Colleen Stanton.

Her stomach rumbled as she ungracefully rolled out of bed, placed her feet on the cold floor, and sighed. Another day. Another fucking day. As she groggily made her way to the small, cockroach infested kitchen, she rummaged through cabinet after cabinet, only coming across stale Cheerios. When she shook the box, the crumbs were so nonexistent, they barely rustled in the plastic bag. The refrigerator was bare, its innards completely missing, like a mummy the Egyptians disassembled in preparation for burial. How fitting, that she would parallel her fridge to a corpse; she viewed the house as a tomb, some cavern six feet under the ground from which she could not escape. At times, it were as if the very walls were pressing inward on her, making her fat rolls on her hips and ass squelch under the pressure. She was only sorry it didn’t kill her.

Why she was looking for food was beyond her comprehension; she wasn’t even hungry. She never was, especially in the morning. Ever since she could remember, the thought of even the most appealing breakfast, poached eggs, Canadian bacon, perfectly toasted bread, was enough to make her yak. She placed the nearly empty cereal box back in the cupboard, neglecting to throw it away even though the trashcan was within feet of her. Colleen rubbed her crusted eyes with weathered, worn hands that smelled of turpentine and clay; even though she had soaked her hands for several minutes in the nasty chemical, she could not get the earthy smell out of her hands from molding pots and mugs yesterday. It was as if the clay became her hands, fusing with the very fibers of her sinew and marrow. Colleen smiled at the thought of being a real artist, even though deep down she knew she was nowhere close to being able to label herself with such a title. She barely made enough money to afford her living expenses, but this was how she liked it. The thought of performing a job day in and day out that she despised made her want to throw up just as much as the thought of breakfast.

Making her way to her Keurig coffee maker, she patted the machine’s smooth surface like it was her pet. It looked completely out of place against her filthy countertops that were splashed with food and unknown liquids, but Colleen didn’t mind the mismatched décor. In fact, she loved it. Best decision of my life, stealing you, she thought as she slid a dirty mug under the coffee-maker, and pressed a button. Colleen stood close by, watching the machine go through its motions, and within a few seconds, her not-so-clean cup was filled with piping hot liquid. Like magic, you are. Fit for a queen. Minus the grime around the rim of her mug, but she could ignore that small tidbit of information. It wasn’t like her lips were a stranger to this glass. For being a bit of a germaphobe, Colleen could ignore such things in her own apartment, but God help James, the only waiter that would serve her anymore, if there were a water spot on her fork at the diner around the corner from her shithole residence. Something about other people’s mouths touching the silverware from which she also ate grossed her out to no end. Colleen would have brought her own set of utensils had she not been so damn consumed with her artwork.

While she reminisced about her infamous adventure from which she had gained her prized coffeemaker, she absentmindedly meandered her way around the accumulation of dirty clothes and smashed soda cans that lie as still as dead soldiers. Had you tested her navigation skills in the dark, she would have amazed you; the piles of shit on her apartment floor had been there so long, it were as if the obstructions had become permanent fixtures in her house that could not be moved, even if she had the volition to do so. Colleen shuffled her feet across the peeled linoleum floor of the kitchen to what appeared to have been a nice living room at one time but had the appearance of being trashed in a recent frat party: Doritos were thrown about the room, a lamp knocked off of the table, dirty dishes and Tupperware containers were stacked on the end tables. The only semi-clean table was the coffee table. How stereotypical, she thought with a smile, as she placed her mug on the table and sat back on the rotting couch that smelled so much of mildew, it could gag the termites that infested her walls. The only smell that overpowered that of the mildew and mothballs was the sweet stench of the death of mice and rats hidden deeply in the walls between her and her asshole neighbor’s apartment. Colleen couldn’t understand why the rats and mice would want to live there, what with her neighbor blaring music at all hours of the night so loudly, it was enough to shake the pictures Colleen might have hanging on her walls, but did not. She had sold every picture frame that had ever held any artwork or photograph, whether it was made from her hands or not. Not that she missed the memories. Not with all of them floating around her brain, able to be recalled willingly or unwillingly to the surface of her mind’s eye.

