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 a new one.”

“Yeah, it’s that natural reflex down there when you feel the threat of a forceful entry, which you are about to receive right now.”

“Are you going to rape me?”

“Close enough. You left me to have coffee, and cakes, and tea, and a full blown fucktard frat lunch with that weeaboo!”

“I had to –”

“You had to hypnotize yourself? Why would you want to do that? You promised, you made me get in contact with the weeaboo and then you left me there!”

Marnie sat down at the kitchen counter and swiveled in the chair. Reaching for a loose banana, she squinted her eyes at Susie. Yes, she had persuaded her to arrange a meeting; she had the intention of going to see that spectacle and fully enjoying the sight of such a creature.

Then came Julia and then came the podcast, which had wasted a good chunk of her day. The hypnotism didn’t work, that much was clear. Her inner voice hadn’t been brought out…anymore than it already was……and she didn’t feel like she needed to do anything at the moment. She wanted to rage on about it, but the energy just wasn’t there. She had no initial spark to pitch her into one of her usual bitchy tirades. As of now, she could care less about what she had forgotten to do. Susie, she wanted to say, I’m not sorry.

“I’m not sorry,” she said.

“Of course you’re not,” Susie said as her nostrils flared. “But you’re going to repent anyways.”

“Repent? Is this religious?”

“Shut up. You’re going to go see the Twilight movie with me and the weeaboo.”

“Twilight? Is that the one about emo vampires and Mary Sues, isn’t it?” Marnie asked, wondering where her usual sense of revulsion had gone.

“I asked the waptard to go see it with us.”

“She’s going?”

“Yes, she’s going. So you’re going to get it from both sides.”

“Am I going to be mouth-raped as well?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I can swing that,” Susie said.

Several hours later and a trip to the corner store, the two of them had in their hands: student IDs, cash, 7up bottles filled with a cocktail of soda, lime juice, and an insensible amount of gin. It was Susie’s idea. Judging from her reaction to her last meeting with the waptard (scratching her skin red around her shoulders and an unnatural revulsion to anything animated), she wanted the best ward from what she thought was sure to be a hellish evening.

“What does she look like?” Marnie asked as she surveyed the crowds. The walk to the student union was like any other. The sun and dipped down behind the glass buildings downtown, casting a spectered sorbet hue over the campus. She found herself smiling at it.

Contrary to what she believed of herself, she was rather excited to meet this weeaboo. She stood on the tips of her toes and craned her neck above heads to get a glimpse of something she wouldn’t recognize.

“Oh,” Susie sighed, “There she is.”

Marnie snapped her head in the direction Susie was pointing. Again, she expected the usual curl of her lip at the sight, but instead, she felt her body go light.

The weeaboo was nothing like she had seen before. She floated along the mint grass in her platform Mary Janes. And her thin legs cased in tights looked like a peppermint candy stick. She was all alight, channeling colors of the sorbet. Her hair was twindling strawberry blonde curls and her face looked like she had walked through a candy store. Shit, she looked like she had walked through a candy store with a frilly lolita fetish.

“I want to eat her,” Marnie said.

“What?” Susie said as she gripped Marnie’s arm.

“Just look at her, she’s so…cheerful.”

“Marnie, are you okay?” Susie said, shaking Marnie just the slightest.

She pranced up and hopped to a stop in front of them.

“Heya! I’m Sara, but please call me Sa-chan!” she said with bubbly popping enthusiasm.

“Sa-chan?” Marnie said.

“Hai! It’s a kind of nickname in Japanese!”

“Japanese?”

“Un!” she nodded with a sweet, cholesterol charged smile on her face. “What’s your name? I know Susie, but you’re new!”

“No shit,” Susie spat. Her eyelids were hanging low and digging into Sara, eh, Sa-chan…whatever.

Oblivious to any malicious intent, Sara kept on smiling.

“It’s Marnie.”

“Marnie! Susie and Marnie! Ou, your names are so kawaii! Hold my te, please. This is some serious unme!”

“What?” Marnie said, but honestly, she wasn’t really listening.

Sara linked arms with Marnie and Susie, flanking herself with them on either side. Marnie noticed a band of fabric on her head spilling ribbons and lace like freshly sliced guts. She wanted to crawl inside Sara’s hair and camp there for the winter. It looked so sweet and sugary warm with honey and all sorts of cutesy goodness.

“Don’t forget the fucking gin,” Susie hissed behind Sara’s back.

Marnie nodded, but she was much too taken in by the colors emanating from Sara.

“Let’s go, shall we?” Sara said.

“Yeah, Sa-chan,” Marnie said with a syrupy quality to her voice. Susie choked on an extra large swig of the soda-gin concoction.

Once inside the student union theater, they were seated much the same as they had walked in. It was truly a sight to behold. It was safe to say that 90% of the audience was freshman girls, the other 9% fat, middle aged women. The last 1% was Marnie, Susie, and Sara, which was…pretty self-explanatory. Susie was liberal with her drink; she was half done before the movie even started.

Alongside the many voices exclaiming EDWARD CULLEN 4EVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and REAL VAMPIRES SPARKLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a fairy vending out snacks noticed the gradual tone the audience was taking. He saw the need to intervene, and so he did.

He climbed on the stage and announced his dance major and began to prance about with his snack tray hanging from his shoulders. Apparently he needed no music. Susie began to gag, Marnie handed her the last bottle of drink. Susie shouted jeers at the stage and managed to squeeze in a few comments liking Twilight to the kind of stuffs she’d wipe her ass with. More than a few tweens and their middle-aged counterparts turned around and threw something. Susie threw stuff back.

Marnie took it all in with a smile.

“Do you like Twilight?” she asked Sara.

“Oh, tabun, not much. But Susie-chan asked me to come, so of course I agreed. I never miss a chansu to be with by tomodachis! Dai chansu!” she exclaimed as she nodded and clutched her fists together.

