I signed up for the Indie Ink writing challenge. It’s been a long time! So, my challenge came from Snippets and Scraps. I was told to write about a fatal attraction to something that isn’t human. I had this story started in my archives and thought I should dust it off and snazz it up a bit…
Also, check out the challenge I issued to Whiteboard Philosophy which was to write about the first time you ever felt dispensable.
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Muffled noises and drunk laughter coming from her mothers tiny room woke Ellis, much like they always did. She wasn’t a heavy sleeper to begin with, so even the slightest of noises have a tendency to rouse her. Glowing orange, the digital clock above the oven let her know it was 3:14 am. She grabbed her pack of Parliment Lights and her lucky Betty Boop Zippo that were lying on the tattered armrest of the shabby garage sale couch that doubled as her bed and walked toward the front door.

Wrapping herself in a ratty, oversized sweatshirt, she propped herself on the railing of what masqueraded as a front porch and lit her cigarette. Ellis was sure that the noises her mom was making, which, inside the trailer were barely softened by the tiny bit of insulation, were surely reverberating throughout the Pink Flamingo Trailer Park, home of drag queens, hookers, lost souls and a combination thereof. Some of them, somehow, were raising kids here, too.

Ellis was one of them. An innocent by-product of a life gone wrong, like the rest of the kids that lived in a trailer park. She was, according to the rich kids at the high school she had just graduated from, no better than the woman who birthed her. God knows if her father was even better, she’d never met him and she’d be willing to bet that her mother only knew him for an hour and fifty dollars.

She sucked the smoke in deeply and held the cigarette at attention for the next drag. Briefly she thought of giving up this nasty habit but what would trailer trash be without chain smoking? If she was going to be it, she might as well do it right.

The sex noises coming from her mothers room were deafening to Ellis, even in the dark quietness of the surroundings. “Mom, shut your freaking window.” she yelled through the open screen, which was by her perch.

“Wha? Shut the fuck up and go back to bed you worthless sack of shit. I’ve told you not to bother me while I’m working.” shouted her mom who immediately went back to making her animal sounds.

“Ugh, looks who is calling WHOM worthless.”

Ellis knew she had to get out of this dump. Somehow. Trapped here in this hell with her mom and thrown into a school of mostly wealthy kids, she felt lost and out of her element. School was never her thing, neither was being the daughter of a whore. She lived with a constant sense of unfulfilled desperation.

Writing her songs and singing. That was her life. Her calling, her obsession. She knew she was destined for greatness, but then again, didn’t everyone think that of themselves? What she wouldn’t give to get there. She’d sell her soul, without second thought in order to live the rock star life she knew she was meant to have. And to be able to get the hell out of this vile place she had lived for so long in.

“If there was a devil, I’d give you a giant trade. I’d whore my soul to get my star.” quietly, the words escaped, hung in the air and flew off into the night.

The trailer got quite, obviously the deed was done and the guy would throw some wadded up money at her mom and vacate shortly and then Ellis would be able to crawl back under the covers of her bumpy hideaway bed. Ellis wondered, for a moment, who the flavor of the hour was that her mother was doing. Probably the manager of the park, he’d been coming around a lot lately, even leering at her and making crude comments. Ellis made him very aware that she was nothing like her mother. NOTHING like her.

Ellis stubbed out the bit of cigarette that was left and flicked it toward the street lamp where it hit with a soft twang and lay smoldering in the grass. The smoke curling into the thick air gave off an eerie appearance. Ellis stared at it for a moment, watching the the smoke taper off to wisps, to make sure she hadn’t started a fire; although nothing could destroy this trailer park except a tornado. In the haze, she saw the shadowy figure of a large, obviously well built man walking toward her trailer.

“Probably another paying customer;” Ellis harumphed. Mom was a busy little worker bee, apparently. She needed the money for rent and bar bills. This dude better get out before the next one went in. Literally.

Ellis yawned and decided to light another cigarette before going back into the hell-hole house of ill-repute. Man, how did she get such an unlucky lot in life, she wondered, trying to get the Zippo to catch.

