a very rational attitude

It's easy to convince herself that the man has been sent to help her. He knows about her situation, after all. He knows about her problems. He can provide her with what she needs to get things cleared up. It'll work.

He grovels like a shopkeeper and she treats him as one, but every bit of hauteur is an attempt to shore up the lies that keeps her illegally present among the living. She looks down her nose at him and tries to ignore the sly complicity in his eyes.

She is as guilty as sin. And she knows it.

Drabble Page