Invisible Monsters

by Chuck Palahniuk

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Princess Princess, she says, “It will take at least three Darvons to get me into this dress.” She opens her hand, and I shake out the prescription.

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Ellis writes: Your birth is a mistake you’ll spend your whole life trying to correct.

The wedding, the union of Miss Evelyn Cottrell and Mr. Allen Skinner, is tomorrow. At eleven ante meridiem, according to the gold engraving. To be followed by a reception at the bride’s home. To be followed by a house fire. To be followed by a murder. Dress formal.

Brandy, she wears the knock-off Bob Mackie suit with the little peplum skirt and the big, I don’t know, and the thin, narrow I couldn’t care less.

Ellis, he wears a double-breasted, whatever, a suit, a single vent in the back, black. He looks the way you’d imagine yourself dead in a casket if you’re a guy, not a problem for me, since Ellis has outlived his role in my life.

It’s the sweetest of moments when the fire takes control, and you’re no longer responsible for anything.

That’s what I love about fire, how it would kill me as quick as anybody else. How it can’t know I’m its mother.

Go figure, but Texans seem to be a lot more comfortable around disastrous house fires than they are around anal sex.

Waiting for Evie to burn to death, everybody gets a fresh drink and goes to stand in the foyer at the foot of the stairs.

You know how you look at ugly hunchback girls, and they are so lucky. Nobody drags them out at night so they can’t finish their doctorate thesis papers. They don’t get yelled at by fashion photographers if they get infected ingrown bikini hairs. You look at burn victims and think how much time they save not looking in mirrors to check their skin for sun damage. I wanted the everyday reassurance of being mutilated. The way a crippled deformed birth-defected disfigured girl can drive her car with the windows open and not care how the wind makes her hair look, that’s the kind of freedom I was after.