The Last Vestiges (ROUND 3)
scent of the day: Nose Rest Day
The Last Vestiges
Happy Meal box crushed (fries stiff, having clocked their share of miles), the meth-mouth mother sighs then whirlwinds (“Hey!”) into her childhood home post morning rush—scooping up the TVed toddler in a centrifugal hug. Unlike that stench exaggerated by curbside Febreze, that ebullience exaggerated by curbside mascara (and a toke in the mirror) wilts in on itself. More cash must be coaxed out of Granny.
She does that teen sway of one leg behind the other, a man smoking near the car framed by the window. Fast the day approaches when—against the fixity of that contagious killer stench—the transience of that contagious killer ebullience will flare so bright that the boy, his fingers tracing the toy’s contours, will understand the necessity of becoming immune to hope at a level of consciousness before his time.
