The Meadow 41 the world, she could look at them, beat them. Before she could speak, another began talking. “My wife Sheila.” He bit into a sour-cream cake doughnut and chewed; food spilled from his mouth as he talked. “She’s my worst nightmare. We’d had a fight, a biggie, the night before. I was seeing this other lady…a bartender I got friendly with one night. Sheila found out about it, and we had a huge fight. She threw things at me, smashed my new TV in the middle of a Cubs game and poured out all of my scotch. Macallan. I didn’t care. I just wanted to make it right with her and now…I can’t. Worst part is she’s a black widow. She hasn’t tried anything, yet—she just watches me with all those eyes. It’s creepy as hell. She positions herself so that the red hourglass is always in view. And I know she’s doing it on purpose. A red hourglass where her beautiful breasts used to be…so perky and full. Anyway, point is I’m scared. She scares the hell outta me. I don’t want to kill her, but if I don’t kill her, she might kill me, right?” There was an audible “ooh” from the crowd. Everyone certainly had their individual circumstances. Again, Grete thought about Gregor, about how she’d felt sorry for him at first, how she’d sobbed into her pillow and then brought him food…moved his furniture in his room so he could crawl where he wanted, hide when he wanted. Now, she was tired. Tired of listening to her parents’ complaints, tired of being the only one to take care of Gregor, tired of waiting on him to change back into the human he once was. Now, she just wanted to smash him. To hear the snap of his legs, the crack of his belly, and watch whatever insides he had ooze out all over the floor. Is it murder if you kill a bug? Do they even have souls? She was angry at the world. Gregor had been their family’s sole income for years. Her parents didn’t work and she was in school, and now everything had gone to hell. She rubbed her legs together and flapped her arms. Everyone was watching her now. Talk. Say it.
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