It was six o’clock in the morning on Saturday, still dark, and all seven of Sophia’s brothers and sisters were sleeping soundly. But she was awake; there was no chance of her going back to sleep now. Down the stairs she went, on tiptoe, enjoying the silence of the house and pushing thoughts of pre-dawn monsters out of her head.

Sophia was almost always first up. She had curly brown hair, dark eyes, and was almost the youngest, except for Tasia. She liked doing things for herself, so, after looking at a few picture books, she decided to make some breakfast. With three years tucked under her belt, she thought it would be pretty easy. She was wrong.

The first thing she wanted to make was eggs. Sophia loved eggs, especially the way her nanny Mary made them. Not only that, but it was fun to cook eggs, to watch them sizzle and pop.

She opened the fridge and found the egg carton. It was a bit heavier than she expected, but she managed to place it on the floor. (Sophia knew that Mary and Dad and the big kids cooked on the counter and stove, but she was too little to reach) But as she opened the carton and picked out a nice, white egg, she realized she could not remember how it was that Mary did it. She knew that the egg sizzled and popped and the clear part turned white, but she was not quite sure how it happened. After a little consideration, she thought, To make an egg you have to to crack it. I know that.

So Sophia cracked the egg. On the floor, of, course; the counter was much too high. And there was the egg, spilled out on the floor, but it wasn’t sizzling or popping or turning white. The only part that looked at all right was the yolk.

Sophia found another egg. If it didn’t work the first time, maybe it would work the second. She cracked it open, less carefully than the first, and the clear fluid and yellow yolk spilled out. Now, she may have forgotten how to cook good eggs, but she remembered one thing: raw eggs were slimy, and tasted nasty. And she was angry at the nasty raw eggs for not turning into nice cooked eggs like they were supposed to.

Maybe it only works if you crack it on the counter, she thought. This was a frustrating thought, since the counter was so uncomfortably high. She picked out a third egg and looked at it gloomily. Then she had an inspiration; she could throw the egg at the counter. Sophia had never seen Mary throw an egg before, but at this point, she was willing to try anything. Swish went the egg into the air, and crack! it hit the edge of the counter. The raw egg plopped down to the floor.

Sophia watched it carefully for any signs of sizzling or popping or turning white. But the nasty raw egg just sat on the floor, looking more and more not cooked the more she looked at it. Now she was mad, really mad. She picked up the egg carton, three round white eggs left inside, and tipped them out onto the floor.

Crack! Crack! Splat! went them all, and Sophia, her vengeance satiated, decided that if eggs were not going to work, then cereal would have to do. She knew that cereal was easy because even Janae who was six could make it.

It wasn’t difficult to find a box of Honey-Nut Cheerios in the pantry, but the milk was a different matter. Only because it was half-full was Sophia able to drag it out of the fridge onto the floor. Panting and sweating, she sat down, trying to remember how to make cereal. Well, she thought, first you have to pour the cereal. 

So she poured the cereal. The Honey-Nut Cheerios mounded up on the kitchen tiles. Already Sophia had an inkling there was something not quite right, but she had been denied her breakfast too long to care about specifics. Next she poured the milk, which was much more difficult. She ended up just tipping the container over and spilling the milk all over the floor, but some of it spilled into the Cheerios. Which ought to work, Sophia thought.

But it didn’t. There were the Cheerios, scattered on the floor, and there was the milk, running all over the kitchen and filling the cracks between tiles, but still it did not look like how cereal ought to look. And then it dawned on her. A bowl! Of course, that was what she needed. 

But, oh, the unfairness of the world. The bowls were in the high kitchen cupboards, even higher than Mary could reach—Dad altitude. Just my luck, thought Sophia.

But in the end Sophia got her breakfast. Janae and Eric woke up an hour later, and everyone had some waffles. Janae spilled a little syrup on her chair, but no so much, only enough that her waffle got stuck to it. Then they all played Nest, which was gathering all the blankets and pillows into a big pile and then jumping inside.

After a long while, some of the older kids came downstairs. They seemed very, very angry that there were eggs and cereal on the floor. And Dad looked especially tired when he woke up that morning.

But Sophia didn’t really understand why. She had just wanted to make some breakfast.

Note: I remember waking up one morning and finding such a mess in the kitchen that I went back upstairs instead of trying to clean it up. This story is inspired by that day, when Sophia's weekly attempts to make breakfast early on a Saturday mounted to the biggest mess yet. Later on, when she was about eight, Sophia described her “breakfast-making” thought process to me: how she felt as a three-year-old trying to make her own food. I elaborated a bit, but it is all based on what she told me.

