she whose temples -- iii)

She was not homicidal, but violence was in her nature and yours. Her parents became decidedly pacifist in the wake of all the bloodsport they boasted, as documented in the ledgers. Nobody read the ledgers, so pacifist was an unconditionally accepted facade. Neighbors only knew something funny about the spicy chili they spooned out at the annual neighborhood watch block parties, so spiced up with habanero and wasabi to silence the smell of powdered ear lobes, sending a rush of icy air through your sinuses and mine, getting accolades blockwide and block long. Nobody heard the powdered cries of the powdered owners of the powdered ear lobes they could not discern. Suffice it to say, the neighborhood watch was not watching.

She wanted to live, and made that choice early on. Probably around four or five years. Suicide was dystonic to her and distasteful. She knew this clear as her favorite drink in her hand; one part lemon, one part tonic. She held it up quickly at times when her arm and wrist began to falter. To prevent its being corrupted, she drank it quickly. An old and tired lemon and tonic was sad like the first rainfall in the city and all the imminent inevitable car crashes slding on the oils arisen from the asphalt. She approached the Bible the same way. She was confirmed in a Protestant Church, and the version was Good News. She scanned it that year, and basically never picked it up again. Except to box it with the other books every time she had to relocate. Why she held on to a text she found so sad and possibly corrupted, no one can say and certainly not herself. Maybe it was her name engraved on the leather cover? She was hard to figure.     - to be continued