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  • We put scoops of ice cream in the refrigerator, I don't know why. Mint chocolate chip, the bright green kind. We knew it would make a mess but we planned to have dealt with it by the time she came downstairs. There she was, though, and we had to move fast and sneaky. I wiped up handfuls of green glop in paper towels while the other girl distracted her. "Can I make the ice cubes this morning, Mama?" The lady didn't think so. "Honey, I just don't think we can trust you. Jessie does a much better job of it. You have to use filtered water, you know. It's very tricky."

  • Shopping, no matter where I was headed I ended up in the men's shoe department where all the clerks glared at me.

  • Walked into the living room to find my parents lying around on the carpet naked. My mother was upset and shrieked, "Why did you come out here?" Well, I didn't know you were going to be naked, did I?

  • In the land where perspective didn't matter there was a man after us. We slunk low in the bushes and he went away for a few minutes but would always be back. Could he smell us? or was our world so limited there was nowhere else for him to look? Either way, when he left, we still had the machines to deal with, and the grid of movement was breaking down, which led to bad and unpredictable things like random boxcars jumping the tracks and coming straight for me. The man I was with tried to jump in its path but was too slow. It didn't matter, because the perspective shift meant the boxcar was only about as tall as I was, and it was made out of a soft, crumple-able metal. It was like being knocked down by a Saint Bernard. Not too painful, certainly not life-threatening, but I was getting pretty bruised. I knew the helicopters couldn't kill me either, but they kept diving for me and I was getting paranoid. Why me?