Let’s come to an under­stand­ing. The party’s over. There’s not going to be any more of that elec­tric hard-on music. No more of you and her pop­ping out from behind fur­ni­ture and mess­ing with me when I’m just try­ing to answer the door. All that hec­tic prat­tle she invent­ed, that baby talk, that’s fin­ished. You want to say some­thing, use Eng­lish. It works a twat­load bet­ter than your squeals and chirps and what­ev­er that shit is she does with her cheeks. 

I’m not becom­ing “impe­r­i­al” or what­ev­er. I’m just try­ing to get back to the way it was. It was fine. We were always say­ing how it was hor­ri­ble, that we rode the horse into the sea. But you know what ? It was­n’t that bad. Not like this. 

First there was Dad­death. There was lit­tle Bethdeath in the pool — I was the only one home, and I had to fish her out and car­ry her through the orchard, and you think that was easy, that I wasn’t tear­ing my skin off while Lena keened and Bryce puked in the gar­den ? Then that ass­hole bik­er laid his motor­cy­cle down in my lane going eighty. I remem­ber his hands flut­ter­ing like moth wings, that’s how hard he was try­ing to stop before I ran him over. So that was the first year. 

And then what ? Some bac­te­ria got aggres­sive. Thou­sands dead. Every orange in the state gets incin­er­at­ed. But that’s all it was. It passed, but you can’t let it go. All that oth­er shit you and her have been say­ing, it blows up easy on every­body’s feed, but it’s not real.

Stop. I’m just try­ing to catch my breath. How can I hurt you, Don­ny, when all I do all day is try to avoid piss­ing you off ? You. Her. Both of you. I don’t know — look at my hands shak­ing. That start­ed two nights ago and it has­n’t stopped.

She was hun­gry and you got out of con­trol again. I tried to get away, but the truck would­n’t start, so I ran out into the orchard, and you and her chased me. The fuck you did­n’t, Don­ny. I tripped and rolled into the irri­ga­tion ditch. You ran right past and nev­er saw me. But I saw you. She was on your shoul­ders, whip­ping you across the eyes. You could­n’t see but you yelled my name, and when you ran by, I saw your feet, and they were two inch­es off the ground.

I know you can’t fly, tool. It’s her.