Might I allege

that your husband did share my bed

you'll have your vengeance

have no fear, 

the time is ripe for you to strike

I now know your rage has amassed

and it brooks no delay, 

that I do not deny

have leisure to contrive a fitting retribution

yet, let it be clear that in your vengeful endeavor

you’ll not remit iniquities 

of whom you cannot live without

for he besought elopement 

Tri took the train to Tarth to tutor the tutees, two times. They took the training terrifically then told Tee to take them to the temple to talk to Trinity the Tall. There, they talked 'til Twyla touched two taboo tablets, thereby toppling the temple.

- 'Tis terminated

I wish my toes were red. Ruby red, like the ones I imagine in Marlene Dietrich films. Movies seem so long ago, Frida says I shouldn’t remember them, but I do. Little flicks of silver and white funneled into dreams on screen. I used to close my eyes at night, trying not to smell the rotting flesh and I would dream of film. Sahara desserts. Glamourous bars in tropical towns. Dance floors so shiny you could see your face reflected in them, and some handsome man, his hair slicked back, his feet barely touching the floor and whirling me in his arms round and round.

I would fall asleep dizzy, but I would sleep. I don’t think Frida has slept in years. She doesn’t look it.

I try not to think of my own looks. I haven’t been brave enough to step towards a mirror. I know my ribs are protruding and my breath has been foul for months. I’m quite sure two of my teeth are rotting, but at least they didn’t end up in buckets.

We heard stories. Awful stories, about buckets of teeth.

I hope they never make a film about that.

I don’t know why I picture film stars with red nails. It’s a bright red, not a harsh one. Not like blood. I thought about cutting the number off my arm, now that we are out, but I don’t think I could stand the sight of any more blood, at least not my own. Frida says that’s why they put the numbers on our arms in the first place: so if we try to cut them off, we take our own lives doing it and spare them all the trouble.

I worry about Frida.

But I worry more about where we’ll go. Nobody wants us. Strange, how so many wanted to save us, but nobody wants us. Not really. Everywhere we go, we’re turned back.

But as Frida says, it’s not so bad. We’ve seen worse. Friends turned to soot. Friends turned to soap. Oh yes. We both know there are much worse ways to be rejected.

It was an eclipsal revealing

The way the shadows moved in

Trapping life as we knew it

Under its blanket of fog

Like gasping butterflies caught

In a mason jar with no holes

The Truth as we lived it

Was inverted in a flash

I remember standing outside the bar

Watching the people as they hung

From steel boots linked to nothing

Except the inversion bed straps

Like sleeping bats stretching long

It was as though they were waiting

For their spines to straighten out

Or perhaps to find the path --

And as the winter grew warm

The frigid winds welcomed summer

Reality as we had created it

Was all along just a myth

When I wake, the cats are at the door – they want to slip into bed and lie in my warm vacancy. One is black with a teacup on her chest, the other gray as elephant's breath with muted stripes. In the darkness, I fumble against their fur, locating rump, scruff, finally head, and I pet what I can find until they roll over and expose their tummies – a trap. Under the bluing shade of early morning they are furry dead spiders. 

Cats aren't the only parasite squirming in the bedwaters – my wife, snorting like the Union Pacific, snakes her cold fingers and toes toward me, seeking flickers of heat like sausages over a campfire.

Shower. Toothpaste. Size 40 pants instead of last year's 38. An XLT button-down that's starting to hug. The cats follow me to the living room as I pick up a satchel and keys. Jenny lets me pet her back – she has a funny habit of bursting forward when my hand reaches her tail, to circle around for another run. Remy sits on the couch, feet tucked under his chest like a chicken in a coop. I think of saying goodbye to the snoring pile of hair in the other room, but my wife doesn't work until 9. Still, what if I never see her again?

I open the door and step into a world devoid of Julie and Jenny and Remy and the little routines of morning before the light.

"Cat: 

a. A carnivorous mammal (Felis catus) long domesticated as a pet and for catching rats and mice .

b . Any of a family (Felidae) of carnivorous usually solitary and nocturnal mammals (as the domestic cat, lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, cougar, wildcat, lynx, and cheetah)."

That's it?! Presley licked his taupe nose with his pink tongue, the roughness analogous to his mood. What about 'royalty'? What about 'king of all he surveys' (that was how he got his name, after all!)? What about 'god of the world, humans hear me roar'?!

