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- The message This message will self-destruct. But it didn't. The three of us scrambled to grab the parts of the disk that flew to pieces but did not destroy its readability. We knew in the other room, another man was waiting for the chance to catch the name of his next mark. One of my partners grabbed the round, exposed floppy, and stuffed it in their mouth. "That will never work, he'll find it later," I said. "What should we do?" one asked me in a male voice. "Burn it," I responded. He pulled out a lighter that lit up like a small bonfire, melting away the names on paper, no longer a disk, but envelopes full of names and addresses, correspondence. I took some as well, but my lighter refused to cooperate. Finicky things they were. I went to a bathroom to try again, failing miserably. At one time I did get a good flame going, but it only managed to run a harsh marker path to cross out the names and that wasn't good enough. He'd find them, I knew he would, if he got his hands on any of it. My female partner walked in. "Who should we protect then?" she asked me. In my frustration I threw the paper work aside and noticed a ziplock bag of adorable duck figurines. I help them out to her. Pick three. Assign each a name of possible targets, and we'll draw the lucky one from a hat. The store The store was busy and very strange. They specialized in selling an edible product with the texture of canned cranberry jelly, shaped like a bar of Dove soap. I was there on school assignment. My instructions were to buy a specific jelly, and when I bought it I would be asked if it were fact or fiction that my fellow classmate had killed herself. I wanted to get there in time to run into my friend for reasons I can't recall, but I was delayed and had just missed her. I was frustrated. I picked up the jelly, there were only a few left. I am such a procrastinator. At the counter, three girls were working. One a thing blond, sultry. The other more plain but loaded with energy, a cheerleader to be exact. The third indiscernible. The cheerleader leaned over and said in a quiet voice so other customers couldn't hear. "Now I'm supposed to ask you a question with this." I nodded and replied "Yes, I think she did." The girl nodded also in response. In the background a child cried because their jelly treat was too hot. The mother tried to pack it away but the pieces were so hot, and not temperature-wise, that she couldn’t bear to touch them. The frozen man I do not remember his crime except as a form of sexual harassment. We had all tried to stop him, the whole village had, but he was out of control. A mysterious man had fought him, strapped him down, knocked him out, and in a single deep breath, had frozen him solid. As I became that man, I picked up my victim, stuck in a fetal position. I carried him above my head and turned to the river. The river would carry him off, drown him, kill him. The water was so shallow. I kept walking and walking, until I was walking beside the man once again. I helped him carry the frozen body. Cars drove by, but one pulled up offering a ride. We got in, hoping they didn’t notice the body. The driver and passenger were two young men, rowdy, leather jackets and spiked hair out of the eighties. They drove recklessly and my friend and I noticed a large lake with a swift current out the window. Our chauffeurs refused to stop, heading in the wrong direction. Finally I opened the door while driving at top speed and demanded they stop the car. The came to a screeching halt and we got out. Not long after that, I found myself knocking on a friend's door who had the frozen man. He was being thawed out and I had stopped by via invitation. I didn't realize they wanted me present when the man awoke. I did not like the idea. I wanted to leave. I argued and fled to the bathroom, but I knew he'd still see me there. I wanted to go to my room, but they refused. They told me be careful, he will be crazy when he wakes. I was even warned he'd try to look up my skirt and looked down to find myself in pants. I went for the front door. Just as I was halfway out the man awoke and saw me. I knew I couldn't leave. "He's seen you now," my friend said. "Now you can't leave." With a great reluctance I came back inside. The frozen man was hardly a man. He was withered, the size of a boy. His skin was white, his bones trying to escape. The shadows cast by his own emaciated form on his body were blue. His head was large and bald, eyes big and yellow and he talked or rather hissed and gurgled from a lipless mouth. He couldn't yet walk and threw himself at my feet, grabbing my ankles. "Ask him questions!" my friend shouted. I immediately bent down and started asking questions. He responded with questions of his own. What day is it? What time is it? What color is it? What manner is it? The breakup At one point, Kelly passed by and asked me what the deal was. I apologized. I said I liked the other boy better. I'm sorry, but we're through. At this point, he had finally come back to me and I was happy, happier than I had ever been. And I could kiss him and be close to him under blankets. This was what I wanted, all I needed. At a later point, I came across my sister. She said she has seen him and that she's sorry we had broken up. "But I thought we had gotten back together?" "Really? That's not the impression I got from him." Devastation. The father I returned home to find my father rampaging through the house, packing this, collecting that. "I need you to park the BMW, to keep it here. I am going to Greg's for awhile." My mind raced, I knew he was moving in with me and that was far from what I wanted, but what could I do. He was carrying a basket full of Bath and Body Works products around, but they were all his, they weren't mine. I left the next room for a large party I was having in my hall. There were guests aplenty. A large, black woman came up to me and we hugged. She was my sister. My other sister was lost in the sea of faces somewhere. I was in a haze as I roamed through the crowds. I went up to my surveillance room and spied on them from above. I noticed my dad and my sister talking and ran down to see what it was all about. When I got downstairs, my father had left. My sister was crying. We hugged again and she cried so hard. She had exchanged "I love you's" with my father. They had repaired their relationship and the tears were ones of joy. She hugged me tighter than I could dream of, then remarked, if only our other sister could do the same. I nodded in agreement, I could see my other sister in the distance. She had no father.
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