Pulp

Thick strudels of cold blickety cellulose. Stuck to the scrumptious walls. The thick, scrumptious walls. Andrea scrapes her pro-nails along the walls trying to get off the thick noodles. The noodles just got stuck in her nails and stayed on the walls, and now she’s stuck. She has nothing else but her teeth. Her TEETH! But it was so cold and icky and sloozey like morning slugs and uncooked sausages. This is no time to lose one’s head! BITE, Andrea! Bite! Gnawing away all these closures! And Spitting! Sputter! Blech! Run away, far away from these noodle-strudels! Cold and alone.

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Sunday Afternoon by Brittany Bennett

It wasn’t therapy.
There was no doctor, just the pastor, who leaned in his creaking chair—away while making a point, closer when her father was talking; there was no long couch to stretch out on, only the matching burgundy chairs where she and her father sat, her perfectly still, legs crossed, him constantly shifting, gripping the golden knobs. There were no hand puppets, no inkblots, just what the pastor called his “toolkit”—a Bible, well-worn, hi-lited, handouts with small headings she couldn’t read, and a paperback book with a laminated cover titled Secret Sin: When God’s People Choose Abortion.

Sunset in Indiana

Flat as a three-day old beer,
red as a Red Stripe,
and yellow as a Miller Lite –
without the proper amount of light
it turns into an imitation pilsner,
even this far away from Wisconsin.

Stretches forever, but in the way
that feels so unending even Gandhi
would beg for death. Windmills
blink warning lights in the night,
a constant stream of blood red dotting
the skyline, a precaution to all who
enter that there is no turning back
from this point, only soldiering on
through the crossroads of America.

All I know is Indiana sucks,
Indiana sucks,
Indiana sucks.

//Monkeys by Katie Dektar

//Monkeys

string monkeys() {
string result = “”
char[] character = [a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z . , ! ? ( ) ]
for (int i = 0; i < infinity – 1; i++) {
char = character[rand(0, 32)]
result = result + char
}

return result

}

void main() {
result = monkeys()
printf(result)
}

//creates the complete works of Shakespeare much more efficiently than just
//having those silly monkeys just typing on typewriters.  This is the age of computers!

 

Old Habits by Brittany Bennett

The young nun in the grocery store never leaves without reading the greeting cards. She meanders down the aisle, her cart filled with oranges, bagels, a tub of butter, a small carton of milk, before pausing for ten minutes, raising card after card to her eyes. We watch her, the bagboy and me, while we lean against the checkout counter, the fluorescent lights washing over us.

“Oh, she’s lonely,” the bagboy says, “that’s obvious enough.”

Sometimes, he says, as she examines a Garfield one, you have to own your loneliness. Sometimes, he says, you have to own your own self-neglect.

 

Under The Influence

The roots were all clapping in consternation as the great tree fell. It toppled ponderously, tumbling through two hundred feet of air like Titanic slipping beneath the frothy waves. Exuberance flooded the roots until the tree hit a critical point – like a lever – and suddenly the mass of the tree rotated, tearing up a massive clod of dirt, snapping off root ends, flinging soil in the air, and creating mayhem to rival Poseidon. The whole thing smashed down like a bed frame thrown out a window. Then the forest was still. Then moles poked their heads out. The roots quivered.

 

Help

“Are you interested in helping kids? Would you like to help us help you help us help them?”

“What are you saying?”

“We help kids who are high risk.”

“Okay.”

“We want you to help us do that by donating your money, time or services.”

“Okay.”

“And it’s our goal to make it as easy as possible for you to do that.”

“Okay.”

“So we want you to help us by letting us know what would make that easier.”

“Ooooooh! So you want me to help you help me help you help them?”

“Yeah, exactly!”

“Oh ok, gotcha. No thanks.”

 

Twice

They’d buried her mother 22 months earlier.  At that time, everything had turned gray. She received the phone call mid-morning this time.  She was 20.  It was her father.  And this time, nothing changed.  An accident, a funeral home, and an audience of close friends and family that was even more hushed now than before.  That this was possible had been inconceivable.  Now, it simply was.  The idea of gray ceased to hold any meaning or sentiment, and her movements were smooth, just another streak in the whole blur.  Home evaporated.  Family evaporated. Everything moved around her.  Nothing made sense.

