lessons

J23 had yet to settle her tab at the pizzeria two blocks down from her house. She avoided it through a one-block radius, the borders of which grazed the bare-bones outhouse that disguised a stylish shower apparatus, utilized by one Mr. Grango who ran a neighbourhood circus fortnightly. This was fueled by his pension and ambiguous love for children.

Mr. Grango was standing in his camouflaged bathroom when J23 passed by. This made his hands, by reflex, convulse and contract around the nearest tangible material, this being a certain ivy in the family Anacardiaceae, and wrapping it around his penis, as if to staunch the inexplicably expanding perversity. He had found this to be a most effective method of warding.

At the same time, J23 had left her door unlocked, having lost her key at the circus last weekend. Alone, her cellphone shivered. 'Shit, incoming,' it thought and rang.

When J23 returned home, she'd been robbed.