they crowned Miss Fortune, year unknown. The whole pageantry was born to fail. But it would die a planned and perfect death. Lots of young girls crying. Lots of false smiles turning real and upside down. Right up on the stage for all to see. A real corporate-sponsored mess. That's what they say happens when you let them take your heart. Or did you package it up, and give it to them? No I would never accuse you of that, no more than I might casually ask you over coffee,
do you like bestiality? No, some things should no more be thrown out for public consumption than road kills, however fresh. No matter if the killer was your new Dodge Charger, freshly detailed. Not even if your buying lunch, or you somehow got it expensed off somebody's corporate card or your own. Not even! Not even by text message. No. Not even laundered through social media. Perhaps, and only unlikely, with God's will, through instagram: offensive images attached.
the watchers, the witnesses, half of them for rent on that very evening (whichever one it was), often found the edge where light and shadow spar. Out on the edge where lines got real sharp, in bitter contrast. They weren't surprised. Half of them were convinced they had orchestrated the movement, from the rows of seats around our giant battle cage half- full of feathers. They would take anything on. But we knew. Somewhere behind our shrimp cocktails, beneath our anchovy wafers, over the steam rising off our bavarian sausages rolled in bacon blankets and impaled on wooden picks, we carried this honest truth. No, it did not sit well. The load was unbalanced all the time, spilling over like our martinis those days. Whatever days those were. No one would remember because everyone was invested in forgetting everything. The privilege the others were born under left the watchers, the witnesses, half of them for rent, there on the ledge.