Lifeless

Heather and Noah walked into the house, side by side, breaths shallow.  Anticipation.  The large window in the open living room stared at them as they took in the house, one pale wall at a time.  Nothing.  The house was too big, empty, unused, and unnecessary.  The kitchen was worse, stale and tasteless, a space that would never create warmth.  The wooden floors creaked beneath their feet.  For Heather and Noah, there was no need to look at the other.  They walked through every empty room, a desolate ceremony of quiet respect.  Then they left, fingers interlocked, to find home.

Root Realization

The roots were all clapping in consternation as the great tree fell. It toppled ponderously, tumbling through two hundred feet of air like Titanic slipping beneath the frothy waves. Exuberance flooded the roots until the tree hit a critical point – like a lever – and suddenly the mass of the tree rotated, tearing up a massive clod of dirt, snapping off root ends, flinging soil in the air, and creating mayhem to rival Poseidon. The whole thing smashed down like a bed frame thrown out a window. Then the forest was still. Then moles poked their heads out. The roots quivered.

 

Dear Santa, I want an Orca

It’s that time of the year, little Timmy! What do you want to ask Santa for Christmas?
An orca!
An orca, son? Like the stuffed toy?
A real orca!
(Honey, how does he even know what an orca is? He’s four!)
(I don’t know. Probably all that Planet Earth we’ve been watching. Damn those educational tapes.)
Timmy? Is there anything else you want from Santa?
A fish tank for Daniel.
Daniel?
The orca!
I’m sorry, Timmy, but I don’t think an orca will fit–
Whaaaa!!!!
Timmy, shh, it’s–
Whaaaa!!!!!
okay, we’ll just ask–
Whaaaa!!!!
Okay, okay. We’ll get the orca.

midnight mid morning

At five I awoke to a racing mind dreaming terrifyingly of computer code that sought my life. The entirety of my reality was left angle brackets and yellow fixed-width characters screaming around a black abyss. I couldn’t shake the panic so lay awake a while listening to my body, checking in with my toes and my joints, hearing my mind wander, and watching my closed eyes.

But goodness two hours have passed. What a strange pseudo-reality I’ve lived in since I left dreaming. I may be still dreaming. I wonder what asleep means when awake is so unbounded by perception.

Growing Pains

Who did Calvin and Hobbes grow up to be?

How does Calvin spend his time? Does Hobbes still tackle him by surprise sometimes? Does he work as a waiter or a janitor or an investment banker? Is he happy? Does Calvin still look up at the sky and wonder, or is has life made him “practical” and “reasonable?” Does he question authority or accept it? Does he smoke weed? Does he work out and care about his diet? Does he still dress like his mom used to dress him, or did he become hip? Is he still friends with Hobbes?

 

But I’m A Vampire

I remember exactly what I was wearing when I heard the news. My brown suede loafers, black slacks creased perfectly down the middle, and a light blue dress shirt. I knew I looked good, and for the last hundred years, I had felt pretty good. I smoked, I drank (bloody mary’s, though cliché are actually still my favorite), I lived fast, didn’t die. But whoever said vampires were immortal didn’t know shit. When the doctor said, “I’m sorry, but  we  found stage IV metastatic lung cancer,” I thought, “wait, what? But I’m a vampire.” Well, I guess cancer doesn’t care.

Caffeinated

Walking briskly over to the library with third cup of coffee in hand
Yes, walking quite briskly now
Am even passing bikers
Ah yes, in the library now
Almost tripped on a step and am struggling to catch my breath but  it doesn’t matter
CHIME! Ah, jump! Shit it’s already four o’clock — need to get to work
Plop down violently at desk, ruffling papers of disgruntled girl beside me
Flip to page 346 flip flip flip flip flip flip goddamnit where the hell is 346 oh there it is good
Scanning each line like a machine until I crash ever so suddenly…

Chilling

The term “chilling” is used pretty often to describe the general act of doing nothing in particular.  Synonyms of “chilling,” according to Microsoft Word include: frightening, scary, alarming, unsettling, distressing, terrifying, disturbing, unnerving, nerve-wracking.  Weird how that’s totally not what I meant, but thanks, nonetheless, thesaurus.  Also, sneezing is weird.  But apparently, back in the day everybody thought that sneezing was a sure symptom of the bubonic plague and whosiwhatsie who was Pope back then ordered everybody to bless each other, all the time, in whatever way possible to avoid getting the plague. Thus, “God bless you.”  That is all.

