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Show up the stairs. | buried my head in my pillow and cried myself to sleep. All | knew was that hairbrush scared me more than her yelling did. | looked around the park and watched the leaves scatter as the wind blew them. | looked back down at the letter and thought of the time | remember well when she was standing at the bathroom mirror putting on her make-up one day. As she dipped the brush down into the round | red tube, | picked up an elastic band. just stood there watching her stroke each eyelash with the applicator when finally | aimed and let go. It flipped her right in the eye she was putting the make-up on. She dropped the tube in the sink and covered her eye with her hand as she screamed, “OW - - - - my eyel You little ass! She started crying as she went ni the kitchen to Mom, swearing all the way. “Mom,'"' she cried. “Kathy just flipped me in the eye with an elastic band!” “Momma,’’ | blurted out to protect myself, ‘Joan just called me a naughty word.” Mom looked at the two of us and then put her hand over her forehead. Finally she screamed out, ‘You two are always fighting and tattling on each other. Kathy you stop hurting your sister and Joan, you stop that swearing. You hear or I'll lock you two in a room and let you kill each other.’ She went in her bedroom and slammed the door shut. Now, | sit here swinging and thinking about when | was little. | reread the part where she wrote, ‘I’m glad that we can be friends, more than just sisters. When you were little, | think | was very jealous of you. | was always the baby until you came along, which | am _ very ping with her one day to buy some material. We went over to her apartment afterwards and started sewing. We both wore the same size so we had fun trying on each other's clothes and sewing for each other. | really got to know what a wonderful person she was and we became very close. Then she had to move away, so far away that the closest thing we have now is our letters to each other. | never knew how much | love and miss someone until they were separated from me. | folded the letter back up and put it back in my pocket. | got up out of the swing and stretched my legs. | had a lot of things | wanted to write and tell Joan so | walked back down the cluttered sidewalk towards home. WINO Ina dirty alley he lies face down, Red eyed he stares From Watching Tear between a cat jump from stained face, two bottles a can to the ground. he cries in self-pity. Le tries to sit up, but his brain bis body is knotted, Lis head spins around; each, motion battered, starts to burst. is stressed, his throat burns with thirst. Lis muscles let go and he falls compressed. Ll. A\nd endures the bles the depair, with hands clasped tight the coh in pain and fear, he prays And pleads with God for his gnarled soul. Le waits for the morning, the first glimpse of day, SKI BUM Then staggers From A\cross A\top street to ‘dante. past parked the nearest cars, bar. a Snow-capped bide the the alley stuns The powder At last! in Maxine mountain skiers silence, explodes as Le ana Stowell then, carves his turns, MASK Scott Hadley The wind started, thankful for now." blowing harder in the park but | just sat there in that swing, feeling guilty for the way | treated her in the past. We started to be real friends after Joan got married. | remember she would come home and we would do things together. She started treating me like an adult, a person of her own kind. | thought of the time she took me shop- The actor Le worked, The was tired; his never thinking brow gleamed a line hed silence was his, and with bowed with forget sweat. ag head he wept. Gaye Thomas 17 Ore erg Sr ee |