Rotten Tommy

by David Sodergren

The webpage loaded, blighted by adverts and pop-ups. He closed them with quivering fingers, and the privacy statement appeared, asking if he accepted cookies. Yes, I fucking accept them, he wanted to scream.

“No, no!” he begged, as the man started up the stairs, using John’s genitals like a suitcase handle.

She had given him one last chance to explain himself, and the bastard didn’t even have the balls to answer.

She had always appreciated a man with a muscular torso. But more than that, she appreciated a man who knew when not to talk.

She knew she wouldn’t get bored. It was a dream of hers. Not just to live in the most perfectly designed buildings on the planet, but to be free of people. Alone, with no one to bother her.

Women are taught from childhood to blend in. To smile and listen and not make a fuss about anything, or else we’re seen as hard work. And whereas boys tend to obsess over things like trains, autistic girls might focus on more socially acceptable pursuits, like horses and ponies, and our games are all about having tea parties and running pretend shops. Basically, acclimatising to adult socialisation.

Becky wondered if death was the best way out. Though she had never seriously contemplated suicide, the idea of it rarely left her mind.

It was simply one more mystery she would never understand in a lifetime of perpetual bafflement.