Requiem To A Well-Loved Helmet

Man that last class went way over I really shouldn’t have packed my schedule this tightly I hope they don’t cancel my appointment now just pedal harder I need to get back right now right now so pass this girl on the right pass this guy on the left wait YO STOP he veered into me I’m flying my bike’s crunching I hit pavement THWACK my head snaps down slams into the ground wow that was simple enough…

I get up. I’m a little cut, a little bruised. My helmet’s shattered. My head’s fine. I’m fine. I am still Wyatt.

My Mother’s Journey by Stephen Hauskins

I am not sure what I am waiting for when it comes to my mother, who is 84 years old and now twice in the hospital in the last month.

She is there now but later.

She makes herself sound well to please me.

She is at a place where she thought she wouldn’t be.

She is at a place where she doesn’t want to be.

She can’t eat very well.

She can’t walk very well.

She told me that the mind is willing but the body is not.

She is transforming to the energy that we all will be.

Flying Toasters

Woke up with my head full of dive-bombing toasters. They were made of burning hot metal and had machine guns blazing, shrieking as they passed just overhead. My sheets were soaked with sweat and for a moment I thought my forehead was sunburnt.

Later that day, when I had showered and felt normal again, I visited my aunt and uncle down in Topeka. They had one of those old Dells that belongs in a scrap heap, and the screensaver took me straight back to childhood. On a black background, toasters with wings flapped gently from one side to the other.

 

Full

I sit in this library, this bastion of studious solitude, and stare at notes. I bullet the points, I format the text, I mnemonic the concepts. But there’s a problem. Outside the library there is a rave. Hundreds if not thousands (or millions by the single sound of their collective screams) are freaking out and shaking booty. While I sit. Here.

I’m a starved desert wanderer who’s just chanced upon a vending machine resting idly atop a dune. I can see the cool drinks inside and can damn near taste them. But I haven’t a dollar.

The music wafts painfully.

Tottenham v. Everton

Tottenham had a stork up front Saturday afternoon. Its name is Peter Crouch, and it’s of that skinny species of stork that is always sticking its head in awkward directions when it goes up for a header, then flapping around on the ground when it is nudged out of the air.

Our Everton defenders did a fine job of containing the stork throughout the match’s ninety minutes. Despite its dangerous beak and coiffured hair, the stork did next to nothing – except to annoy our faithful with its pretty-boy mannerisms. Storks cannot scare our boys – they are footballers, not minnow lunches.

 

Stupid

Idiotic and numb-headed frilly bloatstreams of sticky, disgraceful blowflies sting like nettles. The smelly vomitous goats stampede as imbeciles in mindless, automatic circles, ignoring any reason and all direction, crashing a sorry excuse for a head first into each other and dumbly blindly tastelessly frolicking in their own horrific putrescence. Oh what a scene. I could die. I will die. I want to remove significant portions of my brain simply so that I won’t have to interpret the absurdity, the precarious chaos uncoordinatedly flinging its filthy self around me. Dear lord, you aren’t present here. This damned bug won’t die.

Ha

We were sitting next to each other, and then, she was shaking.  Silently, just shaking; and all the cushioning the couch had to offer couldn’t absorb the shock of the shaking.  I looked – sidelong.  She was doing that really awkward thing where you shake kinda violently as you laugh, but you’re completely silent, and so it just looks like you are convulsing.  I’d eventually find out that it happened pretty often.  But tonight, as she weathered her way through that silent laughter, she finally got to the breath.  She leaned forward and declared, “I need more ‘Ha.’”  Ha.  Ha ha.

A Great Sense of Humor

Ellie had a great sense of humor. Whenever someone told a joke or made a witty insight, she was the first to catch on, wrinkle her nose, and smile. She could laugh as easily with strangers as with her older brothers.

Brad had a great sense of humor. He could boil down the comical nature of just about anything with hardly a pause in the conversation. As he let loose his commentary, he’d look at his friends with a knowing smirk.

She rarely told a joke, and he rarely laughed at other people. Great senses of humor, both of them.