“Damn!” she cursed out loud and shook the lighter in frustration.

“That stuff will kill ya anyways.” A deep male voice announced. Without looking up, she assumed the sexy voice belonged to the shadowy figure she had noticed.

“If you’re here for my mom, she’ll be with you soon. She’s just, um, finishing up some work stuff.” She rolled her eyes in the darkness.

“For your mom? No, I’m here because you called me.”

Ellis looked up from inspecting her unlit cigarette and gave the stranger a hard stare.

“Called you? I don’t even know who you are!”

Ellis looked him up and down with a sneer. She couldn’t help but notice how incredibly beautiful he was. Thick black hair, light eyes, large frame. He looked like an action hero movie star, what was he doing in a trailer park in the midwest? All she knew was suddenly her mind filled with lascivious acts and, despite the cool air, she felt warm.

“Yes Ellis, you called me. Ah, you don’t recall. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Luc and I’m here to discuss a little deal you wanted to strike with me.”

The Devil?

All Ellis could do was open and close her mouth. Oh, and gape. First of all, she did not expect that the Devil would be so freaking gorgeous and second, she did not expect the Devil, at all.

Luc gave Ellis a charming smile that indicated to her that he, most likely, could read her mind and was enjoying doing so.

“So Ellis, what do you have in mind?”

This man-demon who emanated all the hotness in hell looked at her with a cocked brow, waiting on her answer, a half smile playing at the side of his full-lipped mouth. Desire swept over her and she tried to shrug it off.

Ellis met his gaze, masked by the haze of the early morning.

She wanted to do more than sell her soul to this guy.

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Zach shivered gently as he Googled his name, hardness growing inside his pants. He didn’t need to do drugs, this was his high. Seeing his name on pages and pages of every search engine caused a type of narcissistic euphoria, the likes of which he had never known. His release was immediate and explosive.

He wasn’t an A-lister, he was THE A-lister. The one to watch, the one to follow. He was beating out big, established names for lead role in blockbuster films. Zach was hotter than the hottest in Hollywood. Epic acting abilities with looks to match. No one could touch him, they were too busy choking on his dust.

He had no idea how he got here. The propelling was meteoric. One minute he was in the locker room of a high school gym in Iowa, about to get the shit beaten out of him for losing what would have been the winning touchdown and then, the next thing he knew, he was here.

Hollywood.

The only thing before his almost shit-kicking he really remembered was the man. The way he had just shown up like a genie from a bottle. Only, he had made a wish in his mind into the night sky and this man appeared from the fog and promised to make his wish come true. With a small price.

And he did.

But he owned him now. Not in a financial way, the money he made was all his. The man owned him, his soul. It was fine though, as long as Zach did the occasional deed that the man cursed him with, Zach was free to live his incredible life. Zach didn’t find it to be such a curse though.

Googling his name was, not only his turn on, it was the way he found his “sacrifice”. Girls loved him, they wrote about him all over the internet. Blog posts, Facebook posts, Twitter, you name it. They were wet for him.

He met the first ones on Twitter. You could almost hear them shrieking when he responded to their tweets, which turned into DM’s and then phone calls and then, them.

They gave themselves so willingly. They fed the beast that grew within him making it larger and stronger. It was an insatiable hunger. He needed their juices, their sex. And finally, their souls. He swallowed them the way they swallowed him. But he lived to talk about it. Only, he kept quiet. Another secret that Google wouldn’t never find out.

Somehow, no one ever suspected Zach as the number one reason all these girls, all over the world, were going missing. The earth seemed to cover up all clues. Searches for the missing girls led to dead ends. Zach briefly considered setting up a non-profit to help locate the missing women but he wondered if that would be a slip.

Zach poured through Google, looking for something different this time. He needed something different. Someone who was going to be more difficult, a challenge. The others were always so sweet, so delicious yet so easy.

Many of the listings he had seen already but new ones popped up daily on search engines. So many sad, desperate women, he thought. All of them tossing some sort of virtual plea to be noticed, out there into the world wide web. “Well ladies, I’m listening.”

