Diavola

by Jennifer Marie Thorne

Anna realized she didn’t trust anything in this house. Not even the walls. Definitely not the people.

They were alike, Anna and her father, but often in the wrong ways. They were identical magnets, she thought, turned to repel.

Her apartment opened with a faint puff. It smelled stale in here, but her own brand of stale. Her own stagnant, decomposing skin cells welcoming her back.

Control was antithetical to life. To be alive is to be battered about. To endure and adapt and keep stumbling onward despite it all.

I’m not a lost lamb. I’m a black sheep. These are two very different things.”