A break in the world of subtleties elicited strong emotions from Lila. She had become adept at reading, estimating and responding to Herald’s moods with him barely even noticing. He quietly acted, and she quietly reacted. An eyelid flutter was enough for her to predict his behavior, and she had become accustomed to life that way. She responded to him exactly how he wanted. It was the Zen of being created in his eyes.
“Today,” Herald said to Lila, “you are not the woman I married.”
It was so direct that Lila knew what was coming next. The only time Herald wasn’t subtle was when he was throwing her against a wall. This pain always made her feel alive. Her blood showed there were still sparks between them.
A break in the world of subtleties. "Shut the fuck up, Roger." Gary has never been good at subteties, especially when he's had a coffee. They both know that Roger's been sleeping with Gary's wife Yvonne for a month now, but they've continued to play at being friends - mostly for the benefit of the midnight bocce ball sessions, which were at stake. But now, instant coffee dilating blood vessels, eyes wide and parched, Gary lets him have it. "Must I return home night after night to wait on the porch while she finishes having her way with you, not going in until I hear you leave out the back way? Must I hold her cold, dead shoulders afterward, not even venom in her heart for me anymore?" Roger says nothing, of course, he's never been a talker. He's always held midnight bocce ball's code of silence close to him. "I know you've been doing her laundry, you little scab! You always smell of bleach and detergent! It's destroying this friendship!"
"Well I'd like have a break in movies with subtitles," Florence said. "What with you making me watch Jap-Westerns, Gook-Horror, and the worst: Sand-Nigger Romance."
Florence was a babysitter who slapped kids in the face with her huge arms, then call the children stuitches -- her abbreviation for stupid bitches. She made the children know the abbreviation everytime she said it. "Stupid bitches! That's what it means!"
She would mute soap operas and blast heavy metal, snort cocaine, then get real abusive. Stanley, one of the kids, liked being singled out by her; those moments when she slapped him on the back of the knees with a ladle, which permemently damaged his tendons. His parents encouraged that if he enjoyed it, he should pursue it. So once a week his aunt would come over with the ladle and give him a routine walloping. The family agreed when a daughter suggested that they use a webcam and broadcast the beatings live on the internet for money.
Florence detested films from other cultures. "They're weak and stupid," she said. "Too much with the hoo-ha."
By Matt B.