 

Vacaville

 

 

Three Pieces On A Sunday

They placed the pebbles in rings
like the ripples from a fish’s jump.
The dirt sang softly to them,
full of mushrooms and rotting leaves,
full of dreams and planet.

–

“You’re no spring chicken yourself.”
“More like a fall turkey.”
“Or a Canadian goose in the summertime.”
“Or a ptarmigan in Denmark.”

–

I hear that my friend fell in love with a paleontologist. I have not seen him in many years, but I imagine her to have flaxen hair and a pair of spectacles. They probably had a simple kind of love that became complicated when New York City encroached.

Inconsequential

He’d helped me to remember things about my own life that I thought I’d forgotten: the dollar mom would give me for the vending machine at work; the lecture that nearly broke my heart; how calloused my hands had been from those monkey bars.  And then it occurred to me: if someday there was an accident that touched my memory, those are the things that I would remember.  All those little things that seem inconsequential, the ones that are filed away into the unlabeled envelops of our minds.  I might remember all of those nothings.  I might not remember you.

13,800′

The air is cold and biting and clean.  It is everything that air should be, weightless, and clarifying, and well.

The sky is boundless and unadulterated blue, impossible to distinguish from the horizon of limitless ocean.

The clouds rest and tumble on one another, forming a brilliantly white and flawless sea four thousand feet below.

The sun is closer here, radiating warmth with the severity of its own non-interruption, touching and heating skin without compromise.

The wind is sharp, delivering the sound of simultaneous stillness and motion.  It is the only entity to accompany here, completely enveloping and completely inaccessible.

Similar to a G6

Pass me some Moet.
Pass me some Crystal.
Those of feminine demeanor adore my glamour, and disregard social convention.
Waiter, deliver more bottles, for we shan’t stop.

When sober girls surround me, they tend to behave as if they’re inebriated
They behave as if inebriated, behave-behave as if inebriated.

Place these bottles in some ice, like a blizzard
When we drink we do it correctly, becoming slizzard
Sipping sizzurp in my vehicle, with Beatrix.
Now I feel rather fly, similar to a G6
Verily similar to a G6; a G6.
In fact, forsooth, I feel equally fly to a G6.

Return To Dharma

We got ourselves out of bed as the sun rose. It was raining.

“Aw, man, really, Mother Nature?”

“Get up, let’s go, let’s go.”

The drive up into the mountains took several hours, and we listened to the classical music radio station. The rain only got harder.

Up at the gravel turnout where we were supposed to start hiking up onto Mount Franklin’s shoulder, we decided to break open the wine.

Once we were good and warm, we set out. Before too long we were drenched, and when the rain stopped soon after, we were sad to see it go.

 

The Interview

“What is a strength or skill that you feel you would bring if we hired you to work here?”

“I’m the best person I know at finding my keys when I lose them.”

“Okay… What makes you so good at finding things?”

“I’m just really good at finding my keys. Sometimes when I lose them, I tell my friends to go look for them. And they’re idiots, and I always end up finding them before they do. They look in all the wrong places, like they have no clue. I’m way better at finding my keys than anyone I know.”

 

Une Lettre Hypothetique

Chèr ma cheri,

 

Je possède tout les habiletés dont j’ai besoin, mais pour quelque raison bizarre, tout ce que j’ai fait ne fait rien. Je ne peux pas comprendre pourquoi. Vraiment, tu es le plus obstiné, le plus tétu, le plus frustrant. Je ne peux plus continuer d’essayer.
Tu pleures sans raison, souvent quand tu n’as pas dormi assez ou quand tu as faim. Je souhaite que je peux te comprendre, mais je sais que c’est impossible à ce point. Je sais. Il faut être patiente. Pardons-moi, s’il te plaît.

Bisoux,
Maman

The Dooders

Dooder 1 was a noodle who hated soup. Dry noodles were his serving of preference, because people could never eat a great many of them, and he rather detested the notion of being consumed.

Dooder 2 had a crush on the celantro over by the sink. She was so young and luscious, with beautiful bouncy hair. He was a simple raviolli with lots of pumpkin in his belly and not a whole lot else.

Dooder 1 and Dooder 2 decided to do something about their situation. They flopped over to the celantro, seduced her with their squiggly wit, and she looked after them forever after.

