Pretty as a picture Marlboro girl.

A Story by Tkmilling

Marla in slow motion.

The little boy smiled, and he blew kisses at all the angry faces.

Marla lights a cigarette, swings her feet of the bed and looks around the room. Alone. Bitter. Ageing. A microwave meal for one. She stands up, crosses the room to the table where an open bottle of whiskey stands, and she pours herself a drink. If she could see herself now. Sad and desperate. Pathetic. Remember when Marla was beautiful? Remember when Marla could look you in the eye? But shame shrouds her now. "She's dead man, she's dead" that's right Marla's dead and cold and festering. A degenerate beauty queen, she takes a sip of whiskey and squints in the cool sunlight seeping in through the half open curtains. An eye for an eye? A tooth for a tooth? And the entire world will be toothless and blind, and what a pretty sight she' d be then right?

She blows a line of whitish blue smoke into the air. There are Gods fighting for the glory of men, and men destroying the glory of the gods, and then there is Marla. The ancient sacrifice. An unfortunate product of her dysfunctional upbringing. What did they expect? A kid stuffing kittens into black bin liners, and enjoying the painful screams of her victims. That's not Marla. Marla isn't crazy, regardless of the matted hair and cigarette precariously balancing from her mouth. Christ, its the twenty first century. If you're not crazy or depressed then you aint worth a dime. She laughs at herself. A short, mindless sort of laugh. Marla is a whisper, just an abstract idea, a sort of bad impression of herself.

She lights another cigarette with the dying embers of the previous one and sits back on the hard wood chair. Her feet are bare. She remembers all the smiles of all the strangers, and all their disapproving glances. Is that what she had become? Something to disapprove off? Would she be insane if I told you that Marla once laughed so hard it was manic. She was laughing manically. Not like a maniac, but manically. Then she took a deep breath and touched her chest, right above where her heart should be pumping away, quickly, vigorously, impatiently. But there was no thumping. There was nothing. Not even a beat.

Dead to the core. But being dead only mattered if you ever considered yourself alive. Marla picks at her nail. Long, jagged, half chipped black nail varnish. Is she waiting for something tonight? Darling, she'd been waiting for something her entire life. But perhaps tonight really was the night. Perhaps and perhaps not. She sucks hard on the cigarette. Darling Marla. Pretty as a picture Marlboro girl smoking her Marlboro lights. In the end...it's the end. Nothing profound.

The doorbell rings.