April, come she will (NaPoWriMo 2008)

It jumps you on the way home, holds on, tells you it's going GNNNFF to kill you, then is gone. The penny drops. I'm a fraud. You start to question everything, from why NOT murder? to whether,

Come on in. Nurse it here. Athletic legs clop dressage around your chair. Pick one, any. You get to ask each a question first. Then you give over to whatever tricks they've stowed.

Age 11. I got boobs early. Behind the boating lake, past curfew. Bloody. I needed cider. Dani, year 10. Bitch told everyone I had an acorn. My father. Guess that doesn't count.

Don't you ask me why your cat's back broke; your cactus choked; you woke at five again. Can't tell you, any more than I can predict when you, me or Aunt Marie'll croak.

shot from below with heavy plastic and batteries alien craft splashing off the sun that bites each time like chilli on a watered tongue

on their shins? Barely a wafer of skin there to cushion you, that'd cane, surely. And how nice that Brady gets a look in! So often Hindley's Helga 'do, bleached