Tired of Mash Ups

Mash ups are great because  just when you think you’re tired of a song, they mash it together with another song you thought you were tired of! I just listened to the third remix of Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” and Lil Mama’s “Lipgloss.” Hmm, do those beats even go together? It doesn’t even matter, because it’s a mash up and mash ups are cool! And mash ups extend past the music industry!  I’m tired of apples and tired of lasagna so why not mash my apple into my lasagna! Do they go together? Doesn’t matter! Mash ups are cool!

600 Words Behind

I’m 600 words behind.

And this essay is due tomorrow.

The professor said that it was supposed to be a 1500 word essay (no more, no less?), but almost every time I write a sentence, I hit backspace with such fervor, hoping the piece of crap I just wrote will retreat into the digital abyss from whence it came.

I’ve technically written something like 3400 words, but 2500 of them were just abysmal pieces of shit. Might as well start over. Who cares about the evolution of dart frogs in the Amazon anyway? Well, apparently I do because I’ve written 3427 words on it now.

Christmas

Breakfast is like the Christmas of every day.  Sometimes, you wake up real early and you just know: after waiting twenty-four hours that felt like a whole year, it’s finally breakfast time. Only that breakfast is actually better than Christmas, because it happens every day, and you always get to choose what you get, and you never get those weird ass presents from your great aunt.  Plus, every bite’s like a gift, so if you play your cards right you can have dozens and dozens of gifts, which isn’t how Christmas usually turns out, particularly once you’re past age twelve.

Doubling Up

“I’m not gonna be able to study today, so I’m gonna double up on my studying tomorrow.”
“Good point. I’m probably not going to have time to eat lunch later, so I’ll just double up on breakfast right now.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna be able to watch TV tomorrow, so I’m gonna double up on watching TV today.”
“Good strategy. I think I’m gonna work out twice as much today since I can’t work out tomorrow.”
“I don’t really want to wear my retainer  tonight. I’ll just double up tomorrow.”
“And I’ll just brush my teeth twice as long tomorrow!”

Shortbread

Parcels of slimy paper
sat silently along the wall
arranged haphazardly
with more than no care
but much less than a great deal.

A quiet drizzle swept by outside
alighting the dank interior
with pallid shades
of cold beige
and a small mouse wandered
between Asia and Africa,
or so it believed
on its own attempt
at an epic journey.

Inside the murky web tied
between the wall and the roof
ideas got lost
and reality swung
back and forth, endlessly
for there was no escaping it.

Slowly the paper melted
back into pulp from whence
it came.

Things continued.

Memory

He spent his whole life taking photos, keeping a journal, holding on to every moment. No moment was genuine unless he felt he could save it and reflect back later.

He kept his old letters and concert tickets and invitations to friends’ weddings. So many people he had known were gone by now, but he never let go.

As long as he held on to the people that filled his decades passed, he could believe that someone would hold onto memories of him after he died. He’d be immortal that way. We remember because we are afraid of being forgotten.

Charity

“Would you like to donate to breast cancer?” the lady at the mall asked Jim as he walked through the doors.

“Would I like to? Like? Is that what charity is about? Am I giving because it’s about me and what I like? If I’m giving to satisfy myself above all else, would any ethical system even consider that to be charity? Did the mall just set up this booth here so that I would have positive feelings associated with coming here and opening my wallet? Are they fighting breast cancer just because that’s what all the cool corporations do?”

 

Morning

Morning in the new house was unlike anything she had experienced.  In the hours when the sun was rising, Collette would tiptoe into the living room and marvel at the colors outside the large windows.  The house was empty and quiet, and it felt like a polar bear that had fallen asleep, curled up around her.  The colors in the kitchen seemed lifeless, and the blues and browns that usually warmed the space now seemed like icicles, frozen in space.  She loved to pull her small body up onto the very center of the couch and sit, watching the snow.

The Story of One Boy’s Sweater

This old sweater has seen a lot. More than me, probably. I bought it new six or seven years ago, you know, back in high school I thought it was so cool to be wearing thick plaid. Lost it one night in New York, the only time I’ve ever been there. Then, a year and a half later, I somehow found it again in a thrift shop in Philly; I knew it by the stain on the left sleeve. It felt limper, softer, when I bought it the second time. Now I wear it on gray mornings like this one.

