Linor Goralik

...all abouch swallowed tears. Shat's not ecshactly you, right?..

...mouth, swallowed, and frowned - with fear rather than pain. She softly pushed him aside, and he moved left, opened his mouth again, and stared at the mirror with one eye. Suddenly, she said with her lips all bubbly and lispy:
- Don'ch worry. Shroat cancher is...

Every morning, for three days now, standing in front of a mirror with his mouth widely gapped, he thought the only missing thing here was a beard - a short, prickly grey beard his father had, a stoma sticking out of it. The pain in his throat was worse on the right side; he shut his...

...well, knew this for sure. That night, Marianna gave Andy two shots, and Andy felt pretty upset, but he told Andy they did well on that test, and soon, very soon, they would never see Marianna ever again.

...them, left the big room, and stood in the corridor for a while, sweating and breathing, imagining he had four huge, huge, huge feet, four huge, heavy feet, but nobody saw that, because nobody could see inside his head, especially through the wall, he knew this very...

...said this was not that kind of test, and he felt that his brain was starting to wiggle-waggle and said they shouldn't have asked him a question if they didn't know the right answer. Then, a large man who looked like a rhino told him he could go, and he turned his Andy to...

...decided to tell them the truth and said he would like to be a rhino. They asked why, and he stared at them for a while, thinking it was another test, and finally said: "Because he can stomp anyone." They wrote something down, and he asked whether his answer was correct and they...

...the ass, but Marianna was the only one who called him "Andy" and he always smiled, for he decided a long time ago that "Andy" was the name of his wiggling-waggling ass, - "Hi, Andy! Don't wiggle-waggle, Andy! You look very fresh today, Andy!.."). Finally, he...

He thought he did well on this test, except when he had to tell them what or whom he would like to be if he wasn't Andrew. He had to think and thought for so long that they started to wiggle-waggle ("Don't wiggle-waggle, Andy!" - that's what Marianna would say every time she gave him a shot in...

...even hear Ilana say she was excommunicated from now on, - but even if she did, it wouldn't matter, for she didn't know this word yet.

And while she was lying there, gripping her kicked stomach, her face covered with red candle wax, she kept looking at the ladybird lying on her back, trying to turn around, and the spectacle slowly captured her so that she didn't...

- Of course not, doctor, - he said calmly. - Nobody kills themselves because their dog died. Don't you think I realize that?

Since then, he was really afraid he would end up alone in heaven, whatever he did next.

That day her father said he always knew she would be a special girl with a special destiny. A great thinker, - that's what he said, - a great thinker. And she thought and thought and thought until the low, endless buzz of the "iron lung" made her sleepy, and then she would wake up and think again.

...pathos. There was a box with a medal in the sergeant's breast pocket, and when this short, prim man bent forward to pin it to the lapel of his pajamas, he threw up right on the top of the sergeant's head.

His appetite has returned. It was a bad sign, a sign of getting better. The nurses started smiling at him differently. He began thinking of extreme measures, but all of them were too radical - thus, too obvious. Then, on Sunday, his sergeant came to visit - no smiles but full of cheap...

...sound of one dice accidentally hitting another. But this man's hair was bushy and coarse, and when the dice hit the desk, they sounded as if some greedy skeleton in hell was eagerly rubbing his hands together.

Actually, he played backgammon since he was five - he remembered his father's fair, receding hairline with tiny sweat drops along the soft roots and the woody smell of the huge, heavy desk he was pulling from the top of his parents' bedroom closet every Saturday morning, and the dry...

...whether he was safe and going all, "Let me ask you why you feel like this and that," and talking about unhealthy relationship patterns. And Suddenly, he felt like he was on the brink of something safe, solid, something he pursued for such a long time, something real.

He asked Claude how to gain respect from a person you hate, and the AI started its reply with, "I understand wanting to maintain a professional dynamic despite personal feelings." "No, - he said, - "it's not professional. She bit me on my foot." And the AI became very concerned, worrying...

...whether he was safe and going all, "Let me ask you why you feel like this and that," and talking about unhealthy relationship patterns. And Suddenly, he felt like he was on the brink of something - something safe, solid, something he pursued for such a long time, something real.

Spotty bit him, and he started to respect Spotty. Spotty had never bitten anyone before, but she was getting old and grumpy and difficult, and since Mom began to tie her to her bed, she was biting Mom's fingers whenever Mom fed her, and somehow, it made him see Spotty in a totally new light.

...her finger in her mouth. It hurt a lot, but she knew it could help. It didn't. Finally, she tore the dentures out of her mouth and threw them on the laptop cover. She stared at them for a while, but thank God, they were as still as a fucking piece of resin should be. Oh, thank God, they were.

This time, it was Dancing With Myself. She cut it out, but two minutes later, it was Summer Of Love. Her last molar started to send sharp pangs of pain up her face. She clenched her teeth as hard as she could, but in a moment, it was a turn for Chihiro. Then she put…

...fifty. He looked at her momentarily, contemplating, and said: "It really depends on how silent you and all these people can be".

"I also don't drink on Monday afternoons," - he said after she rolled him a cigarette. "What's else on the list today?" - she chuckled back at him, not knowing yet whether she wanted this seaside bar conversation to continue and suddenly noticing that he was fifty or something - at least...

...asked suddenly: "In how much pain?" It took him a while to catch up, and when he did, she said solemnly: "You know, if it doesn't scream, I can just close my eyes".

Then they told her falabellas were very fragile, constantly sick, that they died very young, and that she definitely didn't want a pet that would die in pain in a year or two, right? She was very silent for a few days, and then, when Dad was walking her home from the nanny's house, she...

...didn't change either. Silent play, that's what the whole thing looked like - a scene from a silent play - and even the police car was electric.

The police left, and he finally took the first puff after making sure the restaurant's back door was locked for the night. He was still wearing the fucking apron. The woman's face didn't change after the punch; it remained motionless, like the water surface in a dark pond. And the man's face...