Museum of the Weird by Amelia Gray Page B

planted wide on the hot sand, your golden hair streaming behind you like a flag of independence.
     
    You have a power, and there is no reason this power should frighten you. Surely you see how Bill looks at you, and the men paving the road and even me over my cheeseburger no lettuce sucking chocolate milk through a straw. We are all drawn to you, but I am the only one who understands that draw, knowing how I started the kiln’s fire myself, long ago. Now, my guts are full of clay and you can dig it out yourself. Open me up and hold the dangerous brick in your hands, feel that awful weight.
     

THIS QUIET COMPLEX
     
    Maria Telesco
     
    Leasing Office
     
    Windy Pointe Apartments
     
    1220 Thorpe Ln.
     
    San Marcos, TX 78666
     
    January 8
    Dear Miss Telesco,
     
    As you well know, I typically prefer to address my complaints to you personally. I look forward to the hours we spend together each week, discussing the maintenance terms of my lease. We are women of respect and empathy, and informal communication is often sufficient. However, I felt that I should address my complaint with you today in the form of a signed letter.
     
    I always look forward to the Windy Pointe Apartments’ Annual Christmas Decoration Contest. You could say it is one of the few reasons I might remain in an apartment complex with a mold infestation. Thank you, by the way, for sending Charles and Marcus to repaint my ceiling. (They told me it was dust but we both know that’s not true, don’t we?)
     
    Creating the beauty of the season is a matter of placing clean, bright lights precisely in place, lining the window with washable fire-resistant faux-nettles, and hanging germ-free antimicrobial cloth garland over the balcony in a way that perfectly accents the blue in the rails. Charles was a dear for sanding them, by the way. I know he did not find any termites but it’s possible the termites escaped, isn’t it? Perhaps the entire rail should be replaced?
     
    Besides the cheer these decorations bring to the hearts of the children of this apartment complex, I have always appreciated the eighty-dollar rent deduction the first place prize always brought. Last year, I used the extra money to purchase a tarpaulin for my living room floor—a once-over with bleach kills the bacteria that falls from the ceiling while I am sleeping at night. This year has been tough, and I was hoping to be able to afford another set of acid-free storage bags for my summer clothes.
     
    Obviously, you cannot imagine my shock and disappointment when Sandra McCloskey in Apartment 3-B won first prize.
     
    Sandra McCloskey placed a tree on her balcony, a real tree that affects my real pine allergies. She “decorated” the tree with strings of popcorn, which attract birds that sit on her unwashed balcony ledge—birds that proceed to defecate, I can only assume, on her balcony rail. Additionally, Sandra McCloskey (I think we can speculate that she is not a Christian woman) invested in one hundred blue icicle lights, which she did not consider cleaning before nailing them at unevenly spaced intervals to her overhang. I saw her take those lights directly from the box and hang them. I watched her do this.
     
    Miss Telesco, this loss is not a matter of pride for me—at this point, it is a matter of my health and safety. Though my contest entry perfectly blended the purity of artistic expression with the sanctity of an antimicrobial environment, I can understand your position as impartial judge, perhaps wishing to reach out to the younger, pine-loving crowd that has so recently flooded into our quiet home. However, I think it would not be beyond your power to ask Sandra McCloskey to remove her “decorations” at the earliest possible convenience. She’s had her fun, she’s won her prize. Let her spend the money on tainted meat and ineffective coconut-scented soaps. All I ask is that, in future competitions, you not allow her menace to continue before the eyes of the