“Ah,” he said aloud,”This one. She’s different.” He was looking at an article that compared the out of nowhere rise of the country singing phenomenon, Ellis to his fast ball rise to fame.

“Oh yeah. We’d be a GREAT pair. The paparazzi would eat us up.” He grinned, the stirring beginning again in his groin. “Her, it’s her.” He could feel the beast moving excitedly inside of him in anticipation.

He found her on Twitter and followed her, sending her a public message saying @Ellis_country hey you. congrats on the fame. -Zach

She responded almost immediately with a return follow and tweet. Soon dialogue was flowing, 140 characters at a time. Both public and private.

He was a tad bit disappointed, she seemed as easy as the rest of them. Only, more famous.

After a few weeks of Twitter stalking and texting, Zach told Ellis that he must meet her. She, of course, agreed. He knew, without a doubt, she wanted him as badly as all the other women. He hoped that she would fight harder though.

Since both of them were in L.A, the decided to meet at Venice Beach, walk around and have a slice of pizza and a beer by the ocean. He was actually looking more forward to this meeting than any of the others. Could it be that he actually liked her? He enjoyed their conversations, she was smart and funny on the phone and online, qualities that attracted him to people. He hoped that real life wouldn’t make her giggly and shy, which so often happened.

Meeting time, he was slightly nervous and he didn’t understand why. He kept glancing at his watch and checking for a tweet from her on his iPhone. She had mentioned that she was running late due to traffic but she should be close to on time.

Fricking traffic, that was one major downfall of L.A. And the smog.

Why was he so nervous? He could feel the beast, lurching, restless within him, which made him even more on edge.

He saw her before she noticed him. Her black hair flowing like a cape behind her, she was a vision. Her pretty made his handsome humble. She finally noticed him and lifted her hand in greeting. He smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.

“Hi!” She was gorgeous, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Sorry so late. God, I hate the traffic here! I’d move back to the country if I didn’t HAVE to be here.”

“Ugh, I know. It sucks hard.” and so was he, so hard. Thankfully he chose loose fitting linen slacks and paired it with a shirt that remained untucked for the whole comfy, casual, expensive look that he was known for.

They eyed each other for a moment, “I was thinking, there’s this little place down the strip here that has the best. Pizza. Ever. If you like the Bar-B-Q Chicken Pizza type.”

“Love it!” her smile reached her blue, dancing eyes.

He led her to the place and ordered for the both of them. Conversation was flowing and easy.

She was different. He would have to keep the beast at bay. Find another way, after the date, to take care of it. A hooker probably, there were so many of those to be found on the streets of Hollywood.

They found a quiet bench where they planted themselves. Hungrily eating, drinking and talking, the hours passed quickly.

Midnight.

They laughed, neither could believe how long they had been sitting there.

“This night has been one of the best I can remember. In a long time.” Sincerity, an unusual tone for him, came as a masked surprise.

“Yeah, me too. The guys I’ve been meeting…” She looked off toward the ocean, where a thick mist was rolling in.

The mist…looked familiar. Thick, ominous. They both noticed it, both had seen it before.

A familiar form crept toward them, seen only by the two potential lovers.

It was him, the man.

Everything made sense now. The extreme gravitational pull he had felt toward her. The way her star shone as bright as his.

She was the same as Zach?

They were both one his?

They stared at each other, wordlessly.

The man approached, blowing his cigarette smoke at them and gave them a devilish smile.

This is kind of a 2nd part to this in a strange way.

Daddy used to always tell us three girls to “cut your losses and worry about the casualties later.” I never understood that. To me, it always seemed so military-like and not at all relevant to us kids. Especially when he was telling high school aged girls this. We would humor him with a hug and a smile then go into the room the three of us shared and giggle about some boy one of us was crushin’ on.

The meaning struck me the day I buried my husband. All these years later, I finally knew what it meant to cut losses. So, after the funeral, I strapped my babies into their car seats of the dilapidated Ford Taurus and drove off without saying a word to anyone.