“Ah…sure,” Marnie said as the house lights came down. Turning her head towards the screen, she saw the fairy slink off stage and the movie came on.

It was nothing like Susie had described. Of course, it was complete shit, but Marnie was unconcerned with that. She felt Sara gently wrap her lace covered fingers around Marnie’s hand and squeeze.

She heard Susie sigh across the way.

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

“I’m going to have a baby.”

Marnie launched forward as she choked on her Coke. A pretty spray of soda and spit arched across the table and prismed a rainbow in the air above them.

“Excuse me?” she said between coughs.

Julia, in all her unforgiving and immaculate glory, nodded. “I’m going to have a baby,” she repeated. Marnie shook her head.

“When did this happen? You don’t even have a boyfriend!”

“Thank you,” Julia said as a scowl passed her pretty pink lips.

“But,” Marnie began. She thought back through time, of all the men she had seen Julia with. The number was small, no more than five. In fact, that last time Julia was in a serious relationship, Marnie was just a freshman, a few years ago. Unless Julia was sleeping around, which Marnie couldn’t see, then this woman was incubating the messiah.

“Do you have a secret lover, or something?” she said.

Julia shook her head. “Please, I have no time for that crap.”

“Then how did you get pregnant?”

“Oh,” Julia said as she waved a hand across the table. “I’m not pregnant, not yet. I was just thinking that it’s about time I have a baby.”

“You were ‘just thinking’?”

“So?”

“Babies are not something you ‘just think’ about.”

“Well, it’s not wholly unheard of. I’m secure in my job, I can support myself and another. Unlike you and you prissy Alzheimer friend, I am mentally stable. I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”

“What about the other half? You know, the man, you don’t have one. That part is important. …Sperm bank?”

“Oh,” she said and waved her hand again. “Please, as if I would go to one of those places. No, I’m going to enjoy getting pregnant, a lot.” She leaned across the table, closing the gap between them. “I hear that if you come together, it increases your chances for a boy.”

“Really?” Marnie said, becoming interested. Julia nodded.

They both took a deep swing from their cans of Coke. Being the ‘successful’ modern day woman that she was, Julia had always held out on things like relationships and marriage and babies. In any beginning to what could be a romance (not that Julia would ever use, let alone think of the word), she would always find something that was the deal breaker, and not in his favor, whoever he happened to be at the time. Julia wasn’t patient. She thought a million miles a minute and didn’t wait for you to catch up. So the thought of her getting sperminated was something extraordinary to Marnie.

“What brought this on?” she asked.

Julia put her hands up, palms exposed, ready to tell a story. “It’s this podcast I listened to a few weeks ago.”

Marnie screamed as inaudibly as the inner workings of her mind would let her.

“It was something about life plans and beating back the conventional idea of houses with white picket fences and fractured children.”

“Fractured children?”

“You know, a nice house with a white picket fence and 2 ½ children? Why is it a fraction?”

Marnie nodded.

“Anyway,” Julia continued, “I was listening to it, listening to it, when it just stopped. I mean the clip was over. I looked at my watch and saw that thirty minutes had passed. At first I was really pissed. I mean, I just wasted a good unit of time listening to nothing, I didn’t remember anything. Then a day later, I saw a fat soccer mom bouncing a baby on her tire rolls, and I thought, I want that.”

“Lard?”

“No, a baby. Though, I didn’t see how she could have such an adorable baby, but that’s beside the point.”

Marnie shook her head. “Wait, wait. Did you just say ‘adorable baby’? What happened to ‘shitting vomit machine’?”

Julia shrugged her shoulders after finishing her Coke. She gave a cute little smile and sighed with content in her voice. This was very out of sorts. Julia was never content, she was always going for more, going for the next step. She never slowed down.

It was the podcast.

A podcast that could change such a radical person as Julia was something far beyond the reaches of reality, or Marnie’s reality at least. The other people that had told her about this mysterious podcast were people she didn’t know very well. But Julia, she was like the older cousin that corrupted you for the better, someone indispensible to Marnie. So she checked it out.

At home she sat at the dining room table with a laptop in front of her. Logging on to the interweb, she found out that it wasn’t one podcast, there were hundreds, for all different types of situations and states of mind. Men, women, pets, careers, silicone implants, and Snow Monkeys. There was something for everyone.

She scrolled through the choices, wondering which one to select for herself. Was it destiny when her cursor immediately fell on one titled Bringing Out Your Inner Voice. Clicking on it she was presented with a media player. The soothing voice of a man began to fill the room just before Marnie pressed pause.

She slouched down in her seat. How did one arrange for one’s mind to be hijacked and changed? She went around the house, closing the blinds, switching off electronics and anything else that made noise. The doors were locked, the windows latched and despite the growing stuffiness and heat, she sat back down and listened to the silence. Everything was dead, save for the quiet hum of the refrigerator. She was hankering for some ice cream after this didn’t work.

Dragging her finger across the laptop touchie pad, she pressed play.

The male voice came through again and she felt her shoulders slouch and the crook in her neck loosen. She was still quite lucid, though on the edge of her seat, waiting for the moment she would lose control. It was all very much like a séance, when you’re expecting something to happen, afraid of anything that could happen, yet you still wait with baited breath.

She closed her eyes…then her phone rang.

“Shit,” she muttered as she pressed pause again. Glancing at the phone, she saw it was Susie.

“What,” she barked into the mouthpiece.

“You said you wanted to meet the waptard, so come on,” Susie said.

“I can’t, I’m trying to hypnotize myself.”

“Hypnotize yourself? Worst excuse ever! I’ve got the wap all riled up and ready to go.”

“Sorry, I can’t.”

“Bitch! You’re the one who wanted to meet her!”

“Sorry, I can’t”

“You can’t? You can’t leave me here with her!”

