Small Places : Nick L Belardes [68 of 128]

• There's no reasoning with melting brains. Joan has that terrible look in her eyes again.
• She's near complete meltdown--adrenaline implosion. I've only seen this kind of behavior in my psychologically impaired
• ex-girlfriend's Border Collie. Oh, and in my nephew, the freak-out king.
• Both dog and little boy are intelligent. But both are afraid of their own tails, like Joan, when shadows are cast on their dark worlds.
• Set up the perfect conditions, add a few scary 'Boos!' and you have wailing, crying and peeing. That's a complete meltdown. Still with me?
• Joan is freaking about Milt. "Why?" she says. It's written in her eyes. Her questioning his corporate worth. "I dunno," I say. Though I do.
• Twenty-Two.
• I've been off work for a week collecting bugs in jars. I line them on a shelf and wonder which one could be my little corporate cubicle.
• "I'm taking some time off to get to know myself," I told Mulani. She didn't call once. My cell phone looks like a stink bug.
• TV dinners are my escape. It's like I have Alice and Wonderland Syndrome. I shrink to the size of corn and crawl across an aluminum sea.