Her stomach growled again, a gurgle of disgust, as if rebuking her for not eating. The thought of food still repulsed her. She glanced down at the coffee table, with its cracked class and rusted metal, and picked up the razorblade that lay on its cragged surface. Sliding it through her fingers, she contemplated how easy it would be just to slice her wrists, to end what had been forty-seven years of a misshapen, misunderstood existence. She laughed at the idea; only pussies dealt with life by killing themselves. And she was too much of a stubborn bitch to concede that life had beaten her. Colleen leaned forward, scraped the powder into a pile, and tapped the razorblade clean. She contemplated it, observing it like an old friend. Her stomach obnoxiously thundered, begging her for food, pleading. Suddenly, moving with a purpose no one would have thought Colleen Stanton would have possessed, she lurched forward, positioned herself over the cocaine and inhaled a long, deep breath. Feeling the sudden simultaneous calming and coming alive of her limbs, Colleen Stanton leaned back onto her moth-eaten couch and sipped from her lukewarm mug, thinking to herself with a slight upturn of the mouth, Breakfast of fucking champions.

untitled.

He is following me. I noticed him about fifteen minutes ago entering the store after I had parked my Subaru in Walmart's parking lot. Meandering in and out of aisles at a relaxed pace, I did not really notice him visually, but I could feel his presence lurking behind my steps. Every now and then, he would come the opposite way down the aisle, and as our carts almost were past each other, our eyes would lock, and he'd give me that slight all-knowing smirk. I could not help but to grin in secretive delight.
Jordan and I do this a lot. Maybe it's the underlying actor in both of us, but we purposely ignore each other while we're shopping, pretending we are complete strangers in this giant abyss of groceries. Amid the Campbell's Chicken and Rice soup and Lipton's iced tea mix, Jordan and I share glances and smiles as the people around us are oblivious to our mischief.
Sometimes we'll cause a scene. Well, perhaps I should say I sometimes cause a scene. One time, when Jordan had forgotten to empty the garbage, even though I'd asked him three or four times to do so during the course of the day, I lost it. I told him I was going shopping, grabbed my keys, and stormed out of the house. Of course, because of the type of man he is (an amazing one), he followed me there to try and talk to me on the stage of our performance. I believe, in this instance, Jordan underestimated me; perhaps he thought a public location would be the best place to approach me, only to swiftly grab me and kiss me, to tell me he'd emptied the garbage before he followed me and that he would never, ever let it happen again.
What he did not consider was the fact that I was in my element; the gray concrete floor of Walmart was my stage, and that night my role was the Crazy Bitch. When I saw him coming down the bread aisle (which I'm sure all of you know is one of the busiest damn aisles in the entire store, and that day was no exception), I immediately could tell he was also playing a part. I read his face: prince charming finally there to claim his prize. Sorry Jordan, not happening today. My stubbornness kicked in, even though I knew that him forgetting to empty the garbage was really not that big of a deal.
I snatched a loaf of rye bread off of the shelf, the kind with the crunchy crust and hid it along my right side. While people shopped all around me, I made my way down through the aisle, palms getting sweaty from my anticipated plan, keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead at the Deli sign. Jordan, who was staged as an innocent bystander pondering whether to purchase whole wheat or twelve grain, gauged when my cart would be passing, and purposely took a step back into it to bump me off course, to alter our fates.
"I- I am s-so sorry, miss," he stammered. Great, he's pulling out the stuttering accent as well. God, I'm going to look like a bitch when I do this.
Before he could continue his premeditated lines, I swung the loaf of bread by my side into the side of his head, and continued to beat him with it. Jordan threw his hands up in anticipation of the blows, but never said my name; he realized, deep down, this had beating had reason, but right now, it was a performance.
After a few blows, I suddenly realized that every eye was on me, now holding a very battered loaf aloft in my right hand. Somehow managing to keep a straight face, I gently placed my weapon back in his rightful place, leaned into Jordan and whispered, "Maybe that will teach you to take out the garbage when I ask." With this, I left the aisle and abandoned my cart, nearly empty. As I walked toward the exit, I could feel several pairs of eyes on me, and suddenly a pair of hands. Oh my God, someone called security. I'm going to be arrested for beating someone with a loaf of bread. Could that be a felony?
Suddenly I realized the person who was dragging me out of the store was laughing, and I turned my head to see Jordan linking his arm with mine. Standing in the parking lot of the supercenter, we dissolved into laughter at what had just occurred. He pulled me in close, our breaths fogging in the winter air and said, "That was so funny, I think I may forget the trash everyday now on." And with that, we both got in our respective cars, only to drive home and well...make up.
Three years later, and we were still going strong with our shopping performances. I'm not entirely sure what sparked this odd phenomena, but what fed it to continue were the looks on people's faces. Jordan and I both knew that we had to be the topic of numerous dinner conversations.
Today, I actually shopped for the purchase of shopping, which I told Jordan I was doing after work. I honestly was not anticipating him to follow me there, and one might laugh, but when I saw him at the opposite end of the condiments aisle, my heart jumped a bit in my chest. Jordan and I have been together now for five years and just recently got engaged. I could not think of another person I would want to spend my life with. Anytime our eyes catch each other, there is a palpable fire present. Even in the grocery store, when Jordan 'accidentally' brushes my arm, and smiles that smile that shows all of his dimples, the one where people can't help but notice what they think is love at first sight, my heart beats slightly more rapidly. People think we are crazy when we tell our tales, but I don't mind. To me, we're just reminding everyone that love can be around any corner, even between the bread and the condiments.