“Where are you?”

“At a coffee shop somewhere on Nicollet. Marnie, you fucking flake, she’s speaking in tounges!”

Marnie almost laughed.

“Sorry girle, this is some important stuff. I’ll call you later.”

She didn’t wait to hear another insult laced with curses, she had to get back to business.

Pressing play again, listening to the voice again, she again closed her eyes and listened to the silence around her, and to the podcast. She waited and waited, wondering when it was going to take its affect, and if it was different for everyone. She considered calling Julia to ask about how to get in the mindset, or so to say, when her phone rang again.

“Shit,” she said and picked it up.

“You fucking bitch. That was the most torturous hour of my life. You couldn’t come out to see what you wanted to experience in the first place? I’m tired of you backing out on me when I do these kinds things for you. I’m always arranging things and then you decide on a whim if you want to follow through or not. I’m tired of it. Are you listening?”

Marnie pulled the phone away from her ear, feeling lethargic and heavy all of the sudden. Looking at the screen she saw that an hour had passed. Susie was still yelling on the other end and Marnie was just noticing that the podcast had ended. When, she didn’t know, but the audio clip was only about fifteen minutes long. Total.

Frowning to herself she brought the phone closer to her face and examined the time blaring across the screen.

It was truly an hour later. She had just wasted an hour of her life listening to nothing.

What a way to piss a person off.

She knew this was a sham.

She stood up and went to get some ice cream.

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 sat. Gripping Susie’s wrist, she appealed again.

“We’ll just have to go looking for him.”

“Fuck that,” Susie said as the ripped her wrist away.

“Come on! It’s only a few blocks that way,” Marnie said as she gestured towards the mall.

“That’s on the other side of 35W,” Susie said with as much revulsion as a Louis Vuitton toting tool would have for a burly man competition.

“Prissy britches,” Marnie hissed. Susie rolled her eyes as she flung the drawing across the table.

“I am not going to go crawling through the streets of fratdom looking for Oliver Twist and his bullshit art.”

“What’s bullshit about it?” Marnie said as she snatched the drawing away. “It’s sub-par, I’ll say that much. But, it does have something to it. I don’t know why, but it’s growing on me.”

Susie shook her head. “You can go wherever you like, dear; but I am not going with you.”

“You’re so supportive,” Marnie jeered.

“Should I be? Just so you can find another freak to add to your archive?”

“You usually end up dating them!”

Susie jumped to spout a rebuttal, but Marnie had her caught. As much as Susie pretended to be above the riff-raff of the world, she couldn’t deny her frequent probes into the bizarre world of Marnie’s freaks. Yes, that was how she met Gavin, the panties connoisseur. Just as the thought crossed Marnie’s mind, Susie shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pulled at what looked like a wedgie. Marnie smiled.

“Anyway,” Susie began. “It will take more than that to get me over that-a-way.”

“You meet me for lunch in Dinkytown all the time,” Marnie said.

Susie, poor, silly, absentminded girl that she was, turned her chin up in thought. She pressed her lips together and frowned.

“Do I?”

“Yeah! Like just two frickin’ weeks ago!” Marnie yelled.

“Oh, I must have forgotten. Still, I was over there yesterday at some of the used bookstores and the maroon and gold sprit was overpowering. I could barely breath!”

“You were over there yesterday…” Marnie said as her voice trailed off.

She plopped down in a chair and pressed her fingertips to her temple tips.

“I still want to know more about Ciggie. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

“Me,” Susie immediately chimed.

“Thank you,” Marnie said with as much sarcasm as she could stuff into a two letter sentence.

As soon as the dust settled, Susie’s phone rang. The high pitch screeching she usually kept as a ringtone was replaced by something far more ridiculous and superior.

Why you comin home at five in the morn? Somethin’s goin’ on, can I smell yo dick…

“What the hell is that?” Marnie said.

“Oh, it’s “Smell Your Dick” by Riskay. Catchy, no?” Susie said as she flipped open the phone.

“‘Smell Your Dick’? Genius…”

“Ugh. Baby Jesus, why?”

“What?”

“This girl who I had a class with keeps calling me.”

“Christ, why did you give her your number.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh, well…”

“She’s this crazy weeaboo and she won’t leave me alone!”

Marnie frowned. “Weeaboo?”

“Yeah, you know, weeaboo, wapanese, japanophile. She’s obsessed with Japan and everything to do with it, except the actual factual history, or what it’s even like there. She’s never been.”

“That ain’t right,” Marnie said as she tried to imagine what a wapanese looked like…nope, nothing.

“What is a wapanese?”

Susie sighed as she shut the phone. “A white person who wishes they were Asian, more specifically Japanese. But they aren’t, so they do all they can to act like a fucking waptard.”

“I’m disturbed that you know so much on the subject,” Marnie said.

“I know,” Susie sighed.

“Does she speak any Japanese?”

“Yeah, and every other word in every freakin’ sentence is a Japanese word. I can never understand what she’s saying.”

“Wow,” said Marnie as she propped her chin on her hand. “Sounds freaky.” Susie vigorously shook her head.

“Nonono,” she said, “This is an entirely different species of freak. This girl is unlike anything you have ever seen.”

“Ooou, mysteries of the orient!”

Susie frowned and shook her head. “You don’t even want to know. One look and it’ll send you reeling.”

“What’s her name?” Marnie asked.

“Well, her English name is Sarah, but she insists of being called “chan”…something or other. Who the hell knows.”

Marnie paused for a moment and glanced as Susie’s phone. The information was just too stimulating. The thought of what she could see and experience for herself and posterity too tempting.

“I have to meet this person,” she said.

Susie groaned.

—————————-

For Your Information, “Smell Your Dick” is surely for real. Check it out on any video streaming site….yeah, youtube.

