Blinds

The flame from the explosion warmed her skin through the shaking window. Jilly lived in a beautiful suburb. She had a trim little life and enjoyed doing yoga four times a week. She had a deep and inexplicable concern that something had to be done to improve her core. Her house was perfect. Her neighbors could be a little nosy. She had felt the strength of their eyes until she and her husband finally caved and decided to have the lawn reseeded. They had thought the lawn looked just fine but the neighbors were too offended by the crab grass. Luckily the explosion hadn’t injured the innocent new grass. The only real casualties had been Mia and Liliah Henderson, who had been playing by the truck.

Liliah and Mia were sisters and their blondish-white hair shone brightly as they ran around the development. The kids in the Sunny Side development knew Mia to be a bit bossy. Liliah could be vain. Liliah would sometimes look into shiny car windows out of the corner of her eye to sneak a peak of her beautiful blond hair. But now Liliah had no hair.

Jilly Johnson picked up a cup of her organic fair-trade coffee and walked towards her window to have a better look at the carnage across the street.

“Oh my, oh my! What a shame!” Jilly said in practiced sincerity.

“Yes dear? What happened?” Bob Johnson asked, also sounding so very concerned.

“Well Robert. It seems there was another explosion and the Henderson girls were well, exploded.”

“Oh dear, well that really is such a shame.” And as he spoke the word “shame” he said it with dignified inflection, saying it both slowly and loudly.

“It really really is!” She replied. She had wanted to say “It really really is such a shame” But she felt silly not being able to think of  a fresh word to prove her outrage.

Jilly felt a little uncomfortable when Susan Henderson showed up and started wailing so she drew the blinds. As they closed she felt the fabric and smiled a proud smile. She had spent an entire weekend picking out the pattern and it really brought the room together.

“Robert did you RSVP for the Phillips dinner party? I can’t seem to place where the invitation got to.”

“Well the trouble was, it only gave me the option to “Happily Accept” so I had to decline.” Robert said smirking.

“Oh Robert you are so bad.” She smiled flirtatiously. “You know you wouldn’t have gotten your job at the firm if it wasn’t for Howard. We have to go! You know his Bethany drives me crazy with all of her talk about their trips but we have to pay our dues. And they are very nice.”

“I know Jilly, I sent the RSVP out last week. Don’t worry.”

The sirens were beginning to scream on the air as the ambulance arrived. For a second a sickening thought sank into Robert’s stomach. His grass. He walked towards the window and pulled back the blinds. Robert noticed two bodies and shook his head disapprovingly, but once he was assured that his soft new grass was okay, returned to his seat and began to read the morning news on his laptop. His newspaper was halfway up the walkway and he wanted badly to get it. He liked the feeling of importance it gave him while he held it. He felt quite old fashioned. He liked the smell. But the scene outside made him feel uneasy, so he pulled up the news on CNN.com.  

Jilly walked towards her husband. “I just don’t understand these, oh these, these terrorists!” Jilly’s voice quavered with forced passion. This group of terrorists had a name, but the groups were always changing, and who could keep up with all of it?

“Well I don’t either Jilly!” Robert agreed as he scrolled through the news. Jilly smiled softly at his supportive comments. She liked it when he went on CNN. He was so informed.

“And Robert you know I would love to bake Sally Henderson a casserole or something, you know, on account of losing the girls. I’ll even make it gluten free. I know she’s been watching her gluten.  I don’t think I’ll have time to fix her anything this week but next week I’ll make her something really nice. Maybe that quinoa dish we had last week? You liked that didn’t you? And I just know the two of them will be swimming in casseroles this week. I doubt they would even have the freezer space. It’s just that I have to host the book club tomorrow and Clara has her dance recital on Wednesday. But I’ll put something together next week, to be sure. But she forgot.