I didn’t know where I was headed, alls I knew was I needed to get out of here, to breathe again. Too many open wounds with too many people pouring lemon juice on them. A fresh start was what we needed.

I stopped by the house and loaded up some stuff to cram into the back of the car while the kids napped in their seats. Clothes, toys, some food. I grabbed the old shoe box of pictures, I would have hated to leave them behind. I carry my memories with me but I’d like to always be able to remember exactly what he looked like before the cancer ate him.

I loved my husband. He was a good, decent man. He always made just enough to keep food on the table and clothes on our backs, even if they were from the Salvation Army. We had what we needed and sometimes we were even able to get what we wanted.

I grabbed the map that my husband kept in the kitchen junk drawer, the one he put big black dots next to cities he dreamed about taking us to visit. We’d sit and fantasize together about the elaborate vacations we’d take, knowing that all they would ever be was fantasies. I’d take me and the kids to one of those places by the ocean. It would be what he wanted.

The family would be gathering at his folks house soon to mourn. The thought of being there, the grieving widow, amongst those who turned their backs on us in life, sickened me. So did the thought of staying here, in his parents town, without him and I didn’t have a home anymore myself since my family died in that house fire.

After stopping by the bank, checking the balance and withdrawing some cash, I got on the road and headed west. The kids would be up soon and I needed to put enough distance between us and home before that.

Poor Eliza and Jimmy. They loved their daddy. At 3 and 5, they were barely old enough to understand that they wouldn’t see him again until they were in heaven. If that stuff was even true.

Jimmy Sr. and me, we worked so hard on having babies for the first few years we were married. The doctors told us to give up, so we did. Jimmy was our adopted one, we got him shortly after we finished the paper work. His momma wanted him but the daddy wouldn’t let her keep him, was the gossip we heard. He was from a couple of towns over. We were worried that one of his biological parents would contest the adoption eventually, but that never happened and Jimmy became ours 100%, heart and soul.

Somehow, a couple years later, our miracle was born. I got pregnant when the doctors had told us to give up hope. Seemed someone was looking down on us and our little family was complete with Eliza.

Some call it a millionaires family, when the boy is first. We weren’t no millionaires, if you consider dollars to be what make you rich. We were a happy, loving family though, amongst the dirt and poverty of our town, we were rare. No abuse, drugs or criminal records. We were a normal, functional family who just couldn’t catch a break financially and luck always seemed to pass us over.

And then the cancer came. Lung. Jimmy tried to quit smoking for year. I figured I wouldn’t push him, he’d do it when he got around to it. I just felt lucky that he wasn’t a big drinker or gambler. And he never smoked in the house, didn’t want the kids and me getting black lungs. He was a wonderful man.

It killed him. Quickly. First came the cough with blood. The x-rays showing spots all over his lungs and spilling out into the rest of his body. The chemo didn’t work, it just made him worse. The doctors told us that the cancer was too aggressive and all they could do was make him comfortable. 6 months later, I lost my husband and my kids lost their daddy.

I had to remain strong for my babies though. It was just us now. We were all we had.

Thankfully, Jimmy was a saver. There was enough money to see us through for the better part of a year. After that, well, I’d worry about it when I got to wherever I was going.

I had to pull the car over, stored emotions washed over me. Sobbing uncontrollably, I hunched over my steering wheel. I tried to keep it down so as to not wake the babies. I couldn’t let them see their Momma cry like this, it would scare them.

I got out of the car and noticed, through my tears, we were in the town that Jimmy was born in. What a mess the side of the road was, litter strewn everywhere. A garbage truck must have thrown up. Papers, maxi pads, bags of dog crap on the side of the road for hundred of yards.

Looking down, I noticed a small piece of crumbled paper next to my foot. I don’t know what possessed me but I bent down and picked it up. Smoothing it out, I recognized it to be the states lottery ticket that had already been drawn, according to the bottom date, a few days ago.

I was shocked to read three of the numbers were my son’s birthday month, day and year. Coincidence? Mindlessly, I stuck it into my pocket. I’d have to check the website and see if these numbers ever came in.

