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Flouride could be the cause of the baby’s dark fingertips. It’s not frostbite. When you push on her nails, blood shows through. Her molars are erupting. They’re going to fall out. I don’t see the point. Musette knew that it was in the toothpaste. She’d told me when she’d bought it. The tube has got a couple of Disney characters on it. Fluoride reshapes a brain. It’s not for kids under six. It says right on the bottle. It sits in the pituitary gland. The doctor didn’t even want to talk about it. There was no way in his mind that a baby could have fluoride toothpaste. It’s easy to get though. Over the counter. People are still debating the issue. A lot of test subjects were also subjected to lead poisoning. The people lived in Chinese squalor. They were down a couple of IQ points from the rest of the population. The doctor’s office provides a fluoride treatment every three to six months, so how bad can it really be? Sure, she’s young, my daughter, I get that. The treatment is also completely voluntary. This matter has a lot of similarities to the anti-vaccine one. Where do you stand? and where will you stand in ten years? I know that I’m standing here wishing that we hadn’t given her the treatment on top of the toothpaste. Maybe we’d be more in the acceptable levels. I don’t just get to keep having only good things happen to me. The Lord’s Privilege. George R. R. Martin, standing there, weeping over his laptop, unable to swing the sword. Killing everyone around me instead. The Babadook. The pea size glob on the brush. More than I should be using no matter what. And I’m the one always putting her to bed because I’m the one who goes to work. I am only allowed such a small amount of time with her. I’m a convict. Divorced. An hour and a half at night. Baby steps. Part of a Jazz game. Part of the problem. A big part. But it’s cathartic, laying the blame on Musette.

They put it in the water. Sediment in your blood. All routes lead to the pituitary. Rattling like a maraca. Throwing little walls in front of your thoughts. It hurts to think. You want to shoot yourself. You’re leaning over your computer, weeping. The faces of your darlings. You have to kill them. You must become the annihilator.

The mark of Cain alights. Your true purpose. The gold beneath the words. Raise Hell, young bibles. Claw the crap out. Your obsessive compulsive mind must wipe every surface. The sound drives you crazy, screeching on the tracks. You put it there. You are the parent. You are careless and cruel. Negligent. A melting down perfectionist. Driven by demons. Stuffing everything down. Being buried alive. Increasing pressure and exploding.

A person must reveal themselves. Have you ever tried drowning yourself? It seems more pleasant than a bullet or a rope or pills or an oven. It’s just really hard to do. The warm bathtub. Why does it have to be somewhere else? Some other way? A stroke bubbling and busting, running over. Warm iron circuit slurping. Droopy eye. Bridges burning right in front of you. I just want to hold my breath and keep on holding it, but I can’t. I have to bust out. I have to go out the door and get my body and soul crushed, coming free for one brilliant moment before I’m more solidly entombed, with a bunch of diseased wackos looking to do to me what I did to my family with weapons sheathed in sick asses and forged by an incompetent smith in the most deprived of forges. Forcing me to huff battery dust. Putting their dicks in my mouth. Rubbing their assholes in my eyes. The worst of the worst. Hell on Earth.