Susan down the street has her whole family on gluten-free, lactose-free, raw vegan meals. You’ve stopped bringing snacks to soccer practice because of the ever-expanding list of things she says they’re restricting. Sometimes you catch her son and daughter watching your daughter with hungry, sunken eyes as she runs down the field with the ball in her control, and you feel a shiver run down your spine.
Nancy’s rage is legendary. The baristas at the coffeeshop on the corner all freeze the moment she walks in, their smiles turning rictus as she rattles off a long and impossibly complicated drinks order. You saw one of the girls ask her for clarification on one of her ingredients, once. A solid hour of screaming and the involvement of three supervisors and the manager later, Nancy walked out with a $50 gift card and the drink she’d ordered. You never saw that girl again.
“Do you know what they put in those things?” Helen asks you, when you ask if her small herd of under-twelves have had their flu shots yet. She’s prepared with a long list of multisyllabic chemicals, which she rattles off like a schoolchild listing the 51 states. You know that most of those chemicals are only traces, and your uncle still walks with a limp from the polio, but you feel a deep, dark dread welling up in your lungs anyway as she drones on hypnotically. Across the aisle in the Whole Foods, her youngest son stares you directly in the eye as he wipes his freely-flowing nose on his sleeve.
Amanda’s been head of the neighbourhood association for as long as anyone can remember, but you hardly ever see her. She’s busy, everyone says, on all sorts of committees, volunteering here and there and everywhere. Making the world a better place, in her own quiet, unassuming way. She comes to your door one afternoon, saying she can’t help but notice your grass is getting a little overgrown. She’s thin, almost gaunt, and you wonder if she’s been following one of Susan’s diet plans. Her face is taut with plastic surgery, skin and dwindling time both stretched out thin, barely covering incredible bone structure.
When she smiles at you, wide, with her lips curled back so you can see almost all of her gums, her teeth are sparkling white.
stormborns
amandla
2087
vaporwave
prguitarman