Emotions under control after being preoccupied, I got back into the car. The kids were both awake and hungry so we drove through one of the fast food joints.

While they ate, I explained to them that we were going on a journey to the ocean. They wanted to know if we were going to be meeting Daddy and I had to explain in the best way I knew how that Daddy was gone forever.

With the kids eating, Wiggles playing, heart heavy and crumpled lottery ticket in pocket, I headed toward one of the black dots in California, a few thousand miles from where we were now.

Just like that, my Daddy’s words made complete sense to me. I had cut my losses and the casualties would be fine because they had me to make sure of it.

Feeling like Jimmy had his hand reassuringly resting on my shoulder, I breathed in deeply and knew that my Daddy and my Jimmy would be proud. And for the first time in 6 months I felt optimistic. I felt lucky.

I took a long drink of my diet coke and began singing along with the Wiggles while my children giggled.

Really, I should edit that title to “I’ve GIVEN All I Can, I Need Something More”. But holy sheesh, that epitomizes my entire life…

My life is quite boring. In a good way, I guess, depending on how you look at it. Which is why I have never fit into a niche out here in the blogging world. Unless, of course, I just haven’t found the mundane, boring life bloggers, which would be the pigeon hole I would be tucked neatly away in.

Writing about my day to day crap? It annoys the hell out of me. I can’t do it, I won’t do it to you. That’s not exactly the type of writing I want to do when I say I want to be a writer when I grow up. While it’s cute when my son says things about thinking the sun is G-D’s head and the spaghetti noodles that shoots off the sun is his hair…

It’s really on truly cute to me.

The most exciting things I’ve done in my blogging life lately had to do with writing. STORIES. I write about fake people and their lives MUCH better than my own. Because anything can happen. Not just hey, I was listening to the radio and I had this epiphany type post shit I’ve been coming up with lately.

I’m putting myself to sleep. I can’t even imagine what I must be doing to you.

I need change. Not an Obama-like change, I’m talking the real thing. A new project, anything other than MOMMY FUCKING BLOGGING until my head goes numb.

I can’t write another blog post about how messy my kids are, how busy the dust bunnies are in their procreating or how dirty my toilets get.

Done with it. Sorry, I am. It’s killing me. I’m dying a slow, painful death for everyone to watch. Heck, have you noticed my lack of comments. At first I thought I offended the blogging G-Ds but then I realized that I’m just boring lately.

Either that or I’m having a nervous breakdown, mid-life crisis, personal catastrophic type of event of seismic proportions and everyone is afraid to tell me in fear of pushing me that much closer to the edge. Is that what it is? C’mon, you can tell me.

I need something different. Something more and not altogether blog-like, but kind of. Not that I’m giving up blogging, because we all know that is an impossibility for me. Every time I say bye, I pop back up like 30 seconds later.

I want to do more creative writing. Write more short stories about the people in my head because they possibly lead way more exciting lives than anyone I know. I’m deciding if my blog needs more structure. Like, Meme Monday, Two on Tuesday, etc…(just examples, I hate meme’s).

I’m pretty sure that I’ve even written this type of post before. But, if anyone is interested, I need to start a writing blog with prompts and real writing.

So yeah. Let’s talk. Pranksters need not apply. Only serious enquiries will be considered.

M’kay?

I guess I’m just having all sorts of online issues, aren’t I?

The (W)rite of Passage challenge for this week is a character observation made into a short story. And boy, do I LOVE to write short stories!! I’m writing about a very disheveled woman I saw at Target a few days ago. This is what I imagine must be her story, which explains the state her appearance was in.

She checked her reflection in the rear view mirror. She blushed, ashamed when she saw how wild her hair looked and how dark the circles were. But what did she expect, really? She hadn’t slept or bathed in days. God, how awful she must smell. Like her dad used to say, it’s a good thing a skunk can’t smell it’s own odor. She stifled back the beginning of a sob.