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 videos and her clothing was straight from the dirty bin. As she glanced around, she thought…just maybe, she went a little overboard in her want to dress like a convincing smoker. Perhaps her image was a little off? Some girl sitting across the room peered over her fashion slave magazine and was not at all discreet in appraising Marnie.

Looking down at her tank top and jeans, Marnie glared back up at the bitch and snarled.

“Emily…” said a bored nurse who came through one of the doors.

Emily the fashion whore clutched her holy grail to her chest and huffed down her nose as she passed through the waiting room. Marnie slouched deeper in her chair and grunted.

It wasn’t fair that she had been one of the first to arrive yet they kept her waiting long past most. She watched smoker after smoker walk through the waiting room doors and come out with a satisfied look on their faces, probably off to have another cigarette.

Next to her sat a rather disgruntled looking individual, perhaps even more than herself. He glanced around the room with his scrutinizing eye, examining everything with a frown on his face. The sketchpad in his right hand and a cluster of markers in the other, it was quite obvious he was drawing something.

Marnie felt a warm fuzzy feeling bubble in her chest as she watched him. What could he be drawing? With so many reds yellows and oranges it had to be something very fire and brimstone. A hellish sadomasochist view of life in the waiting room? Her fingertips tingled. She could envision study subjects hanging upside down by hooks while the dommish nurses cackled as they lit torches. But really, this individual seemed far too co-op dependent to relish in more licentious and extravagant tastes.

Leaning over in her seat, she craned her neck to get a good view. He shifted the slightest and her view was blocked. She craned further, he shifted again. Marnie sighed. Propping her feet underneath her bottom she crouched over him.

“Why?” he said as he stood up and moved a couple human lengths away. Marnie lost her balance as she flopped head first into his chair. It was warm from the heat of his butt.

“I just wanted to see what you were drawing,” she said as she clambered back into her seat.

Sighing quite audibly, he looked her up and down before sitting across the room.

“Nothing very interesting,” he said and pulled the cap off a burnt orange marker. He dragged the tip up and down the sketch pad while glancing off towards the door.

Marnie frowned as she craned her neck again. “You’re so into it,” she said. He shrugged.

“That doesn’t mean you have to be.”

She felt the brunt offence but smiled. This one was unapologetic. He wanted to ignore her, she could see that in his hostile responses, but his curiosity could not be sated. The tiny pride she knew he held in whatever shitty drawing he made was definitely there.

“I wanna see what you’re drawing,” she said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not done with it.”

“What, I’ll disturb the creative flow if I bug you?”

“Sure, whatever.”

“How long have you been smoking?”

He put the sketchbook down long enough to fish a lighter and cigarette out of his jean pocket. He lit up and sucked down the cig in such a storm, clouds of smoke formed around him. When the cig was no more than a stub he pressed it to the drawing and ripped the paper from the book.

The same nurse from before emerged and called out a name.

“Ethan? Ethan C.?”

Ciggie threw the marker drawing to the side and stamped out his cigarette on the waiting room carpet. The nurse dropped her jaw before threatening to do some harm to his person, his grades (was he even a student?) or some part of his life. Marnie smiled.

As soon as the door clicked shut she rushed towards the chair, nearly tripping over herself, and snatched up the marker sketch he left behind. It was…blotchy, and…really shitty. It was all red orange and yellow over and over again to the point where the paper was crumbling soaked from the markers and left boorish spots on the paper which looked like enraged boils.

She crinkled her nose. Now she knew why he didn’t want her to see it. It was total crap, not even good enough to wipe her ass with.

But somehow, it was alluring. It caught her attention; that was sure.

Ethan…C. Ethan Ciggie. Ciggie. He who signed his name with a cigarette. Naughty.

Folding the sheet carefully she placed it in her bag and settled into a chair. She smiled again and propped her head on a hand. What kind of person burned through drawings and paper with a cigarette? Who would put it out on a waiting room carpet floor?

Ciggie was a rather interesting character. The moment he came through the doors she accosted him with a pen and the discrumpled piece of paper.

“Number,” she said.

“What?” he replied, just as uninterested in her as he was before.

“Marnie. Marnie W.” said the nurse who appeared behind him.

“Number, on the paper,” Marnie said.

Ciggie sighed as he lit up again. The nurse clicked her tongue and snatched it from his hand before he could take a proper puff.

“You can destroy your lungs all you want outside,” she said, “Marnie W. come with me now.”

“Number,” Marnie said and held out the pen and paper. Ciggie shook his head.

“I don’t have a phone,” he said, “But I’m usually somewhere around Dinkytown.”

“Somewhere around Dinkytown?” Marnie said as she put a hand on her hip, “Just wandering around?”.

“Yeah, usually.”

“Like a Dinkytown vagabond or something?”

He glanced up at the ceiling with a meaningful frown on his face. Pursing his bottom lip, his head began to make the slow motion of bobbing up and down.

“‘The Dinkytown vagabond’,” he said, “That sounds like a legend I’ve heard before.”

Marnie followed his gaze to the ceiling to see where the hell his mind was going.

“So you’re a student?”

“Um, yeah,” he said and scratched his head. He dug around in his knapsack and pulled out a few markers. “Sure, whatever.”

With that he was gone. Marnie grinned to herself as the nurse pulled her away.

By the end of the say she was $500 richer and had a new person to acquire into her personal arsenal of entertainment. Oooou, Susie would have a field day with this one.

The bus hit a pothole, didn’t even bother to swerve out of the way. Marnie and Susie were shocked out of their seats with the other passengers; she could hear Susie curse in subdued tones.

“This better be damn good,” Marnie said, “You dragged me onto a bus during peak hours.”

“How stingy you are! It’s only two dollars,” said Susie as she aimed her bug eyed sunglasses towards Marnie.

“For a crazy who’s being touted as the messiah.”

