Tonight's writing

“That’s me,” I say to the girl who is not me.

“Duh.”

She’s pulled her hoodie so far over her face that she is simply a red nose and a moving mouth. I drop my reporter’s notebook on the ground, the dirt that is rapidly becoming mud, and grab her. I shake until her invisible eyes roll in her head.

“Duh? That’s all you’ve got for me? Fucking duh?”

Why just her? Why not reach out, back through time, to grab Rooster’s furry biceps, Nails’ padded jacket? Why not grasp Michelle Olander’s fleshy upper arms or Dr. Anderson’s muscular shoulders? The shoulder has three bones and a host of tissues. It requires flexibility for wide motion and must also be strong enough to handle heavy lifting. That calls for compromise. That causes problems.

She coughs once, twice. She sputters. The rain is coming harder now, faster. She is saying something, her voice spinning out into the wet bullets from the sky. I keep hurting her. It is a trashy, dirty joy. I am hooked. I cannot stop.

Her gasps come to me through the rain: “It’s not my fault,” she says, over and over.

“Who gives a fuck?”

When you lack a central place of blame, you just throw that acid all over the place. Wherever it lands, whoever it burns, it’ll do.

It’ll do.