Author: kekuja@gmail.com

If they say 'I love you'; say I don't know how that can work.
Like they looked into the magic mirror on the wall - the fairest.
Not everyone can be the boss of me
Fair ever fairer than myself; my.
No not even if they're a jurist.
Induction, deduction free diction
A thousand points.
Maybe you know not to be just a tourist.
Learn promise keeping, because
Today, tomorrow and forever,
The poisoned apple means someone's malnourished.
Who? You?
You, whose blue eyes beguiling
Focused in like a sapphire; sharp
Worth more than a magic mirror based only on its (your) merits.
The Friend knows who is a slave
The Friend knows who is on minimum wage
The Friend knows about fairness.

Featuring B. 93

“Veronica” said Betty “I’ve been robbed. The thief took my gold and diamonds.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“Well, I had to be either Archie or Jughead. Nobody else has stayed around for a long enough time to get away without me seeing them.”

“I don’t like Jughead”, said Veronica.

“I think it was Archie and I’m going to trick him.” said Betty.

Betty called Archie and told him her TV was broken even though it wasn’t. Archie came to fix it and he was confused because nothing seemed to be broken.

“Oh never mind”, said Betty “Would you like a beer Archie?”

It was late and Archie feel asleep in the Lazy-boy rocker.

“Now I’ll find out”, thought Betty. She opened Archie’s brief case and there were her diamonds. She grabbed them. While she was closing the briefcase Archie rolled over in the chair.

Betty got out her gun and opened up the briefcase again. She fired a shot in the air.

“Archie wake up! Someone was in the house and they opened your briefcase. Is anything missing?”

Archie thought fast.

“No”, he said.

Does the story say why Veronica does not like Jughead?            Yes/No

Question 1) What should Betty do next if her diamonds *were not* in Archie’s briefcase?

Question 2) Why did Betty open up the briefcase a second time?

Archie is thinking fast.

Featuring B. 417

“Tobin! Is that cocaine?”

“Yeah.”

“But there’s so much of it. What! what?”

“So I stole it from Sandy, that’s what.”

Fawn was overwhelmed. Her stomach took a drop towards the floor and her hands tingled. This was way different than smoking  some weed in the park across the street from the school.

“Why?”

“I’ve got plans.”

Indeed he had. With the money he was going to buy a Cadillac SUV, get it armored, hire a bodyguard, and drive to Mexico. Things were cheap in Mexico. Maybe he would buy guns in Mexico or maybe he would buy them here in the US. In Mexico, he would buy a fancy house and hire maids. Some of the maids would know someone in a local cartel. The money to be made was bigger the closer you were to the source. After that he would be set for life.

Sandy wasn’t dumb. She had one her friends/buyers in high school ask Fawn something.

DM: ” hey I heard Tobin has rail to sell”

DM: “yeah a lot but you didn’t hear it from me”

***

Fawn came home from school to a mother who had lost her mind. 

“He’s………..dead!” she screamed.

“who’s dead?

“Tobin…aheeeeee!”

“What.” Fawn realized she wasn’t going to get more from Mom. Mom had always been ’emotional’ and sometimes dialog with her was impossible. This was the maximum. But was Tobin really dead?

Fawn couldn’t make any headway with Mom. Fawn couldn’t even get her to sit or lie down. She was too agitated to do anything but rock back and forth on her feet and scream. Fawn called her father at work. She wasn’t supposed to do that.

“Dad?”

“You’re not supp…”

“Mom’s out of her mind. Is Tobin okay?”

“I see,” He’d been dealing with Mom for longer than Fawn had.

“Do your best with her. I’ll see what I can find out and be home as soon as I can.”

***

When he got home he told Fawn that Tobin had been shot in front of the SevenEleven. Driveby. He taken enough shots that he was dead before anyone could get to him. At the emergency room, Mom got a heavy dose from the doc and was either asleep or comatose. At that point Fawn and Dad were grateful for the silence.

***

A year later Mom was not much better and Dad was gone. Of course Mom had lost her job. Fawn hoped she knew enough to get Mom on disability. Uncle Harry was trying to help but he lived in another state far away.

***

Fawn was on her third shift. She was lucky that it was a front desk job at a hotel. Fawn could swear she was able to sleep with her eyes open.

***

Dr. Dobson knew what she was doing. She’d only seen the various scans of the patient. Black and white but mostly hazy gray. She knew how to read them and also what they wouldn’t be able to tell her.

Fawn was going after a bullet close to the spine. If she made the slightest mistake it meant the patient might be a paraplegic or dead.

“Is he under?” Fawn asked the anesthesiologist.

“Yep. Go ahead doctor.”

The respiratory team was prepared to keep him alive if something went awry. 

Would she need to do a vertebra fusion? She’d only know once she was in. A 9-mm bullet was in with its head facing the incision, completely encased in scar tissue, blocking the flow of cerebral spinal fluid. There was a special tool for grabbing bullets. Huh this is America.

Fawn was as cautious as she had learned to be while performing the dissection. No damage to the nerve roots if she could help it. She put on the surgical microscope headset. She had two grips to move the light in tiny increments.  She needed to be incredibly exact to release the bullet from the scar tissue. If she pulled too hard it was over for the patient, but if she didn’t pull enough the bullet was going to stay stuck. Got it. Bullet free from from the surrounding tissue.

There was no applause but a huge release of tension in the room.

As team was finishing up Fawn got to see the boy, Tobias. He had gunshot scars in many places. Tobias/Tobin. Fawn broke down and cried. Really sobbed for the first time in decades. The rest of the operating room did not know why. She’d just been phenomenal.

This is what Mom saw and it never went away.