, her allergy to peanuts and passion for Jimmy Choos.
Trivia.
But trivia has it's uses.
Especially when your stalking your husbands latest fancy piece. She would soon be dead.