"My head is killing me. I feel so fat." Suddenly the woman pushed the magazine off her lap. "Sally, I need you to take care of me, OK baby?"
"Shh, not here, Lauren. Come on. Why now with this? All day you've been..."
The woman grasped both his hands, her eyes emphatic with tears. "Sally, really, I mean it!"
"Laur, what is it, huh? The kids are OK, right?"
"They're fine. I don't know what's the matter with me. I don't know why we came out here to the boonies. I just want to go home."
"So we'll go home. We'll leave tonight if you want."
"No, the hotel's booked through Monday. We'll loose the deposit."
"When we get back to our room we'll watch Top Gun, grab a salad, aromatherapy, whatever you want."
The woman looked at him but made no reply. She stared out the care window, past her own ghostly reflection, at the bare trees rushing by in a blur and at the motionless gray sky above, like the absence of sky. She could feel the weight of each tear on her mascara-stiffened lashes, and the way her lashes seemed to spring back as each drop fell. She was aware of the cold air rising off the glass, and the cool lines on her cheeks left by her tears. Her breath passed deep into her lungs and swept through her body like wind through a canyon. She wanted Sal to comfort her but hoped even more that he wouldn't speak. Probably there were medications for this sort of thing.
They drove on in silence, the driver guiding the van with two fingers of each hand through a series of swaying turns. The hotel was an old restored mansion with a semi-circular gravel driveway out front. The driver pulled up beneath the awning and got out to retrieve their bags from the back of the van.
"Laur, you OK?" whispered the man, tilting his head to look at her face, "What's going on, Laur?"
"I don't know." Her tears had left tracks in her makeup, and the new ones ran down the same paths to form cloudy drops at the point of her chin. "I don't know," she repeated, "I just feel so weird. I need you to be here for me."
He studied her, his heavy brow knit in puzzlement. (His was a face that displayed every thought.) Then, slowly, his brows lifted, his eyes took on a light, and his lower lip was drawn up over the upper. "I'll do even better than that," he said, "We'll go back to Outlet Village. Right now. We'll get those Diesels. You can have anything you want." He grinned and pinched her cheek and then wiped his hand on his pants. "Huh, how's that?"
She sat there, sniffling, scrutinizing the car seat.
"We'll get the Diesels, Laur, and whatever else, huh?"
"You think I'll be able to fit into them?"
"Sure you will."
"Two pairs? Can we get two pairs?"
"Three, four, whatever."
A shiver went through her, and she pulled her jacket up around her shoulders. Then, as if waking from a dream, she looked at him, and a smile formed on her waxy lips.
"That's a girl," said the man, "Anything yuou want. Driver, what do you say you take us back there? Yeah, back to the outlets. There'll be a good tip in it if you wait for us."

_Peter Herman is a freelance writer and editor based in New York City.



I enjoy that little story. I'm pretty picky when it comes to fiction, though, and I definitely have to go on record and say that I don't think it reads particularly well. I don't want to drop the "P" Bomb, but it's kinda that, and it's also kinda... well, dressy. In the sense that it seems to me like the author kinda dressed up the narrative for aesthetics' sake or something; but I have no idea if that makes sense to anyone but me.

Aaanyhow, it was a lovely Day of Rest for me today. Perhaps I won't die. Immediately, that is. Bear was in lots of pain though, and it made Bear edgy, and when Bear is edgy, and I is sick (and thusly, edgy) it makes for lots of growling and teeth baring and hissing and swiping. But we survived, with minimal blood loss. AND I got to watch Labyrinth and half of Spirited Away, since I was in a Dayquil-induced coma (non-drowsy my FAT DROWSY ASS) for the other half. Bear had never seen that last one before! He liked it.
I'm also thinking I'd like a Labyrinth tattoo. Something elaborate. HOLY SHIT, like I could get the poster image of Jareth at the top holding a crystal, the castle and the labyrinth underneath him, with Sarah in her White Dress underneath that, and Hoggle and the Fire Gang and goblins and Ludo and Sir Didymus and the and the Old Man In The Hat and everyone else on the sides! Good god... I wants it! I could get it on my back... It'd take a million years and dollars but I'll tell ya. It'd be worth it.
Except in twenty years when I realize I was young and foolish and terribly idealistic to think that permanantely imprinting a movie poster (albeit the most influential, meaningful, and wonderful movie of my entire life) onto my skin was a good and sound idea.

I'm going to take a bath now, and take a quick visit to Narnia. Then, it's a Nyquil-induced coma!! God DAMN I'm set.