She heard her daughter stirring in the back seat. Looking over her shoulder, she faked a smile and greeted her child warmly, taking in the painfully obvious fact that she needed a bath something fierce.

What a trooper, she thought. Her precious angel. She didn’t utter a complaint about not going back home. She accepted the explanation that they couldn’t stay in that house another moment without question. Completely trusting her Mother to keep her safe. Her heart melted a little when her daughter opened her eyes and smiled back at her. We will be fine, she thought, we have each other.

They had spent the last few nights sleeping in Target’s parking lot. The only home they had was the car they escaped their nightmare in. Her nightmare. And living in this car, where they were safe from his anger, was better than the situation they left. Thankfully and surprisingly they hadn’t been caught yet. Because trespassing and loitering are crimes that they were sadly guilty of. They were circumstances that, at this point, were beyond their control.

They fled their home with only the clothes on their back, her purse and the keys to her 12 year old shitpile on wheels. With no family in the area and not enough money to spend on gas or the proper documents to get to Vancouver where some of her family lived, she chose to stay in the area. It allowed her to keep her 5 year old daughter in kindergarten during the day while she would sneak into the house to take a few things while he was at work.

The car was beginning to pile up with stuff. Junk. Clothes, blankets, objects that she hoped he wouldn’t notice were missing. But what she really needed was to get into their bank account. Her own account was rapidly diminishing. The couple hundred bucks she had been saving was almost gone between gas and the McDonalds play area where they would spend their evenings until it was time to get her daughter to sleep.

Target was where they started their day. Sneaking into the bathroom by the front door, to brush teeth and wash up a bit before school started. They would drive through the McDonalds that was in the Target parking lot where she would get a coffee for herself and for her daughter, a sausage McMuffin. Then, off to school.

Every morning, while her daughter was safe in her classroom, she would head over to the house. Always holding her breath as she approached it. She didn’t think she would survive a run-in with him. He was probably pissed as hell that she left. And he was not the forgiving type. She knew without any doubt that if she were in the house with him alone, she would end up leaving in a body bag. That is, if her body was ever found. Yeah, he was that scary. She couldn’t take it anymore. She had enough. It was only a matter of time before he started using her daughter as a punching bag too. He sure had threatened it enough times while beating the shit out of her.

She would not let that man touch her daughter. She would not let anyone touch her daughter. They’d have to go through her first.

But this was the beginnings of a new life. She would find a way to make some money to get them a little place of their own. But goddammit, she needed to get into their bank account. If he hadn’t frozen her out of it when he realized she had left, it would have been fine. If only she had known she was going to leave, she would have taken some money out. Oh well, coulda, shoulda.

She grabbed some more of their clothes and some of her other possessions and hurried out of the house. It always gave her anxiety, even when she still lived there.

Backing out of the driveway, she headed back to the only place she could think of going. Target.

Today she would go in, she decided. Today, she would buy her daughter a little doll. She deserved it.

Smoothing her wild hair and wrapping her scarf around her face so only her nose and eyes showed, she went in, making eye contact with a woman with beautiful curly hair who was grabbing a cart and looking rather discombobulated. The woman looked at her and smiled. She pulled her scarf down to expose her face and she smiled back. Just that gesture. The warmth of a strangers’ smile. It filled her with a sense of hope because she realized that she wasn’t invisible after all.

She went off to find a doll for her daughter while beginning to formulate a small game plan in her mind. Knowing that, no matter what, they would end up fine. Because they were together. They were safe. They were free of him.

She walked by the home decor section, passing a mirror display. She took in how wild her hair looked. She saw, in the bright store light, how deep and dark the circles were. But she also noticed, for the first time in a long time, that black cloud around her had lightened.

And so did her whole soul.

She pushed her cart onward.

They were going to be fine. She was sure of it.

I found a site called Creative Writing Prompts. I have been in a blogging bind lately so I was looking for ideas to spark a post. I found a prompt that suggested writing about a lost lottery ticket. I thought that would be fun. It’s not titled because the only thing I can think to call it is Fuck My Life. So, here ya go…

“Fuck my life.” she said quietly, staring at the embers of the unevenly lit cigarette dangling precariously between her fingers.

