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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
September 20, 2015
Leave Your Galoshes at Home by Kathryn-Walt is a quirky piece of flash sci-fi that proves following your own path is the best way to live.
Featured by LiliWrites
Literature Text
"Don't do pizza delivery!" Mom and Dad had always told her. "There's creeps out there. It's not safe for a girl."
So Tessie, rebel-by-predestination and hell-bent on doing everything "not safe for a girl," went into pizza delivery. And just for good measure, she tattooed both her arms to the shoulder, donned a leather mini-skirt, and delivered pizzas while hitchhiking. Trans-dimensionally.
Mom and Dad wondered when she'd get a real job, settle down with some nice Jewish boy and raise them seven or eight grandchildren. Tessie cruised night clubs and dated the hottest girls this side of the Milky Way. Mom and Dad worried sick. Tessie took precautions, karate, and (at her mother's insistence), her galoshes.
Life was normal.
"Tess! Delivery!" yelled Tom, manager and reigning pain-in-the-ass at Pizza Universe.
Tessie grudgingly put down her iPhone 3000, abandoning for the time being the latest level of Plants vs. Zombies, v. 32. An old one, a classic, but her favorite. The newest version of the game was set on Omicron 7 in the Zetalus galaxy, and she just couldn't reconcile the idea of zinc-based lifeforms coming back as zombies.
"Tess! Step on it!" snapped Tom.
"Okay, okay! Sheesh, I'm right here."
Tom handed her a pizza and an address slip and disappeared into the kitchen. Glancing at the label (pepperoni, small. Can you get any more boring?) and the address (73rd Dimension, east Gray Street), she headed out to the curb to thumb a lift.
A truck driver with purplish skin and a belly that oozed over the waist of his pants picked her up. "Where ya off to?"
She handed him the address, and away they went, he chattering on about whatever came into his head and she mostly just listening in silence.
The driver let her off on the corner of Gray, and she walked down the street to the right house, which was ordinary and colorless—suitable for Gray street, and also for a small pepperoni pizza. She knocked.
She answered the door.
Tessie blinked. It was herself, albeit, the dullest possible version of herself. No tattoos, no miniskirt, just plain brown hair and an oversized tee-shirt.
"H-hi," Tessie stammered.
"Twelve dollars?" asked alter-Tessie. She didn't even seem to recognize herself.
"Uh, yeah."
Alter-Tessie counted out the money and handed it over. In the background, a male voice yelled something.
Must be the nice Jewish boy, Tessie thought. Aloud, surprising even herself, she said, "Your parents must be so proud of you."
"Excuse me?" Alter-Tessie lifted her eyebrows. "Yes, for your information, they are."
Tessie raised her hands defensively. "Sorry, sorry. I just…uh…something about you suggested that."
"Uh-huh."
Alter-Tessie forked over the money and Tessie left without a backwards look. In the street, she counted the money. Twelve dollars even. Sheesh, she thought. Her other self hadn't even bothered to tip.
Hiking her thumb in the air, she waited to be picked up and promised herself that she would never listen to her parents again.
So Tessie, rebel-by-predestination and hell-bent on doing everything "not safe for a girl," went into pizza delivery. And just for good measure, she tattooed both her arms to the shoulder, donned a leather mini-skirt, and delivered pizzas while hitchhiking. Trans-dimensionally.
Mom and Dad wondered when she'd get a real job, settle down with some nice Jewish boy and raise them seven or eight grandchildren. Tessie cruised night clubs and dated the hottest girls this side of the Milky Way. Mom and Dad worried sick. Tessie took precautions, karate, and (at her mother's insistence), her galoshes.
Life was normal.
"Tess! Delivery!" yelled Tom, manager and reigning pain-in-the-ass at Pizza Universe.
Tessie grudgingly put down her iPhone 3000, abandoning for the time being the latest level of Plants vs. Zombies, v. 32. An old one, a classic, but her favorite. The newest version of the game was set on Omicron 7 in the Zetalus galaxy, and she just couldn't reconcile the idea of zinc-based lifeforms coming back as zombies.
"Tess! Step on it!" snapped Tom.
"Okay, okay! Sheesh, I'm right here."
Tom handed her a pizza and an address slip and disappeared into the kitchen. Glancing at the label (pepperoni, small. Can you get any more boring?) and the address (73rd Dimension, east Gray Street), she headed out to the curb to thumb a lift.
A truck driver with purplish skin and a belly that oozed over the waist of his pants picked her up. "Where ya off to?"
She handed him the address, and away they went, he chattering on about whatever came into his head and she mostly just listening in silence.
The driver let her off on the corner of Gray, and she walked down the street to the right house, which was ordinary and colorless—suitable for Gray street, and also for a small pepperoni pizza. She knocked.
She answered the door.
Tessie blinked. It was herself, albeit, the dullest possible version of herself. No tattoos, no miniskirt, just plain brown hair and an oversized tee-shirt.
"H-hi," Tessie stammered.
"Twelve dollars?" asked alter-Tessie. She didn't even seem to recognize herself.
"Uh, yeah."
Alter-Tessie counted out the money and handed it over. In the background, a male voice yelled something.
Must be the nice Jewish boy, Tessie thought. Aloud, surprising even herself, she said, "Your parents must be so proud of you."
"Excuse me?" Alter-Tessie lifted her eyebrows. "Yes, for your information, they are."
Tessie raised her hands defensively. "Sorry, sorry. I just…uh…something about you suggested that."
"Uh-huh."
Alter-Tessie forked over the money and Tessie left without a backwards look. In the street, she counted the money. Twelve dollars even. Sheesh, she thought. Her other self hadn't even bothered to tip.
Hiking her thumb in the air, she waited to be picked up and promised herself that she would never listen to her parents again.
Literature
Bullets, Flowers, Leaves
I have drawers for bullets
and flowers
and leaves.
The rain sometimes comes
more sometimes than other
times.
The sun sneaks out and splatters
waves on the wall; trees in the wind.
Bullets, flowers, leaves.
The world here is made of rocks
ground down some
and some leave me to wonder
about the works
of simple men
that do so little,
not even as much as the rocks.
Bullets, flowers, leaves.
Spring in Winter
Winter in Summer
and Fall never,
with the sea angry at your elbow
and the people the people the people
who drive the roads back and forth
howling the pavement to
the next whatever
that cannot ever arrive.
Bullets,
Flowers and
Leaves.
Literature
Bottle of Blues
“Where’s Elliot? He promised he’d keep teaching me how to shoot,” Ellen ambushes the pilot while he pours coffee.
Jack takes one look at her and wants to run away. She’s a small girl who loves caring for plants, riddling objects with bullet holes, and doing paper mache’. Getting spaced isn’t as scary as Ellen.
“You haven’t figured out how to point the gun and pull the squeezy thing yet?” Jack snorts, rolling his eyes.
“He’s the only one on this ship who can shoot things and not miss 90% of the time,” Ellen snaps. “So go suck a carbine. Have you seen him?”
Literature
jillian
she's eight.
the girl never stops moving,
climbing the tarnished metal
of the jungle gym
wildly, limbs swinging,
eyes alight
with a childhood joy
I shed when I passed
the port of twelve,
thirteen.
she is knotted curls,
long silken hair
with infant-blond ends.
her fingers grab
her doll with the frizzy hair
and painted face,
and she's eager to win
hide-and-seek,
checkers,
Mario Kart.
I am old enough
to recognize
that she will not last this way,
that she will grow,
as all children do.
every time I see her,
she grows a little taller.
she no longer likes Dora,
I've learned,
and I guess she thinks
blowing bubbles
is too babyish now.
one
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