“Why can’t you wait until after to spew your judgment?”

“It’s what I do,” Marnie said as she looked forward, “And you’ve no place to talk. Every other word coming out of your mouth is dripping with conceit.”

“‘Conceit’ and ‘judgment’ are two very different things.”

“Yet ‘bitch’ describes them both.”

Susie huffed as she slapped Marnie on the arm. “Bitch is as bitch does.”

“Amen, sista.”

It was a short, steaming walk from the bus stop to Loring Park. The heat wafted up from the black tar and cooked them as sizzling raw meat. The thin sandals on Marnie’s feet were barely enough to protect her pumiced soles from the scorching street. They dared not link arms, fearing a sticky film of sweat would be born between them.

Marnie put on her own pair of sunglasses, not only to block the sun, but also to hide her scowl. It was reserved for those most deserving of her contempt. She was saving it for the wordsmith.

“Oh, my god,” she said.

A patch of Loring green was littered with people in tight jeans and terribly accessorized ears, necks, legs, etcetera. The hipsters had been let out.

“I don’t see him,” Susie said as she craned her neck.

They moved closer to the crowd, weaving in and out of the people. Marnie didn’t see any homeless man and the surrounding peoples gave no indication of whom the main event was to be. She frowned and made no apology as she jabbed her shoulder into a boney arm in her desire to move.

“Oh, hey, saying ‘sorry’ is only half of it. Nothing can be born unless you begin the saga.”

They stopped in their tracks, the feeling of an insect crawling up their spines shivered their shoulders. Misses Tillman and Williams turned their heads in what could only be seen as utter confusion.

“Huh?” said Marnie.

“Oh, that’s him,” Susie said. She pulled her sunglasses off and raked her eyes over the body.

Tall, slight and full of holes, he stood before them, neither smiling nor frowning. He was just…not staring either, gazing…perhaps. His nose was a little big, long and pointy, and his ears couldn’t compensate for the imbalance. He truly was full of holes; in his ears, lips, nose, and as she was soon to find out, his tongue. She wondered where else…

“S-so you’re the wordsmith?” Marnie said as she twitched uncontrollably.

“If that is the name you prefer,” he said without nodding or shaking his head.

“Well, then what is your name, the one people usually call you?”

“My name is the same as the world’s. It’s an alnomen, doncha know?”

“Wha….eh?”

“Excuse me.” And with that he walked off through the growing crowd.

Marnie looked on and couldn’t find the right word to spit her frustration.

“I don’t…what, what?”

“Oh my,” said Susie as she slinked in close. “You’ve just been mind-fucked.”

“No! What the hell was that? You can’t just go around making up words!”

“Ahh…I want to be mind-fucked.”

Susie ticked her head one way as she smiled a learned grin. She pulled on Marnie’s arm. Together, they filed in with the people gathering to listen to the word of the wordsmith. Some brought blankets to perch their derriere on while many sat on the lush grass. Others opted to stand. Marnie did whatever Susie directed her to. Poor girl was still trying to wrap her head around it all.

As he came in front of the crowd, people clapped, whistled, and shouted their support. A pin thin emo punk offered a folding chair, which was declined. The emo didn’t seem to mind much. Rather, he looked positively blessed. The wordsmith was quite a sight with his piercings and his plain button-down get-up. He did nothing to subdue the calls. He launched right into it.

“What were we conversing of last week?” he asked.

“Life,” said one young man to their left.

“Gettin’ some,” said another behind them. No one laughed.

“Just say anything, Wordsmith,” said a woman sitting front and center. Others nodded, voiced in agreement.

“Getting some can be deliciously repulsive, but what do you care? Does she care?” he aimed at a man, who seemed enraptured to be targeted by Wordsmith.

“I care, I care,” said the man.

“What do you think of today’s leaders?” shouted a man to the right.

Wordsmith raised his arms and laid them across his chest. He still didn’t frown.

“They are just as accountable as the rest of us. On this account, I must say that to stand high in the public’s account they must realize that the account of their actions are being accounted for and people will only accept the best.”

Marnie looked around. Jaws were dropped and eyes were popped out. The O faced populous of the crowd raised their hands and began to applaud. More questions cropped up faster than Wordsmith could answer them. As soon as he finished one sentence someone was jumping up to fill his mind with another. These people were lapping up his words and he kept feeding them with no show of annoyance. He never faltered and there was an answer to everything. As confusing and nonsensical as his words were, people crowed for more, were entranced for more.

She felt her chest swell and she almost blurted out a question of her own. Marnie gripped Susie’s hand and whimpered quite audibly.

“What the fuck is this!” she screeched.

All the hands in the air shot down. Glares were shot in her direction. Beside her, Susie sighed and put her sunglasses back on.

“What’s your problem?” snapped a woman sitting on a picnic rag.

“Ah, you’re the young hubbaloo from before,” said Wordsmith. Heads swiveled to him, then to Marnie, and back again. If she wasn’t mistaken, there were quite a few green tinted eyes slanting in her direction.

“What did he call me?” Marnie said, “Is he calling me fat?”

Susie shrugged her shoulders, “Sounds like a fat word to me.”

Wordsmith sliced his hand through the air as he took a step forward. Those in his way parted like the Red Sea. One woman was bold enough to reach out for his pant leg. He moved swiftly and was in front of Marnie and Susie before she could anticipate. Taking her hand in his, he smiled.

“Ninefivetwotwoonetwozerofiveeightseven,” he said before sticking out his tongue. Yep, pierced there too.

Marnie flinched and ripped her hand away. “D-don’t touch me,” she sputtered.

“You are very disgruntled. If you are ever in need of alayen or commiserari-miser, please do not hatly halt to dial this number: ninefivetwotwoonetwozerofiveeightseven.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Susie scribbling on a scrap piece of paper.

