THE DAILY ASSIGNATION: Day 26 "The Bystander"

Too many hours. Too many hours. Too, too many -- She's got something itching in her, it crawls up her back. Discreetly, she tries to get at it. When at home she take a hairbrush to it, for it's gone too close to the center of her back, on the valley of the spine, where she cant reach. -- Jamie finds some asscme, this bothers him. It's too young to pop, to young to take out of this world. Apparently. He hopes that no one will notice tonight. -- Too many hours spent sleeping -- Bobbi stares at himself in the mirror. Looking at his face: nothing. His eyes are too blue, so bright. As he stares he expects them to move without his doing. -- She cant get it to stay away. It always come back. -- A thousand faces. Why even describe a character? Over time, their image will alter deform shift as the reader's mind forgets what it was you said about their skin, its color texture freckles, about the way their hair falls. Over time the character becomes a projection of whomever the character reminds them of. Or who they want the character to be more like. -- A woman in her 50s stops a robbery. It enlivens her thereafter. And she daydreams of taking things into her own hands. -- The inch isnt even there and she scratches. Almost religiously. Her nails scrap across the flesh where nothing is irritating it. She's reminded of lovers' caresses when she does, specifically those fucking bastards who destroy her, did that to her, took what they did. Left her, like this. She drew blood, once, from her scratching. -- They can tell, they can see it, they can hear it, they can smell it. No dont be silly, they dont notice it, it isnt that noticeable. They know. -- Bobbi's hand runs over his genitals. And she winces grimace makes-a-face, he leaves, leaving on the fan but not the light. Getting dress in the dark, he hums a song from his past, distant, like a hymn you only sing when you've got no songs left in your repertoire. -- They knew, they notice, they whisper of it. -- She'll stop her scratching when the itching's gone. -- 'Im going to look good tonight,' Bobbi mumbles in the near-dark. -- Too many hours. Too many hours sleeping. Too many hours working. Too many hours spent on what should only have taken a few. Too many hours. Too, too many hours.