LISA
He wore the pointiest shoes that I had ever seen; I couldn’t work out where his toes would go, and soon suspected he didn’t have any. I stared whilst scuffing the toes of my own brown buckled school shoes. I hated them. Mum wouldn’t let me have slip-ons. She’d said that I wouldn’t be able to run in them, remembering made me scuff even harder. I realised he wasn’t a normal adult when he didn’t stop me. I didn’t linger on that thought though. Just anticipated the bright red cherry on top of the Banana Split he’d promised me earlier.
RICHARD
Morgan’s Lot
“So, you two are going to split up then?”
I could practically see the glint in Morgan’s eye as he asked the question.
“Yeah. I’ve known for ages she was having an affair, but she finally admitted it and wants a divorce.”
I didn’t mention I knew exactly who she’d been seeing behind my back, or that I was fully aware Morgan was the guilty party.
I also neglected to mention her drunken rages, unbridled spending, violent outbursts over nothing, and her longstanding gambling addiction.
I figured, if he was going to take her, he could take the whole package.
SERENDIPIDY
The idea is always to split the group up.
When they’re alone and isolated, they’re vulnerable, easy targets. No challenge at all.
The tricky part is splitting the group up: People tend to band together when under attack, and there’s strength in numbers.
However, a group will also gladly welcome a distressed and terrified stranger into their care, to protect them from an unknown, and unseen aggressor.
Bad move.
Especially when that stranger is me.
And I’m the unknown, unseen aggressor.
Now I’m in your midst, you’ll scatter soon enough.
Ready for me to pick you off, at my leisure.
LIZZIE
The show is about to start.
And she laughed and laughed.
The stage was empty, but she laughed and laughed.
I just sat there, my mind filled with perplexity.
She waved her arms and laughed and laughed.
I sank in my chair. What could I do but wait for the show to start?
And I waited and waited.
That’s when I realized that she had her own stage. In her mind. Everyone owed her attention, a lot of attention. She was the show. And she thought everyone knew that.
When no one clapped, she stopped laughing. Hate. She hated everyone.
TOM
Intelligent Design
I come from a generation where getting a full banana split was a big deal. Was not ever going to happen in a home with eight kids. Hell, you were lucky to get a single scope of Neapolitan ice cream. And for the record Neapolitan managed on its own to be the worst offering of all three flavors. Back to the split. I sixth grade I won a church raffle for one of Sister Mary Joseph’s New York split. Quad scope Quad syrup Quad Cherries. A coma confection. I firmly believe banana split are proof of a loving god.
TURA
Split
———
“Split a pound note and it’s gone,” my father would complain. A penny back then would buy what a pound does today, an old penny, 240 to the pound.
You wouldn’t spend a pound note in a corner shop, you’d change it for smaller coin at the bank, and put off doing that as long as you could. A workman’s wage was ten pounds a week, you work out what ten times 240 is, fifty weeks a year.
Sure, you can buy stuff today my father never dreamed of, but you’ve less real money than he had to buy it.
NORVAL JOE
Fortunately for Billbert, Sabrina, and Linoliamanda, they were flying slowly and low to the ground when the blast from the confetti gun split them apart. They hit the street and tumbled across the asphalt with each of the youths acquiring a variety of bruises and abrasions.
With all the indignation a 13 year old could feel, Billbert stomped up to the smirking woman. “What were you thinking? Were you trying to kill us?”
She laughed. “Now that you mention it, that’s not a bad idea.”
Her humor vanished when Billbert grabbed her hand and shot straight up into the air.
PLANET Z
Mindy and Bobby grew weed down by the old railway.
They dried it out in Mindy’s attic.
Bobby weighed the weed and bagged it.
Mindy took orders on a Girl Scouts cookie sales sheet.
Never names, just the amount and locker number.
And never on credit. Only cash.
When the harvest was sold out, they slipped the baggies into the kids lockers.
The principal took his cut, and let them know when the cops were bringing dogs around or searching lockers.
Bobby and Mindy made enough to pay for college. Different colleges.
They graduated, and never saw each other again.