INTERVIEWS
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They´re trying something new. All safe behind the glass they watch me make lunch. I set the microwave on high. Twenty five seconds. Not long, but what if I were facing a firing squad. Would those seconds fly? Would I cry out or would I bite my tongue?

It looks like a chilly day for here in August, cool and damp. I pretend I can see it clearly through the mesh as I eat my hot dog. It´s not so bad now since they decided to try this new thing. Before that it was the ward with green walls and striped floors. The left side stripe was for showers, the right for meals. Follow the stripe, stay in line. Keep your head down and your hands to yourself.

There´s a hotel in Belize with the walls that same shade of green. I don´t remember her face. Just her eyes, wide and murky like those walls. She had a little velvet purse with a gold clasp that broke when I opened it. There was something wrong with her neck. I might have tried to fix it before I left, I can´t recall.

I try to cooperate, to keep working on the clutter, but it´s like sifting static in a storm. They think this has something to do with the migraines. In hushed voices they refer to me as Dr. Verde. I can hear the ticks of someone tapping a pen against glass.

I know how to get outside if I want to. Not very far, just on the ledge. I´m careful to shut the drapes and leave the bedroom window open. I like it there.

The alley below is very old, a lair for scavengers. Their music rises pale and wet, smooth as fog. I can smell the ocean underneath the oily fumes, watch the night things dance. Long and tall their shadows rise almost to my ledge. I can pull their darkness over me as a veil. When I remember this I turn to the omniscient firing squad. There is blood on my tongue.








Marge Ballif Simon freelances as a writer-poet-illustrator for genre and mainstream publications such as Nebula Awards 32, Strange Horizons, Flashquake, Space & Time, Dreams & Nightmares, FlashMeMagazine, EOTU, and Tales of the Unanticipated. She has illustrated three Stoker award collections. Her illustrated poetry collection, Artist of Antithesis, was a Stoker finalist in 2004. Marge is former president of the Small Press Writers/Artists Organization and the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She currently serves as editor of Star*Line. Additional information is available on her website: http://hometown.aol.com/margsimon
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