
ALL THE LITTLE BABIES UP IN HEAVEN by Alayna Becker
The baby gurgled and mawed. After getting passed to the last teller, he screamed a pitch so high I covered my ears.
The baby gurgled and mawed. After getting passed to the last teller, he screamed a pitch so high I covered my ears.
I wanted a girl I could take my sunglasses off for. I wanted a girl that wanted to hold my reflection in the center of her eyes.
It happens more than a person might think, animals in the house. Squirrels nest in a closet, a rat snake curls up in the tub.
But as I looked through the photos, I grew more and more angry. The actor who played Wolverine wasn’t in any of them.
He was angry. He was scared of her. He was scared of the post office. Everything is on accident or everything is on purpose or everything is both.
What they couldn’t see: his heart pumping arterial and venial dilated with rage at being short but filled with fearless venom.
We were always competing for not-worst drunk. But we were also secretly competing for worst drunk. So both of us always won. And lost.
If I could only stay kind and beautiful, I, too, could survive on the happiness contained in a single shot of frat boy whiskey. But I always had trouble with kindness.
“They don’t feel anything, do they?” she says. He smiles at her. His smile says, who cares if they do.
He knows without a shadow of a doubt that he cannot die. It makes him reckless in a way everyone loves, except for Steve-O.