She had been in a daze for days after turning her trailer inside out looking for that ticket. But it was to no avail. He threw it out. Her lazy, good for nothing husband who never does anything. For once in their entire pathetic marriage, he cleaned the place while she was at her night job at the local bowling alley.

He never. Ever had done that. In their entire 10 miserable years of marriage. And he laughed at her as she cried at the loss, just like he had done 5 years earlier when she reluctantly handed her baby to the caseworker who would find a family to raise it. He didn’t want it. He let her go through her entire pregnancy thinking it would be ok. When the time came and she delivered, he made her give it away. And she let him.

She was weak. He knew that. He played on that. And again, she let him.

All she had now was her lost child’s birth date to use as a lottery pick.

When the numbers that she played faithfully, once a week, came in. Those same numbers she had played for the last five years. Ever since she was 23, she had used her birthday and the birthday of the baby she gave away as her hopes and dreams on winning the state lottery.

They finally came in. Her numbers. And the ticket was gone. Probably somewhere in the back of a garbage truck on the way to a landfill.

Her one chance to get her out of this life that she so vehemently detested.

He was snoring loudly from the bedroom. Farting in his sleep, the sick pig that he is. God, how she hates him. Everything about him. He ruined her.

Her life was never supposed to be like this. This wasn’t how she was brought up. This wasn’t what she had ever imagined. Her beginnings were lavish and loving. Her gaze swept the sinkhole of a trailer they rented and she sighed.

Her parents were right. They told her this was what she would amount to. What he would bring her down to be. Living in a tin can. With a loser husband whom she worked her finger to the bone to support. He refused to work. It took time away from drinking. He couldn’t do both. He chose the latter. It was up to her to pay the rent and keep the whiskey aplenty.

“Fuck my life!” she said again, a little louder.

She crushed her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray and stood up. She felt so misplaced. So discontent and disconnected. At 28 years old, she was a pathetically lost soul. 25 million dollars was an unthinkable, unfathomable amount of money. The life she could have had. The distance she could have put herself between this life and her new one.

Crumpled. Torn into little bitty pieces. Like her life.

Because, for a moment, he was sober enough to notice the squalor they lived in. The dust and dirt everywhere.

He was the most expensive one-time cleaning help, ever. He didn’t even do a complete or thorough job. He did the counter in the kitchen, where the lottery ticket and his bottle of booze sat.

Both were thrown out. Bottle empty, ticket full.

She heard him moving in the bed. Still asleep as proven by the snort and the louder snoring.

She wondered how much money there was in the bank. She smiled miserably to herself in the cold, dark living area of the mobile home. Not 25 million minus taxes, that’s for sure.

She felt hopeless. She had nothing. This…was no life. There was no way to get out. She was stuck.

She grabbed another cigarette out of the package on the kitchen counter, not caring that it was her husbands. Menthol. She hated menthol. Then again, there really wasn’t much she did like.

With each drag she took, it filled her with a greater despair. She exhaled a stream of gray smoke and blew it toward the bedroom where he still slept. She wondered, for a split second, what time he passed out. But it didn’t really matter. He wouldn’t wake up until midnight when he’d stumble his way to the local bar to hang with his filthy friends. It was the circle of his life. And she was trapped in the middle of that vicious circle.

Her heart kept welling up into her throat filling her mouth with panic and bile. She couldn’t stop thinking about the lost ticket and the life she’ll never have. She would never get over it. She would never get past it. This just wasn’t worth it anymore, she thought.

She carefully walked into the bedroom, taking caution not to wake him. She silently crept to the dresser and opened his sock drawer. She reached in and felt around for the cool, hard metal of his precious gun.

Fuck my life, she screamed as she pointed the gun and shot multiple rounds into her husbands sleeping body.

She smiled, the first true smile in a long time.

She place the gun gently into her mouth.

Thinking of the only baby she ever had. The child he made her give away. The life he never provided for her. The lost lottery ticket.

She pulled the trigger.