Jaws of Emotion

Peggy's back arches across the saw-like top beakrails, full and fresh as a fish on a monger's forearm. Points puncture her skin at the tailbone and shoulder blades. More than gravity feels like it's calling her feet and hair to return to the world she's known till now. Cement and soil are drawing her even more strongly than her own existence has ever created sucking for most others. The strength of the Earth's pull on Peggy in this moment is only comparable to the power of the dark beacon with which she calls her own children, a burning siren of their own suffering, for they know she is gone.

In a pants suit, Peggy now suffers: suddenly swiped from her grounding in the Sears parking lot, stars smear past as if the whole planet spun. We can see a purse, shoes, keys, barrettes and shiny coins raining down hard from the jaws of her perp. Its toes are leathry and Dirty Pink against the blacktop. The claws alone are hooptie size. No one else, however, is present. No screaming crowds bear witness to this spectacular and tragic abduction. Security cameras tilt or hang dizzyingly, dead in their grips. Only the crazy orange unblinking lens of Peg's beholder confirms the scene to God. Chang K. Chang Chank Mall has been shut down for weeks.