“Sometimes, I feel like a figment of someone’s imagination." Skittles throws up her hands as she says this, palms upturned above her head.
"Someone's imagination," her therapist repeats in a softer voice. Skittles quirks an eyebrow at her, waiting to see if a real response is coming, then continues.
"I mean, I could be a character in a book."
"Do you feel this way because you have trouble separating reality from fantasy?"
"No, retard," Skittles sneers. "Fucking look at me."
"You look perfectly normal."
"I'm a fucking lesbian midget pimp with a pink mohawk who was raised by dolphins! I've been whoring out men and selling drugs to children all my life. Don't give me that 'you're normal' shit."
Her therapist's lips tighten and she pauses. "You seem angry, Skittles," she says finally. "Is this why you stole the Boy George record?"
"
"And who is Snickers?" the therapist's voice is sweet and non-threatening. "Is Snickers real, Skittles?"
"You just had a session with him! He's the man wearing the pink miniskirt."
"Oh, the transvestite." The therapist tilts her head to the left. "Right."
"He stole the record," Skittles prompts.
"He stole it."
"Now we talk about me."
"Right." Again, the therapist pauses. "Got any hobbies?" she asks.
"I'm a pimp."
"Hmm." when the therapist says that, she sounds cartoonish and young, like a kindergarten teacher. "How about writing? You could write a book!"
This is the final straw for Skittles. She stands on her chair, so she comes almost eye to eye with the therapist.
"I. HATE. WRITERS." she screams. "HATE THEM!"
"Why?" the therapist has returned to her luminous office voice.
"Because they're sick!" Skittles jumps up and down on the chair frantically as she speaks. "They have issues! They just make up these fucked up characters and make them go through crap at will! People who write have inferiority complexes. People who write want to be God."
"I don't think that's true at all," says the therapist. "I think writing helps people get out their feelings."
"Their sick, fucked up, morbid, want-to-be-god feelings!"
"Skittles," the therapist asks softly. "Do you feel like God hates you?"
"Do you have a fucking sheet of questions you're supposed to ask?" the midget sneers. "No, I don't think God fucking hates me."
The therapist does not have a sheet of questions. In fact, the therapist, whose name is Hershey, often spends long nights awake herself, wondering if God hates her. She started thinking this around the time her husband left her for his secretary, Jack, who also happened to be a hermaphrodite. She likes to envision herself as tormented, when in reality, she is just slightly retarded.
"Baby," was the last thing her husband said as he walked out the door. "Baby, boobs AND a penis! Jack has everything! You have to understand!"
"I do," she said, and she thought she did. She thought God hated her.
She also thought God hated her when her daughter Jenny ran away from home with her boyfriend. From the rumors around town, she's heard Jenny changed her name to Silverfang Ravenwolf and joined a cult. Jenny refuses to speak Hershey's name, but insists on complaining about her constantly, which takes a lot of talent. Sometimes Jenny makes voodoo dolls of Hershey and puts curses on them, but the curses don't work because her energy level isn't right and she was born under the moonsign. This is what her boyfriend says. The real reason the curses don't work is because Jenny is in a crackpot cult.
Therefore, God hates Hershey.
Skittles thinks of the matter differently. She thinks God just has way too much time on his hands. She thinks God is a bored little man with weird fetishes.
To put it simply, she thinks God is a writer.
