Crazy Days: A Book of Short Tales

Her favorite color was black. She dressed in black jeans and black blouses, and wore a strange black veil cape that seemed to swirl a shadow mist behind her as she passed. Her form was never still; even when she rested, the darkness swam around her. She had a dangerous need to fl aunt herself in front of the cameras- to draw attention to herself, though her face was nearly always hidden behind the fluttering black veil.

She wore black fingerless gloves and black eye shadow and a spider ring. Her visible body was covered in tattoos and piercings. The cameras called her Pin Cushion, and she sneered at them. The cameras called her Goth Girl, and she sneered at them. She was attractive, and her face and expressions fascinated men. But she made herself too scary and bitchy to find some stupid romance. She was not attracted to men or women; she was attracted to no one. She seemed determined to despise life; and sometimes she got a plummeting sense in her stomach that it was quickly coming to an end. She wanted no human to know her or any part of her lonely and uneventful existence. She wanted no one to know her secret, but those who worked with her suspected: She could read the cameras.

Like her veil-cape, Cassandra fl owed through life in a dark mist. She had enrolled at San Diego State, but the superficial syrup of academia had soon turned her off. It was a place where professors taught knowing they were in the cameras. Where classmates laughed at her and chittered in the eyes of the cameras.

She lived in an efficiency apartment just off El Cajon Boulevard, and most of her money went to the rent. She ate simple and cheap Paleofood: raw fruits and vegetables, unsalted mixed nuts. She did not want to, nor could she use her kitchen. She ate tuna out of the can after straining it.

One day she talked about the curse; she didn't know why.