"Ogling Ophelia," "Ivy League," And "The Zester": Three New Drabbles

"OGLING OPHELIA"

I popped my brother on the back of the head for the third time today.

"I told you to stop that!" I scolded.

"Ain't causin' nobody no harm," he argued.

"That don't matter, it ain't right," I said.

"Looks ALL right to me," he grinned.

"That don't give you the right to gawk -- it's rude!"

"Ain't no harm in lookin'," he replied.

"Easy for you to say," I said. "Ain't you who's bein' stared at."

"Ophelia knows I'm lookin' -- she likes it," he answered.

"Says you," I said.

"Says her," he said.

"Yeah, right!"

"Ask her yourself."

"Maybe I will."

"IVY LEAGUE"

When you're born with a name like Ivy League, you have two options: Fulfill your expected potential and become a genius who succeeds at everything in life, or become a continual disappointment to your parents and everyone else you know. Ivy League was the latter. No, Ivy hadn't given up on her dreams -- she'd just never had any big dreams to begin with. Ivy was content with being average; it was, in fact, all she'd ever known. It's no wonder that when she finally had the chance to better herself, when opportunity finally knocked, Ivy was taking a nap.

"THE ZESTER"

I was reading this book of true crime stories the other day, and I came to this one particularly disturbing chapter that I thought you might find interesting. It was about a serial killer who called himself The Zester. He earned this seemingly benign moniker due to the gruesome way in which he took his victims' lives. Apparently, he rendered each victim unconscious by striking them with a burlap sack filled with bars of Zest soap, then he proceeded to use a lemon zester to peel off every square inch of their flesh. They slowly, painfully bled to death. Disgusting!!!