The Wake

Fave Value has moved and changed name! Check out Sunshine Assassins.

There comes a time in every person’s life when they must appeal to a power greater than themselves.

In this particular case it was Susan Tillman.

The woman was on fire, she was pissed and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say she was this close to gouging Marnie’s eye out with a cuticle clipper. In all her melodramatic glory, Susie did not take disappointment well. Her short attention span, among that of her short temper, and her lack of patience with anything she didn’t gaze down on with a smile…all attributed to a diatribe which would make the most seasoned queen at the 90’s cringe.

“You crusty, puckered little cunt.”

“My cunt is not puckered,” Marnie said as she slipped past Susie and into the apartment. Then she frowned, wondering just what constituted a puckered cunt. “That’s …

Read more →

It was a trend that kept popping up in conversation; podcasts that had the power to make you do things. It was more than persuasion, it was hypnotism. At first she brushed it off as another fad that preyed on the simpletons, like dieting pills and shamWOW. She resisted it when people told her of the merits. One person claimed his looserness was cured; he was getting booty left and right, any time of the day. But Marnie wouldn’t buy it, she couldn’t buy it. If Susie found out about this, then there was nothing to stop her from trying it; and it was Marnie’s mission to keep her friend out of such absurd shams.

That was until Julia, Marnie’s older and much admired friend, spoke several very harrowing words.

“I’m going to have a baby.”

Marnie …

Read more →

“What are you going to do with the $500?” Susie asked as she held Ciggie’s drawing up in front of her face. She turned it this way and that as if she didn’t know which end it was supposed to sit on.

Marnie gripped the back of a chair and enunciated her words with her hands. “Did you not just hear my tale of Ciggie?” she said.

Susie nodded, frowning as she looked up at Marnie.

“Yes, but…You didn’t get a number or anything. How’re you supposed to find him?”

“He doesn’t have a phone, I don’t even think he has a home. He wanders around Dinkytown like some street urchin.”

“Ew!” Susie yelled as she gasped to herself. The look of disgust on her face was enough to make the bridge of Marnie’s nose crinkle.

She rounded the chair and …

Read more →

This was it, the final day of the smoker study. A plain jane waiting room, in one of the university medical facilities, Marnie sat. A wide array of people were there, fatties, skinny bitches, and people well on their way to either. It was a comfort to see that other than being present, there was no way to tell they were smokers. Well, most of them did twitch, or fiddle, or squeam, but there was really no way to tell.

It was important that she get past this final round. There were 500 beautiful bucks waiting for her once it was done. She sucked down two cigarettes waiting for the bus and another on the walk over. She reeked of cancer and looked like hell. Her eyes were bloodshot from a night full of stupid internet …

Read more →

Apparently, the appearance of a wordsmith was like the second coming of Christ. Susie didn’t rave about it on the bus ride over, yet Marnie could see anticipation in the way she sat upright and clinged to the handrail. All this for some guy who told tall tales while scamming people for food and money? He was probably homeless and his words were nothing more than the result of being beaten down for a lifetime. His sanity was cracked, she was sure of it; she was determined to think so. What was Marnie anticipating? A scraggly, rancid, plump old man who didn’t know up from down. She anticipated the hipsters who fancied themselves his disciples.

The bus hit a pothole, didn’t even bother to swerve out of the way. Marnie and Susie were shocked out of …

Read more →

Life has always been easy for Marnie Williams. Her mother was never a crack whore and her father never hit anyone nor anything in his life. Both her parents were relatively no-fuss kinda people. Their home was in a quiet suburb and had a good sized lawn and patio adorned with an oversized chrome “hungry man” grill out back. The refrigerator was always stocked with healthy and meaty options, and the kitchen was neither too dirty nor freakishly clean. The walls were painted up and down with creamish colors and hung with an odd mix of modern art and homey Rockwell prints. Sometimes her mother went crazy and gorged herself on fake flower arrangements. There was a lived-in clutter to the house; anyone would have called cozy and comfortable. To Marnie, however, it was far …

Read more →

Marnie took her time walking through the campus, being careful of where the sun hit the pavement, doing her best to keep close to the trees. She couldn’t help the humidity, but she could stay underneath the canopy provided by rows and rows of green. It was the one thing she appreciated, among other things, during the languid summer months. Shade, air-conditioning. If she had those two things, then she was that much closer to being content.

A biker in a hurry zipped past her. She felt the wind he created, along with a fine shower of sweat that splashed against her face. Thank god her mouth was closed.

She stumbled as he flew by, and smacked herself in a hurry to wipe the sweat from her face. Damn bikers never looked where they were going, he …

Read more →

Her sunglasses, perched atop her cranium, pushed back the matted mass of hair that collected round her forehead. A thick layer of moist film on her face plastered stray clumps of curls here and there, which she wiped away with oil secreting fingers.

It was hot. The thin cotton of her shirt stuck to her skin like cling wrap, so wet with sweat, her decorative bra was visible. The embroidered pink and periwinkle blue flowers pressed through the fabric like an embossed pattern. Her barely there shorts did nothing to alleviate the intense heat that assaulted her system. The way her thighs rubbed together while she walked created a sticky paste and set her off, as discreet as she could, digging and wiping, only for more to slick her skin there minutes later. …

Read more →