A Girl Called Sue

There once was a girl called Sue. She was a measly girl. Skinny, unkempt. She smelled of broccoli on the good days and cauliflower on the bad. Her brother, trumped up in his baggy hoodie, used to ride by on his too-big bike and stuff his vegetables from dinner down her shirt.

She’d tried to run and hide, once. Her side had been discolored for weeks. First a deep blue with tinges of red, almost as if the blood would leak through. Then a duller blue faded to the pale green of overcooked string beans and then the yellow of rotting leaves in Fall set in. The memory of that particular beating faded away just like the bruise.

Sue stank. And she was ugly. Although in a different time and place, and a different home, she would have been considered beautiful. She never tried particularly hard in school, but she was smart.

She would hear a frustrated thump from the console in the other room, when John would bother to come home. She’d mouse her way into the room and look over his shoulder. He’d try whatever it was again and sigh. She’d brush the outside of his arm while reaching for the keyboard. Typically, she’d issue three commands and leave. The console and her, they could speak.

With everyone, and everything, else Sue just never landed quite right.

The first time she’d helped John, he’d been screaming at the top of his lungs at the console. She’d slipped in and he’d thrown a mug and dented the wall. She’d dashed out. Later that night, after he’d gone to bed, she’d returned and played back the history. She’d uploaded his file to The-Fuzzier-The-Friendlier and shut the console back down.

She only ever wanted to help, to fix things. Yet she only made things worse unless it was just her and the console.