i do not like to be watched. / diane
she is always watching. herself, when she’s all alone. others, when she’s not. on occasion, when the subject is too interesting, she’s found herself forgetting to blink. but this is not one of those times. Diane is one of her more mundane associates. a sister in mourning, as found during their first meeting. a traumatized daughter, clear from what she knew of her brother. but those things were average, and therefore boring. what is not boring about Diane is what can be found on the internet. a star of the Big Apple’s pageant scene for a decade until, suddenly, the flame had burned out. she could have gone to Miss America, or done a shitty car dealership commercial. with a hand of cards like that, Harley would have married a Rockefeller. what kind of an idiot passes that up?
her eyes squint, slowly, as she processes what’s been said to her. IT’S RUDE TO STARE, but that’s not something that has ever stopped her. and the idea that someone has the chutzpah to tell her not to is enough to flare up that ugly temper of hers. suddenly, she wants nothing more than to crack open the skull of the woman in front of her, and practice the surgery skills she learned in med school; quite literally crawling inside of her brain and picking it apart, only to sand it down. she knows that to her right, there is a dying plant. the pot is likely either terracotta or ceramic. not her most unusual murder weapon. she imagines how much better the wallpaper would look with a blood splatter. but then, she remembers how much money she is owed. and she thinks of how much extra she could make with a beauty queen. she finds herself leaning across the round table, arm outstretched towards the other’s breakfast, making full eye-contact. she sticks her hand into the parfait, letting the yogurt overflow onto the hideous surface. on the outside, she is eerily calm, squeezing the strawberries as she states: “there is nowhere you can go where I can’t watch you.”
