Cackle

by Rachel Harrison

I need this friendship to work, mostly because she’s warm and fun and funny and I love her, but also, I need to know what products she uses. Probably La Mer.

I’d rather go back to the days of sending ravens. Surprisingly reliable.”

“In my day, royals killed one another,” she says. “Now they stand around and get divorced!”

I should let my hair gnarl together. Form a giant nestlike mass on top of my head. I could keep things in there. Credit cards. Snacks.

I should develop a smell so terrible that no one will ever come near me. Create a force field of stink.

I’m not brave enough to be who I am.

I always thought I was an exceptional judge of character. That I could see people for who they really are deep down. But isn’t that the kind of arrogant thinking that gets people called to the witness stand? Ted Bundy had a wife, didn’t he? Oh, God. Would I have married Ted Bundy?

I open my mouth to speak words of affirmation like You can do this! or something along those lines, but what comes out is “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

Pascal pulls a classic Pascal move and does absolutely nothing.

freaking Pascal.

Plus, she’s over four hundred years old. I need friends my own age.”