“One needs to take these things in inch by inch, little pikmin by little pikmin.”

Marnie’s mouth hung open. “Pik…w-wha…?”

With that, he turned and walked back towards the front, smiling at Susie as he went.

People nearby stared in awe and those lucid enough only asked more questions. The same emo from before crept up beside Marnie and reached out to touch her. She gasped and slapped his hand away. He still advanced.

“Sorry,” he said, “I just wanted to see, well, just to see.”

“Eh?”

Susie wrapped her arms around Marnie’s stomach and pulled her away from the commotion.

“You’ve been mind-fucked again,” she said.

Marnie snorted. “I…what a terrible person. What a gimmick. People are…ugh.”

Susie turned her chin up and looked to the sky.

“I wonder what he’s like in bed.”

There was no filth and grime, no visceral reality to that house. Her parents were nothing to scrunch her undies over either. Her father was under the impression that everything would happen in due course. In other words, he was always waiting and never getting angry. Waiting in line at the bank, listening to people rage about their taxes or some such shit; or waiting in traffic, letting one pretentious gasoline whore after another to cut in front of him. Whata sissy.

Marnie’s mother was much the same. She took her time with everything as well. She took the time to scrutinize her flower arrangements and pluck away any plastic leaf which stuck out of the idea as a whole. She inspected the dishes that came out of the washer, then hand-scrubbed them with soap and pad anyway. It took a fucking hour for her to do anything. Whata kook.

Imagine Marnie’s frustration. Nothing ever got to them.

She was just that, a girl who was bored out of her overactive, hypercritical, almost ADD (but not ADD, because her parents were always sooooo patient) mind. She never tried to understand where she came from. She knew she was most definitely the product of her parents’ coitus, but the mannerisms grew out of nowhere. It was around middle school when she first noticed.

It’s that tender age when everything pisses a kid off. The only logical thing to do is listen as skinny boys sing pseudo-punk music and slit one’s wrists. At first she thought it was a fashion norm, but then the years went on and the emo turned into frustration turned into hate. Her parents never got angry with her, only disappointed. Yeah, she was deprived of a cellular phone and money when she was naughty, but they never yelled at her. Never.

“I don’t know why you do this, Marnie dear, it disappoints us so much.” Then they would dip their faces and peer at her over a pair of spectacles sitting low on their noses. It was the worst. If they had gotten angry and shouted curses and threatened some sort of harm to her ass then there would be something to brag about, like a merit badge for all the troubles she went through; a solid base for a good reputation. But they did nothing, only looks and verbal hints that made her feel guilty enough to do what they implied they wanted. Damn them.

So she did the only thing she could do: provoke them. For several looooong years she tried all sorts of things to provoke them into anger. She almost had it, once, when she told her parents she was pregnant with a syphilis riddled baby. Her mother was almost hysterical. Her voice had reached the precipice of shrill and her chest was heaving breaths while she lectured Marnie on the procedures of safe sex and responsibility. But she never quite got there, not all the way to screaming and crying and calling her daughter all sorts of names like “slut” and “whore”. Her father…got the car keys and said he was taking her to the hospital.

Of course she fessed up, and lost her phone and TV privileges for many months. Marnie had never seen the inside of a library so many times in such a short span of time. She also became very well acquainted with the corner pay phone. Its grey grubby booth was a second home. The dirteous prints from her sneakers pressing up against the inside glass were still there. No one cared about the phone box enough to clean it, and she wasn’t going to erase her claim of existence there. It was just another crap merit badge.

It wasn’t long after she met Susie. Susan Tillman: another knackered lady who’s shame and regret had taken a flying leap out the window. Her parents were something of a fiction mixed with half-true legends and fact. Susie could never, or would never keep her stories straight. She mixed the names of her extended family members all the time and meshed different instances with one another. A story of a ruined turkey at Christmas collided with someone, either Cousin Joe or George, dropping someone’s baby during the Easter service. The girl had no patience for details, which was why she apparently let her boyfriend wear her panties as he pleased.

But Marnie didn’t care. She rather liked Susie’s attitude and the inconceivable gaps in her stories. They were two girls so jaded it seemed like a waste to expect much else. Whether it was wacked-out boyfriends, fights with greedy hoes, or dealing with bull shit they just didn’t like, they took it all in. Hell, most of the time they chased it. Why else would Susie turn a blind eye to a man wearing her panties? When life is boring as fuck, you gotta do something about it.

They took everything at face value, and made up all the rest. It was much more fun like that anyway, making your own events and stories. Susie, in all her melodramatic glory, called it liberating. No false hope and no holding out for a damn idiot who said he wanted you and did another. In charge of their own lives and emotions, Susie and Marnie thought of things only through an idea of what they wanted. Selfish bitches they were, but what the hell. Young bitches were more socially acceptable then old bitches. And they were only young once.

“Come with me to Loring Park,” Susie said to Marnie one day in the cool confines of the Williams household.

Marnie was looking through the refrigerator. Sighing to herself, she shoved a fluffy loaf of white bread to the back. This eating disorder study was harder keep up with than she originally thought.

“Loring Park?” she said, “What’s going on there?” She was kind of hoping for a hipster showdown.

Susie watched her from the dining room table with an unconcerned eye. With her lids flying at half mast, her face looked quite uninterested and bored. She sighed over and over again as if it was the only thing she could do.

“There’s this guy there, he goes every Saturday at noon and kind of talks.”

“Talks? About what?” Marnie said as she slammed the refrigerator door shut. She walked to the table and plopped down next to Susie.

“He just, I don’t know, kind of like, preaches to people,” Susie said as she shrugged shoulders and rubbed her arm.

“Oh God, he’s not one of those Jesus freaks, is he?” Marnie said, her face curling in disgust. “Why the hell would you want to go see that cheap spectacle?”

