Mom always said she had eyes in the back of her head.  I always thought she was joking, but still, I never could get away with anything behind her back.  It was uncanny.  She was just really clever, right?  She KNEW me so well she could always tell what I was up to…..right?  WRONG!!

Yesterday she pulled me aside, angry that I tracked mud through her kitchen right behind her back and blamed my little sister for it.  She parted the neat bun of hair and curlers behind her ears to reveal a creepy set of eyes.  Wow! (did NOT see that coming) My knees gave out and I sat down hard in the puddle of mud on the floor.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, I saw a hairy nose there too…but when a bearded mouth opened wide and berated me with the colorful expletives of a drunken sailor at the volume of a drill sergeant on parade…well, let’s just say that I suddenly had more to mop off the floor than a muddy set of footprints.  (True story.)

***Another excerpt from our new book (our 4th book), “A Short Burst”…a collection of short, intense, flash science fiction.  Find (and buy) all our books at www.sallemander.com.   -Marsha