Public Displays of Affection

by Peter Wild

She was fat. I didn't care what the other kids said about what was right and what was wrong. She was fat and she was ugly and she smelled real bad and we could all of us go through life pretending that those things were not true but it wouldn't help her, it wouldn't help her at all. So I told her, I told her what we all thought. And I learned something about her that I hadn't known before. When she punched you, you stayed down.

6S

Peter Wild is the editor of a forthcoming series of books for Serpent's Tail, the first two of which - Perverted by Language: Fiction Inspired by The Fall and The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth - will be published in 2007. He is also editor of The Flash, which will be published by Social Disease in February 2007. His fiction has appeared in Word Riot, Pen Pusher, Scarecrow, Thieves Jargon, Rumble, The Beat and a bunch of other places. You can read other bits and pieces at peterwild.com.