I should be packing, or making phone calls, or something equally important to my impending (and still less than finalized) move, but I'm in a funk. Ergo, I'm typing up this bit of writing I did the other day at work. I have no clue what I'll ever do with it, or if I'll finish it, if that's even likely. Enjoy, if you can.

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There's that girl with the x-ed out fetuses tattooed across her stomach. She wears midriff-baring shirts so everyone can see just how many abortions she's had. Her eyes are completely dead, all the life in them drained out along with the pseudo-children she's had scraped out of her. But the tattoos prove something still flickers behind those eyes, something ghoulish and full of remembrance.
Some peple say she's been raped four times and had four subsequent abortions. Others say she's just a slut with a sick sense of humor. One guy I know admitted after a long night of vodka sours that he wanted to fuck her and get her pregnant just so she'd have another abortion and get the accompanying tattoo. He thought they were hot, those reddish near-human crescents covered by thick black Xs. I haven't talked to that guy since.
I wonder who else wants to fuck the fetus tattoo girl. Who'll be number five. Who'll make her an ace. Maybe there's only one supplier of abortion fodder, in which case he's on his way to becoming an ace too, although of a different kind.
Another rumor is that she has herself artificially insemenated, then waits a while and goes to the scrape doctor, either because she chickens out or likes killing fetuses. I've never seen her look pregnant, and nobody else I know has either.
Now that I think about it, the fetus tattoo girl is the best conversation piece ever. She's the power source of a rumor mill that cranks out speculation and libel about her and only her. Whenever anyone I know sees her on the street or at the bar, they report back to everyone. The girl has to know that everyone talks about her. She must want it. Nobody gets tattoos of their dead embryonic children on their four-time-pregnant belly if they want to be ignored. But she never seems to acknowledge any of the whispers. She just keeps walking, or drinking beer, or whatever, her colorless eyes focused on something others can't see. Or maybe they're not focused on anything at all.
She's very pretty, by the way. Of course, she'd have to be. You knew she would be. Nobody stares at ugly girls' stomachs, tattoos or not, do they. Of course not. But she's not so gorgeous that people's eyes bulge when they see those tattoos. That wouldn't work either. Too beautiful, and people are shocked to learn you have flaws, are anything less than, well, a beautiful person.

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