I wrote this in about ten minutes yesterday morning. Being creative is a refreshing way to start a day. So today I figured, what the hell, I'll post it on my blog. ;-)
The Mercurial DanaLee
A Story
By Nik Barnabee
I don't want to, she said silently in her head.
"I don't want to," she whispered aloud.
"I don't want to!" she shouted, amazingly loud for such a wee thing; shouted for all to hear. For the neighbors up and down the street who'd chosen this lovely spring day to open their windows and let in the fresh air; for the workers in hard hats, up on the girders of that new office building under construction three blocks away; for God him- or herself up in the heavens.
"Well, sheesh, DanaLee, nobody said you had to. In fact, no one even asked you to go. You're not even invited. Really. You're not coming!" insisted her older sister (she of the tweezed eyebrows, the appropriately-small-but-enhanced-with-wads-of-tissues boobs, the I'm-in-middle-school-now-so-you're-beneath-me attitude).
DanaLee's eyebrows wiggled upward. Her lip quivered.
"Why nottttttttt?!"
Only a preschooler could stretch out a whine-alicious, angsty, chalk-screeching-on-a-blackboard tone with such precision.
The sisters' childless aunt, at the kitchen table having coffee with their mom, smiled as she thought to herself, "Thank god for birth control."