the modern Sylvia Plath (a vignette)
Is silence truly peaceful? she wonders, staring out a tiny window in her tiny apartment. All her windows are always closed; there's heavy smoke in the world outside. There's also pain and rain. All her lights are off, too, and she doesn't really know why. Maybe she prefers the dark ambience, maybe she forgot to turn them on, or maybe she's actually Batman. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there is the shrill whistle of a pressure cooker. Funny -- she doesn't own one of those. She's been thinking about getting one for a long time, but she never does. She doesn't really know why. Besides, her mind is too steeped in rancor for the same noise to also be pervading her home. She turns back to the blue-tinted screen in front of her and sighs, paralyzed by the weight of all 1.5 kilograms of high-speed processor and liquid-crystal display. She suddenly notices a set of dull, hollow, faceless eyes staring back at her and wonders for a moment if she's in the mi...