Johnny America

 

The Day Af­ter Doris & Janet­te’s End of the World Party

by

At least Grand­ma’s lam­p’s still in one piece, Doris told her­self. She stood akim­bo in the cen­ter of the liv­ing room, sur­vey­ing the ru­ins spread over the car­pet. Her sis­ter Janette was lay­ing naked on the de­van, hic­couhing and fir­ing smoke rings in­to the traver­tine fire place.

“Who’s that?” mouthed Doris, nod­ding to­ward the boy fondling her sis­ter’s knee. Janette gazed at the crew-cut blond, cu­ri­ous. Any mem­o­ries she might have re­called had been swal­lowed by the tequi­la worm still idling in her brain.

“Dun­no,” she said, turn­ing to face her stranger, “Who are you?” The boy smirked and slipped his hand be­tween her thighs. She let out an­oth­er hic­cough, then, “ap­par­ent­ly he is a very good friend.”

Doris bull­dozed to a win­dow through the waste­land of bot­tles. She plant­ed her el­bows on the sill and gazed for a long while at the cloud peak­ing over the hori­zon, won­der­ing if it was ra­dioac­tive. She closed her eyes and the thought of ice cream brought goosepim­ples to her skin.

Filed under Fiction on July 28th, 2005

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ice cream’ll do that. it’s versatile.

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