Lily

She only rode in elevators. Stairs were too much work. Speaking of, she hated that too. She would wake, yawning, at noon, and then go to bed precisely twelve hours later. She would spend her days lounging listlessly in her bedroom, staring at herself, and curling her toes like a feline tail. Occasionally she would purse her lips, hoping not to see her whiskers in the form of long wrinkles. Lily thought about her eyes, her thighs, and grew quite jealous of the firm and glossy legs of her desk chair, knowing that they would never lose their shape.

She hated weeds, but hated dirt more. Sometimes, when she wasn't looking at herself, she would glance to her garden, and see the ivy growing over her daisies. "Well," she said, "if you squint your eyes hard enough, it all looks the same anyway."

She also loathed spiders. They terrified her. One day she saw one climbing its invisible ladder to the ceiling. Lily would have reached out to snap its silken rope in half, but all of a sudden her petite fingers became bricks, and she didn't have the strength to lift them from her bed. It would be easy, she thought, but I just don't care. Then, her fingers lost their red weight and became long slender piano keys once more. Lily picked up the mirror and began to gaze again.

One day she received a letter in the mail. "Your father has died," it said. The girl read it thrice over before the words took on any weight. And all of a sudden, her hands began to tremble and she could no longer hold the piece of paper, so she threw it away. Walking to the kitchen, she took the dusty keys from the hook, and walked outside.

Lily walked past the garden, past the dirty green ivy choking the roses, and stepped into her car. It didn't start immediately; she hadn't used it in years.

When she finally was on the road, she remembered why that was so. Lily hated traffic, and people (well, people other than her), and especially those who drove convertibles. What narcissists, she thought. In truth, she only hated them because she didn't receive one for her sixteenth birthday.

Lily kept driving, and realized she needed to change lanes. She was behind a convertible. The best way to drive a convertible, she thought, is to not. And if you must see one, drive in front of it so the driver has to smell your fumes. That will teach them. So, she sped past the convertible and looked to her rear view mirror approvingly. And to her horror, she had lines on her face. "No," she said, "whiskers! I have whiskers." She squinted to make them go away. They didn't, they were even worse. They were that hideous spider's legs!

She had enough of driving. She removed her hands from the wheel, and as she was doing so, the convertible behind her slammed into her car, and Lily began her silken ascent into the sky. But the thread snapped. And the girl who hated weeds and dirt landed face first into an overgrown ditch.