She wore her sadness comfortably, like a well-worn pair of jeans on the verge of bursting and tattering. Everyone around her could sense the danger of embarrassing exposure with a precise mishap of unstitching, but not her, not Sheila Donoghue. In the last month alone, she had been heard saying to at least a hundred different people, “I’m bulletproof, bitches.”

If there weren’t so many corpses strewn about, it might have been the aftermath of the most excellent party. Instead of scattered red Solo cups™, a mixture of fresh red blood and dried brown stained the floors. The stink of recent death was profound. She was in her element, which is to say, she may have been responsible for this carnage. She wobbled her way through the mess holding the side of her stomach.

She was having severe abdominal pains. This is what happens when your health insurance quits covering Stelara™, the leading medication for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and supplies you with a generic medicine still in its experimental stage with severe side effects. The origin of her arthritic pain in her wrists came from excessive jazz hands. It’s a thing.

She was feeling faint, another side effect. She burped and farted simultaneously, not a side effect, but a result of a garlic heavy veggie pizza from Papa John’s™. At first, she felt great remorse, but this was quickly followed by the need to write a letter to her senator about her deteriorating health care.

Faint