“No,” Susie sighed, “I mean that he just talks and tells stories, nothing biblical or epic like.”

“He stands there and tells stories? It’s nothing special. Fuck, I could do that.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Susie said as she slapped Marnie’s knee. “People say his words are like something out of a different time, like they don’t belong. The way he talks isn’t normal.”

“He’s a nutter, that’s why,” said Marnie.

“No, he’s a Wordsmith.”

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 almost took her fucking arm off. If they weren’t weaving in and out of pedestrians on sidewalks, they were blocking the traffic on busy local roads. No place for them on the sidewalks, no place for them in the street. Just another thing to add to her list today.

It had been fifteen minutes since Susie called her, and she was already slipping into a funk. Susie would be checking her watch now, for the tenth time. The bitch didn’t like to wait. But Marnie would make her wait, because right now she had to wipe and curse for some sort of release. The biker was long gone, but Marnie envisioned him being mowed down by a busy car, a driver not looking where he was going. No place on the road for those crazies either.

The rest of the walk was all right, but without sunglasses she couldn’t help but frown and squint her eyes to block out the sun, putting a nasty scowl on her face. People stared as they passed and moved out of her way like Moses parting the effing red sea.

She turned her shoulders, this way and that, avoiding the shoulders of others as she crossed the street. Restaurants had their windows wide open. People were lounging and eating about on the “patio seating”, or a clever word for the sidewalk. For some reason the food always tasted better with a breeze in your hair, and possibly a fly in your soup. Nothing like outdoor dining.

And there was Susie, outdoors, dining. Eating a sandwich at some tiny place catering to people who wore beatnik hats and pushed inch-wide wood wedges through their ear lobes. She was sitting at a small iron-wrought table with a dingy tablecloth, ripped in all the right places, that screamed THIS PLACE IS TRYING REALLY HARD TO BE TRENDY. Susie bought into it, as the menu probably required her to slice off an arm to pay. She was slouched against her chair, stuffing the sandwich into her face with as much energy and gusto as a sickly invalid. Big bug-eyed sunglasses hid most her face, but there was no mistaking the thinly veiled anger and disdain there.

“Susie,” Marnie called out as she dodged yet another frickin biker trying to make his way down the narrow sidewalk. “Watch it, damn public nuisance,” she snapped.

He turned his electric blue helmeted head around. “Fuck off, street walker,” he said before swerving to miss an elderly woman.

Marnie dropped her jaw before whipping around to face Suise. “Did you hear that?” she said, “He called me a street walker!” Suisie sighed as she took a long swig from a bottle of pale beer.

“Well you are a street walker,” she said. Marnie slapped her pocket book on the table. It made a loud snap that startled Susie into choking. She coughed and coughed and wiped away at her lips with a deep red napkin.

“I mean, you’re walking on the street, that’s all,” she said with a hurried annoyance.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that,” Marnie said and plopped down opposite of Susie.

“You’re a street walker, he’s a street rider,” she said and drank again.

“Street walker…shit,” Marnie muttered to herself and crossed her arms. A waitress came by to check on Susie, and to see if Marnie wanted anything. No, she didn’t.

“Why not? You’re making me feel bad,” Susie said, holding the waitress from attending to other tables.

Marnie shook her head. “I have an eating disorder study to shape up for, or, shape down, rather.”

“God, your still doing that shit?”

“It’s a lot of money they’re offering for this one. I have to become a convincing anorectic,” she said.

“Well, do bulimia, because I don’t want to eat alone. Ah, another beer,” she said to the waitress.

Marnie glared across the table before casting her order. “Bread and butter.” Susie smiled as the waitress left.

“Alcohol during the day?” Marnie said as she spread the deep red napkin across her lap.

“It’s past noon,” Susie offered with a shrug as she finished off her current bottle. She set it aside and leaned back in her chair. The oil soaked sandwich in front of her gleaned in the sunlight.

“What did you call me out for?” Marnie asked as she slouched.

Susie sighed and arched her eyebrows over the round sunglasses. She shook her head, just the slightest as she looked on down the street.

“It’s Gavin, I broke it off,” she said and sighed again.

“Susie…” Marnie said, trying to sound sympathetic. There was no end to the crazy tales of Gavin and his…odd sense of what a relationship was. But after six long months, it seemed as if the stories were coming to an end. Pity, it provided a good ego boost.

Susie reached down to play with the straps of her shoes. “Yet another psycho passes on by,” she said, pouting her lips, like she always did when disappointed.

“What did he do now?” Marnie asked. It was now time for the shit dealing, her favorite part of breakups. Such a catharsis.

“Six months,” Susie said and shook her head again, “After so long, I find him wearing the pants of another.”

Marnie felt the corner of her mouth twitch, she fought against it. “What…?” she began.

Susie looked straight at her, or the wide, fat orbs that were her sunglasses did. She shot her words out with a vengeance and anger, hungry for Prime Rib of Gavin. “After all this time, I find out he was only in it for my pants!”

“Well, most do want to get inside your pants,” Marnie said as she chuckled.

“No!” Susie said and slapped her hand on the table. “He wanted my pants, my panties!”

“What? You let him wear your panties?” Marnie said and she stuck her head forward, “You never told me this!”

“Why would I tell you something as embarrassing as that?” Susie scoffed. “They were hot pink and frilly! I never buy hot pink and frilly, the bastard.”

“That’s fucked up,” Marnie said as she shook her head.

“I know. I can’t believe he did that, with a hot pink and frilly pair no less. Vulgar.”

“But it’s not like he cheated on you,” Marnie said, “However bizarre it is…”

“Yes, he did! They were another woman’s panties. Disgusting.”

Marnie’s shoulder heaved as she spewed forth laughter. Susie kicked her from underneath the table, but Marnie laughed anyway.

“It’s fucked up that you let him wear your panties. You lost control right then and there.”

