Stories about people who might just exist.

Being.

She's a human being and she acts just like one.

She's mostly right-brained, knows how to dissect a certain something with groans and neck tilts to make it art. Sometimes I catch her sucking her nude belly back past her ribs, turning sideways with a twisted face and thinking, 'is this prettier?'.

She says a prayer every night but she has no idea who's taking note. She's more superstitious than religious. Every night before bed she chips an inch of ivory paint off her bed head and makes sure to clap twice before it touches the cold tiles. She believes silly routines like that keep her alive.

She's awkward around strangers, fiddles with her necklace and sticks to the generic questions, then hates herself for it later. Unless she's had a few sips of whiskey, she mumbles like she's talking into a bag of leaves.

She's a human being and she acts just like one.

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Grubby.

He's one of those grubby ghetto kids your Mama would shake her curls at. He's got the temper to pick a fight, but he's too scrawny to finish one. He wears his nose cast proudly, like it's a black belt or a shelf of little golden men gripping hockey sticks.

He spends playtime recruiting bug-eyed preps into his gang. They call themselves the Tough Nuts and scribble swear words like 'doodle fart' and 'boobie breath' on the toilet doors at school.

Last week during Health class he shoved an itchy bomb down my school dress and then went at my buttons to retrieve it. He spent that lunchtime in detention scratching pictures of skulls into a chewed-up desk with his pen tip.

Today during Math class I got a toilet pass and wrote our names inside a love heart on the jungle gym tunnel. My Mama says sometimes all a man needs is a bit of lovin'.

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Brenton Hobble. The hippie.

It takes him exactly twenty-seven minutes to hush his son after a Macca's drive-by on their thrifted two-wheeler. After seven and a half minutes his son starts spitting macadamia nuts into his spider-web ponytail and bashing his ankle up against the rusty spokes. It's not a nice thing to see a five year old boy gushing at the eyes and ankle, but dumpster-diving is an art and unmarked canned foods are just as fun as Happy Meal toys.

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I like a story that's neatly bundled up in a package small enough to hold my attention. I also like to write words about people who I've never met but you wana believe they're out there and you know them better than anyone else, kind of like The Sims... 'cept much much more fun.

Anyone else into this style of writing? Just observing and scribbling and getting attached and then moving on. Anyone put their words into zines?

Peace!

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