He started bathing himself, his tongue picking off extra tufts of white fur, to later be belched up in a ball. 'Mammal? MAMMAL'?! I am no mere mammal! I am the he above all else, bow before me! Presley growled to himself, discontent with the severely-lacking "definition" of 'cat' that he'd seen in his human's book. We felines are as good as it gets! We are what all other animals, mammal and otherwise, aspire to be! We, the cats of the world, are the apex of existence! He sniffed haughtily. 'Mammal', indeed!

And with that, the apex of existence tiredly laid down for his afternoon cat nap, the better to dream of catching rats and mice.

I had been watching her for a long time as she sat at the bar, sipping her drink, waiting for an attractive man to hit on her. When she didn’t get any immediate takers, she hitched up her skirt almost to the panty line and shifted her shapely ass on the bar stool in a fascinating concentric motion. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her but I knew the smart thing to do would be to bide my time until the moment was right. Sometimes, she would twirl her shiny ebony hair around her finger or flip it back from her face. I figured she was an avid reader of Cosmopolitan, swallowing the nonsense that this was the way to become a magnet for male attention. I watched with fascination as she swirled her drink with a finger and then sucked it into her moist pink mouth, in and out, in and out.

She was beautiful and mesmerizing as she played her little game. I knew if I just waited until she tired, I could make my move. Once in a while, her gaze would shift in my direction and I imagined that she showed a slight interest. I noticed that several men sat on the bar stool beside her and then left when she rejected them. Oh, this was such fun to watch. I realized she was waiting for me. I looked at her soulfully, certain that she would fall for my bait. For my ploy, and it had always worked in the past, was to wait until my target became tired of waiting and came to me.

After several hours of dangling her bait on her hook, she apparently tired of this pursuit and sauntered toward me. The desire for her almost overwhelmed me but she passed by my table without a glance and headed to the restroom. Unable to control myself, I followed her and waited outside the restroom door. As she walked out, she gave a quick look at me and walked right past me. Grabbing her arm, I told her to quit playing her game.

She laughed at me and said, “You’re wasting your time. I’m not turned on by you.” She made the mistake of smirking as she said it and that was the last thing she ever did as I plunged the knife into her belly.

That ought to keep these bitches from always rejecting me! I had the sudden urge to go home and scrub myself clean, once again. Mama always told me to stay away from these dirty, nasty whores and I was positive she would be waiting up for me, with milk and cookies, to hear my latest story.

Elementary School. The house of worship for mothers and fathers. The house of rejection if you were a big-nosed dweeb like me. Where I grew up there were more fields then houses, people living far and few between. I was fortunate enough to live in that small middle class development along with that one other upper class development in the lower parts of town where all of the snotty little brat faces of the world lived. Their father's were teachers, lawyers, or anesthesiologists. Their mother's were bored lonely housewives who worked in retail. They hardly disciplined their children because their children were inherently perfect. And I? Was not.

Getting onto the school bus and walking down the narrow black aisle which always felt sticky under my purple Velcro sneakers felt like walking the green mile. I got head shakes no from the left and head shakes no from the right. This went on and on until the bus driver would yell "just sit down already!" One time, a girl I sat next to, with an esteem higher then deserved, rolled her eyes and licked her Hawaiian juice stained lips before commenting to my peers on how she was sitting next to the "fat girl." Ironically, I was thinner then her. Imagine that.

Gym. Need I say more? Yes, I was the last one picked to be on your team. You would all moan and groan too when I came awkwardly shuffling my feet, head down, towards your hyperactive tawny bodies. If I was feeling feisty that day I would shout "shut up!" to my crush when he would critique my jumping jacks.

When it was my turn to read aloud, my class snickered at how I pronounced my R's. They wrote on my birthday poster that I spoke funny. They pulled me from class to tell me I couldn't read. I was released back into the wild in a week when the teachers stopped listening to the children's plea for my departure.

Yearbook signings. I thought I was safe to ask the nerd to sign my yearbook. Let me tell you, I have never seen a face so disgusted as I did that day!

Aw, yes. Exclusion, and repulsion, had become the gravy to my mashed potatoes. Where I went sure enough so did rejection. My resolution? Be as quite as a mouse. Be as transparent as a ghost. Did it work out for me? I don't know. Here I am writing all by my lonesome on the computer, as quite as a mouse and transparent as a ghost on the topic of rejection. You tell me.