“Whatever.”

“You can’t let a man wear the pants and the panties in a relationship,” Marnie said between laughs. “It’s all lopsided then.”

Susie began to smile and turned it into a laugh. Marnie prodded at her from under the table.

“It’s for the best, nay?” She said and reached for Susie’s hand. Susie lifted it off the table and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“That’s the last fucking psycho you’ll see me with,” she said.

“Yeah, wait until you see the next freak, then say that again,” Marnie said.

She glanced to her left. A black haired man was sipping coffee and reading a book, she couldn’t see what from here. His ears were full of holes and silver, with a wood cork-screw in the lobes. His shirt looked stained with paint, or blood. Susie followed her eye line, and smiled.

“All right, but not exactly what I’m looking for,” she said.

“Not your type of freak?” Marnie said.

Susie kicked her from underneath the table.

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.

Despite the heat, she was at the University, taking refuge in one of the buildings, a science building (because they had this sort of stuff) while she grazed the message boards, to see if any posting pricked her interest.

The air conditioning was a god send and a curse. Cooling and refreshing as it was, it soon worked on the layer of sweat she sported and turned the hairs on her back to prickly icicles jabbing out on end. She stood there, rubbing her arms trying to shave away the goose bumps. She sniffled and felt the tickle of a sneeze in the back of her nose. She wouldn’t be surprised of a cold took her after the constant swap of walking through humid soup into dry chilly turrets.

Shifting her weight, she continued on down the line, her eyes hovering from post to post. The best studies were the ones which provided a large compensation. Most required passing a second phase to get it, but that was no problem.

She coughed slightly before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, the tenth one today. Sucking it down, deep, she coughed again and cleared her throat. Her eyes squinted as the coughing increased and she waved the smoke away. It was always like this when she lit one up. These damn cigs tasted terrible. She might as well lick the bottom of a bum’s grotty shoe. There was hardly any tobacco in it, just chemicals made in some nuclear hubble by impoverished children, just so she could get her money. But after tomorrow, she wouldn’t have to smoke them anymore.

Her eyes wandered further until she saw a sign in big bold letters SUBJECTS NEEDED: EATING DISORDER RESEARCH STUDY with tear off and take home slips at the bottom. Now now, it wasn’t worth anything unless the price was right. Subjects needed for a research study exploring the side effects of eating disorders. A list of symptoms informed of the subject criteria…yeah, she could do it. $200 compensation, not bad. She could pay half a month’s rent with that.

Reaching her arm up she ripped off a tab, taking half the sheet with her.

“Shit,” she hissed as the other half shot down to the floor like an armed trajectory.

Sticking the cigarette between her lips, she bent down to pick up the decimated notice. How typical of her to destroy it with just one touch. It was torn, right through all the information and the bold title. She sighed and sucked in another breath of carcinogen laced nicotine. As her ass reached the apex of its curve, she noticed a pair of chunky cross-trainers clunk-clunk-clunking away at the tiles, coming closer to her.

She stood, straightening her back and watched the woman waddle her way across the floor in a limping fashion. Hair frizzed out to the point of looking like she’d been struck with lightning, a stained white shirt, a pill-blue skirt riding up her thin legs, the poor woman looked miserable. She had probably been completely against working during the summer at a university, but her boss would have strongly suggested it, for the better of her career. But she still couldn’t see what the hell good it did to sit in an office all day.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

Her face was terrible, all scrunched up and splotched red from either anger or heat. Her eyes darted from the cigarette to the poster board to the decimated paper and back.

“Show me you student I.D.”

“What?”

“Show me your student I.D.”

“Why do you need to see that?”

“Let me see it.”

Assuming this woman was some form of authority, however low on the ladder she was, the I.D. was shown. She frowned, screwing up her lips in what looked like an angry scowl, or something that was trying very hard to do so.

“Marnie Williams, you do know that it’s illegal to smoke inside university buildings?”

Marnie nodded her head as she puffed on the cigarette. A smoke cloud erupted between them. The woman joined her in hacking up lung tissue.

“Yeah, but I have to, until tomorrow at least.”

“Excuse me?” she said, voice strained. Her eyes darted around Marnie’s face as she put two hands on her hips. Marnie glanced down, unimpressed. This woman’s lips pursed together, twitching to say something not so professional.

“Well,” Marnie said, “I’m a subject in a study about smoking, and I’m not a smoker, really, so I have to suck down all the cigarettes I can.”

The woman frowned as she jutted her head forward. Shaking her head and waving away the cloud of smoke, she pinched her eyes together.

“What?”

Marnie took one last drag on her cigarette and squished it against the wall. Ashes left a black crusty streak on the tan cork board.

“The compensation is at least $500. If I want to get that I need to become a convincing smoker.”

The authoritative glare drooped from the woman’s face like a melting wax, slow and thick. It was the reaction Marnie counted on, typical of someone she would have a delight torturing, and someone she would never think twice about as soon as she left ‘em. This one wasn’t so old as to be shocked by more…licentious comments, but liberal and green enough to think her a victim of vice.

“T-There’s no smoking in this building,” she repeated. Her feet were re-planted in the ground, looking firm and rooted.

Marnie took a pin from the board and tacked the meager scraps of the notice paper back where she found it. The number was safe in her hands, soon to be in her pocket. She coughed again before smiling at the woman.

“Sorry,” she said, quick and curt. The grin on her face knew better. Things had to be said to placate people.

The incredulous glare she received was customary, only made her smile more. If she could smile, enough to make her laugh every day, then the lather-rinse-recycle-repeat patterns wouldn’t seem so bad. Of course, there were kinks to every plan.

The vibration of her phone tickled her butt. It was the short short loooooooong pattern, it had to be Susie.

“Hello?” Marnie said with a full on gummy toothy smile.

“Get your bum over here. We need to talk, face to face.”