C Failed Terminals

He brought in the speakers. Inch by inch until everything sounded like she remembered. Too much treble. Too much bass. A lot of strangers paying for their highs with drunken women. Or postcards from their mother's they'd yet to read.

She turned off the amplifier and tried to listen to the nothing. Feigning deafness until they started scraping the chalkboard.

All the erasers gone they decided there was still time to lie enough. Black markers seeping through thin paper. She thought about saving what she'd written, but changed her mind when she found out the words had decided she couldn't be trusted. With all those little shoes that barely fit on the feet she'd gnarled playing so often with dolls she'd only remember by hating herself.

Taking off their clothes in tiny doses of hysteria. Sad clown smiles losing their makeup. Sirens at the back of her throat looking for someone to blame. Besides herself.

The fruit is over us. Bored.

Too cold to bleed.

The battery is dead.