“I’ve lost control of my bodily functions,”
she said on the phone.
Go with it, I replied.
“… and I’m bleeding from every pore.”
Maybe a personal day?
It always had a calming effect.
“Why are they taking
the headlines from my belly?”
A slow news cycle — what’s above the fold?
“Child, 3, only survivor of head-on.
It comes out like ticker tape:
tic tic tic from my belly button.”
Is there another button somewhere? Cancel? Esc?
“Rabbit problem on council agenda”
“DA to investigate party chairman”
“Juvenile held in prom shooting”
“Transit project overruns likely”
We could have seen that coming, I nodded.
“I’m scared! I’m sure I’m dying.”
Anything on the obit page?
“I can’t find that. For some reason
I think they put it in the Life section.”
There you go. Nothing to worry about.
“You’re such a comfort,” she said.
Too bleak and beautiful 