 

the flighty mrs petunia

how silly things were
inside the scarfed head
of mrs petunia

cows were small pebbles
used to build footpaths
parrots were amorphous notions
of appreciation, scattered
among the winds
truth was a bad tasting vegetable
and myopia was the sound
that an empty kettle made
when struck on its round belly
with a silver spoon.

all that was implied was glaringly obvious
and the explicit
was unclear

along the sinews of her tired brain
little pickup trucks
with splintery flatbeds bouncing out the back
and leathery men chewing tobacco
drove
delivering messages
languidly, slowly,
without care for punctuality
or accuracy.

Short stories

It was perfect, the way he’d put it: life is like a series of short stories.  We line our lives up, the edges of one existence touching its predecessor perfectly, connected only just barely with a plane flight, a car ride, a new home.  Thread the stories together, and, no, they don’t always follow quite exactly what came before or what comes afterward.  So keep writing.  One day, life’s happening in Peru, touching llamas and climbing ruins, the next, in NYC, ordering a candy bar and thanking America for high fructose corn syrup.  Go with it.  Keep making it up.

Stuck

Steve stood at the front of the room, pointing up out of the ground like the thinner cousin of a golf tee sticking out of the sand.  His feet were flat in their entirety, and their inward pronation guaranteed the impression that his entire body was suctioned firmly to the ground.  Humans usually walked about, but not Steve.  Each step he took required pulling one foot off of the ground, and replanting it somewhere else – slurp! – so that it might suction once again.  And so he went, suctioning himself firmly to the ground everywhere he went, standing tall, moving slowly.

Hairdryer, by new author Dianne Weinthal

An open letter to the sound of a hairdryer:

To my arch nemesis,

You sit on the counter, appearing so commonplace, waiting to strike your first blow. Once started, you rage on endlessly, pointlessly, only serving as an artificial tool for a natural process. Surely the silence of slow evaporation should be sufficient. Why do you even exist? Nothing rasps on as continuously, as overwhelmingly, as irritatingly as you do. Please, drown out my music. Keep whining while I try to study. I wasn’t asleep that morning you whaled on for a good half hour anyway.

Blow yourself, you fucker.

SHOT by New Author Erika

The cold kiss of a glass the size of my fist. Syringe to the skin. The
big bang that undoes life. En Español? Disparo. That sounds like
despair, the sound of despair? Lincoln, JFK, MLK. Yes, please; I won’t
disappoint you. Taken, missed, scored. Ring ’em up. Get it? Call ’em
all. When taped knuckles flex and fall to a face…

Do you need me to spell it out?

I can’t, it’s more than a word. It’s multi-definitional metamorphosis,
the repeated rebirth of language,
complex, profound, beautiful…
you’ve just met the poet’s best friend.

Cerulean by Allison Fink

Caroline was her favorite crayon. Skies were Caroline, always, and Daddy’s blue eyes, and oceans. No better blue in the box, no way jose. But one day, too hasty, and the Caroline crayon snapped in two.

 

She ran to Momma, clutching the box and the pieces, hot with guilt and disbelief. “Look! My Caroline crayon! Can you fix it?”

 

Momma put out her hand. Turned it over and examined the paper label. “It’s pronounced suh-ROO-lee-uhn, kiddo” and tossed the Caroline crayon into the trash.

 

The trash can flickered blue for an instant, like last embers, and then Caroline was gone.

 

It was a really really big couch

And Sam was king and Robin was jester but Robin didn’t know any tricks like juggling or spitting over the pot plant so he made a pretty bad jester but not as bad as Sam made a king. Everyone in the Couchland was starving like poor Sarah who hadn’t eaten since breakfast because she was pooing all through recess and missed the snacks, which sucks because today it was ants on a log. Sarah liked Robin even though he was a pretty bad jester and Sam also like Sarah so almost enacted Ius Primae Noctus but the teachers stopped him.

The Cartoonist

Jerry sat at his lightdesk staring at the blank panels. His dark room was a dystopic museum display of starbucks cups and half-eaten mcmuffins in delicately congealing paper, all exhibited proudly atop piles of books, broken VHS tapes and unread newspapers. Yesterday’s cheerily smiling and caustic-witted line drawings had kept him awake and alive but now all he could think of was Her, and how She was on the other coast right now, and wasn’t going to be back for a very very long while. He picked up his ink pen and scribbled an easy triplet. She would have laughed.