Keyshawna In Dumbdownland 1

A cute little black girl, I would guess somwhere between 9 & 11.

    She’s got a super-adorable tiny little fro-thing going on.

    A gossamer pink dress with white polka dots.

    Let’s say her name is Keyshawna, but I know for a fact she dislikes being labeled.

    Let’s say she dreams of butterfly wings & cotton candy clouds, but never together.

Keyshawna is escorted down the sidewalk with Ma on the end of one hand, Pa on the end of the other; she does a skip-jumping sorta thing where they lift her up & she flies for a little while.

    The flying game always tricks Keyshawna into forgetting all the bad, mean stupid things in her life.

It forces her to smile.    

    Her teeth are crooked, but endearingly so.

Bullets fly this way & that over her head, whizzing past.

    One bullet clips the edge of her ear.

    One bullet strikes a neon sign, sending sparks everywhere.

   

One bullet centers itself above Pa’s nose, sending him limp & rumpled to the ground.

    Another passes thru Ma’s torso, miraculously missing all of her major organs.

    She’ll probably bleed out though, the way this story’s looking.

All of it taking place in slow-motion for Keyshawna; her mind laying down super-rich memories of all this.

    She dodges bullets like Neo in The Matrix.

Something else happens.

Keyshawna’s whisked out of the ghetto into either a Wizard of Oz type place or else just to suburbia which would serve the same purpose.