"Why this lollipop?" she asked.

 

"I don't know," The woman responded.  Her hair was beginning to gray in the front.  She saw her aging image in the reflection of a framed picture of a cow, why it was there, we don't know, but she was reminded that she was due for a coloring.

 

"Could you tell me why you took this clock?"

 

"Mine stopped working."  That was a lie.  But it has felt like her internal clock had been broken lately. She hasn't been sleeping well—maybe two hours a night.  She's upset at her insomnia except for at the hour of 5.  She enjoys dawn.  It reminds her that the ticking clock does go around every 24 hours, and you're right back where you started.

 

"What about this large shirt?  I don't think it's for you."

 

"It's for my boyfriend."  Also a lie.  She hasn't dated anyone since Samuel.  He's gone now, but no matter.

 

"And this teddy bear?"

 

"I don't know."  Not a lie.  The death of the living proof of her and Samuel's coexistence may have left a hole in her being, but no matter.  That was 2 years ago.  The past is past.

 

"Now, why would you have an empty bottle of stolen cologne?"

 

"That was for my father."

 

"But he's passed."

 

"Yes, that's why it's empty."  She had poured it on his body before cremation.  If you stick your nose in the erg, you can still smell it.  It was his favorite cologne.

 

"Jeanette, you have a problem."

"I know."  So she took her sledge hammer and smashed the shelf of stolen treasures.  "Problem solved."