THE OLD ITALIAN LADY

The old Italian lady cooked rustic bread over an open fire. Soon the children would be coming to visit the village, and she would feed them this bread with broken glass baked into it. When she saw the children wince in pain and confusion as the glass dug into the inside of their mouths, her heart would leap. She had tried to get her kicks like most grandmothers did, by being kind and loving to children, but it left her feeling cold and empty and despicable. It was only when she was hurting them, and doing it an underhanded way such as this, that she felt truly alive, zinging with purpose. Perhaps children just had too good a time of it, and this was a balancing out of the universe, and this sweet, hot, dizzying feeling was her reward.