"I've thought long and hard about your mother."
NoFace felt something behind her. Not someone, but some thing. "Oh dammit! What now?" She turned around and came face to face with The Light again. This time her mother's face was giving her 'that look'. NoFace shuddered, remembered her dignity and fished the sunglasses out of her pocket. She came prepared, knowing The Light would be back.
"You deserve everything she ever did. You were born and ruined her life. All of the self loathing she ever had was logically piled on you. You destroyed her youth and your powerlessness stained her spotless reputation as a hero. By crying at night you kept her from sleep and deserved her short temper in the morning. For god's sake! She was a grown woman with her whole future ahead of her! You had to be born and ruin it all! And you know what? You have no right to be upset that your sister was born better than you. Your family is full of wonderful people and you are the diseased branch of the family tree! You DARE you poison the family line with your ideas and quest for equality within the family unit? Who the hell do you think you are? You deserved everything you got. All of it!" The Light inched closer to her, and she felt herself get a little nauseous.
"Was there anything else?" NoFace asked. She would have hit The Light by now, but it was light. She doubted her fists, or even her guns, would do any good. She would have walked away, but she knew The Light would follow her no matter where she went. It was best to just let it talk itself out.
"And so I have decided that you should be punished for your poor and perfect mother's sake as well as Rain's. You have wronged so many people. It is destiny that I am here to punish you for such things. No matter where you go I will be here to remind you of what a mistake you and everything you have ever done has been! Finally, justice will come to you!" The Light paused. "Now I have to go. I need to go spread the word about who and what you really are!" With that it zipped off down the grocery store aisle leaving NoFace alone by the tampons and adult diapers.
"Charming." She said to no one in particular. Then she realized that Killjoy was right. The Light was her nemesis, and she wouldn't be surprised if it came back and claimed to be her unholy offspring from a parallel dimension. It would be hard to shock her at that moment.
"Preparation-H-BOMB!" A tube of hemorrhoid cream came sailing over from the next aisle, landing right on top of the 12-pack of coke.
"Okay?" NoFace looked around and Sircuit came down the aisle toward her.
"We're playing a game!" He said.
"Come again? You didn't see that?"
"See what?"
"The Light! It was just here threatening me again! I'm getting really tired of this!" She almost yelled, but Sircuit stood there staring at her and it seemed to calm her down.
"Tired of these totally sweet kissing frog stuffed animals?" Firebird opened up the child seat and put them on the little red plastic bit with care that stopped just before bucking them into the little seat belt.
"No-no. I've got it!" Red appeared next to Firebird ... he had a way of showing up like that. He proudly displayed the latest Kitty-Kat Grrls CD and made it do a little dance before dropping it in the cart next to the Preparation-H.
NoFace took off the sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. "What the fuck is going on here?"
"It's our new game," Firebird nodded sagely. "Load NoFace's cart with embarrassing shit."
"Ah," NoFace returned the nod. "In that case ..." she put the sunglasses back on again and headed for the checkout.
"Hey," Red said. "I saw The Light leaving here just a minute ago. He invited me to a party tonight."
"Me too!" Firebird said.
"I think it mentioned that," Sircuit said.
"It just threatened my life," NoFace said. She decided to throw it out just to see what would happen.
"NoFace," Firebird gave her a look. "The Light is really nice. It's a friend of mine and I know it would never say or do anything like that."
"Yeah," Red agreed. "The Light wouldn't hurt anyone. Don't be so paranoid."
She almost took a swing at the two of them but her Sensitivity Chip flipped on and quickly brought up a memory that shamed her into silence. "Fair enough. I'm sure you're right, are seeing things perfectly clear, and have my best interests in mind." She made it through check-out and didn't even register when the kissing frogs, hemorrhoid cream and pop princess CD were bagged and handed over.
