Janet Fitch

Out the window, the glow of the Hollywood sign was slightly blurred with June fog, a soft wetness on the hills raising the smell of sage and chamise, moisture wiping the glass with dreams.

Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it.

We stopped for doughnuts, startling a convention of parking lot pigeons that rose in a great flickering wheel of dark and light grays, taking the stale morning sun on their wings, the freshness already bled from the air.

Loneliness is the human condition, get used to it.

Beauty was my mother's law, her religion. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you were beautiful, as long as you did things beautifully. If you weren't, you just didn't exist. She had drummed it into my head since I was small. Although I had noticed by now that reality didn't always conform to my mother's ideas

I began to watch fathers, in the stores, on the playgrounds, pushing their daughters on swings. I liked how they seemed to know what to do. They seemed like a dock, firmly attached to the world, you could be safe then, not always drifting like us

. "A jewel is forming inside my body. No, it's not my heart. This is harder, cold and clean. I wrap myself around this new jewel, cradle it within me."

Are you following me?’ he hissed. I could have cut his throat right there. ‘I don’t have to follow you,’ I replied. ‘I can read your mind. I know every move you make. I know your future, Barry, and it doesn’t look good.’ ‘I want you to leave,1 he said. I smiled. ‘I’m sure you do.’ I could see his red flush even in the dark. ‘It’s not going to work,’ he said. ‘I’m warning you, Ingrid, it’s not going to work.’” My mother laughed, her arms twined behind her head. “He doesn’t understand. It’s already working.”

“You fucking cunt. You won’t get away with this. You can’t do this to me.”

She threw open the front door then, and stood there in her white kimono, his blood on her knife. “You don’t know what I can do,” she said softly.

Shooting stars hurled themselves into the empty places, burned up. Just for the pleasure of it. Just like this. I could have swallowed the night whole.