"Hunny, if you tap your nails anymore on that countertop, they are going to snap off."
Christine looked up into the eyes of the bartender, Georgia, a fitting name because she spoke with a deep Southern drawl even though she lived in Massachusetts. She was a motherly type and had been since the day Christine had came to this bar six years ago.
"I'm sorry." She lifted her glass, a lowball filled with vodka tonic and said, "Another, please?"
Georgia laughed. "You sure you don't want something a bit stronger than that? Your nerves are firing so fast, they're electrocuting me, dammit. "
The bartender gingerly took Christine's glass and started to mix her another. Christine faced away from the bar, skimming for a face she recognized in the crowded room, begging for a pair of dark blue eyes to light up the way they had the first time she saw them.
"How late is he?" Georgia inquired, placing Christine's freshly mixed vodka tonic in her hands, then rested her elbows on the bar so as to look Christine directly in the face.
Christine lowered her glass after a long sip and said, "Only twenty minutes."
Georgia looked her over with a penetrating gaze.
"Ok, ok, you got me: forty-five minutes." Christine sighed and took another long drink from her glass.
Georgia laughed and straightened up, grasping for a bar towel to wipe her dewy hands. She faced Christine and said in a serious tone, "Well hunny, if he only had the power to predict what you were going to wear tonight, he would have been here a longggg time ago. God only knows what's underneath those duds."
Christine openly laughed into the air and looked into the bar's mirror: Reflected behind the bottles of Absolute, Patron, and Ketel One was her likeness, staring her back in the face. She even had to admit, acknowledging with a slight upturn of the mouth, that she did clean up well. Smoldering eyes, complete with smudged eyeliner and metallic powder eyeshadow. Otherwise, a natural look completed her face; a light powder to conceal what she dubbed her 'good wrinkles': laughlines, and a tart lipgloss to reflect the bar's dimly lit atmosphere.
Then there were her clothes: stiletto pumps with her classic Banana Republic jeans, a tiny tear in the back pocket. She'd been stupid enough to play backyard football in them the year prior, and unfortunately for her, she'd been tackled by a brier bush. Paired with a tucked in cream-colored blouse and a simple black belt, she felt extremely radiant that night. She wondered how much had to do with the clothing and how much had to do with whom she was supposed to be meeting.
She snatched her near-empty glass from the counter, and spun around on her stool, looking at her phone to see that another twenty minutes had gone by since she had last checked. Staring at it wistfully, she willed it to ring, for him to call and say something came up and he wasn't coming. She knew she'd been silly to hope for him to show. They'd only had one other date, if you could call running into a random person at a nightclub and then spending the night dancing and talking an official date. Being young and finding someone special was hard, but being in mid-thirties and finding that someone was much more difficult.
"Hey hunny, maybe you should stop staring at that goddamn contraption of yours for two seconds."
Christine followed Georgia's eyes across the room to where the door had just opened, snowflakes drifting in on the new bar-goer. He swiftly brushed the stray flakes off of his deep brown hair and looked up. An electrifying shock crept its way through her chest outward to the tips of her fingers.
"Knew it was him," Georgia chuckled, as if she had felt it, too.