dire meaningless numbers
The number was twenty thousand. Twenty thousand because she couldn’t make it on her own. Twenty thousand which led to five hundred which led to no more allowances. And none of these numbers even meant anything. She couldn’t smell them or feel them. Or taste them with a quick peck of the tongue as she had with those dollars on occasion. Sometimes the plastic had a smell when it came new in an envelope from yet another bank. But that never smelled like fear. It always smelled like relief. The smell of fear was the smell of nothing at all. It was a bottomless pit or maybe a black hole. Because none of her senses worked here.
















