1. The beautiful mobile with swirling feathers was one more place where dust collected, one more thing to add to the work of the household, one more reminder of the filth of life. That one could never get out from under evolving piles of dirt was what kept her up nights. She wanted to live encased in a room free from debris and detritus. She wanted to be clean.
2. Annie’s boyfriend, Hanford Fletcher, was a drunk and an asshole. His alcoholism was a given from way back when, as a boy, he started stealing vodka from his uncle’s liquor cabinet. The asshole part could only be attributed to Hannie having made an early fortune as vice president of Bonnie Bell Cosmetics. Retired at 35 with millions in the bank, he had turned into an entitled playboy. If only Annie had realized it sooner.
3. He figured he was around 5 when he bent down and picked up a small black-and-blue striped feather at the edge of the parking lot. His mother swatted it from his hand. “Don’t you know how many germs are on those things?”
Today, as he walked home from high school, he saw the matted pile of what was left of a dead bluejay. He scooped it up into his leftover brown paper lunch bag. This time his mother would not chide him when he got home. Everything dies.
4. While Bertha distractedly did the dishes, she turned over a jar in the wash bin and began to notice its unusual heft. As she let the suds drip off of it she realized why it felt so heavy—it was made of glass. How uncommon glass jars had become, she thought. But this one was special, the last jar she had from her grandmother’s company, Featherweight Face Treat. She smiled as the heat from the jar pulsed into her hands. Her grandmother would be proud.
5. Pugnacious pugilists pummel porcine porcupines.
♥
twinklysparkles 