Frazzled

Donauta Watson

Flashes of electricity from a wall socket leaves me frazzled, the land lady’s son comes to fix the wall unit. Leaning on the kitchen counter, we watch as he stabs at the outlet

mumbling loudly under his breath about what we're doing to his place, he attempts to make us feel guilty for the backed up rent, the unruly nature of the kids stomping over his aging mother’s head, this inconvenience of getting him up on a Saturday morning

But sir, your place is faulty, he pokes at the light socket as I yell, I was frazzled! I repeated this as I argued in my mother’s stead, the place nearly catch a fire and I was frazzled. My sister and best friend look from one to the other, you have to fix the place sir, the socket nearly electrocute me, you should have seen the sparks and the fire, it leave me, frazzled. The more I talk the more him twist and poke at the socket  looking over at me from his slowly sliding silver framed glasses that never seem to past the bridge of him nose

I was in the middle of a good book too when this all happened, a really important part too where the character was left — A jolt back to reality, look like it's soon time to move again.

When he leaves my sister says, “Donna, what is frazzled?” My friend jumps in, “And why yuh keep on ah say it?” This is serious! I say with eyes wide open. In unison, doubling over in laughter, they say “we know, you were frazzled!”

Nobody ever tek nothing serious yet, I mouth unintelligibly, walking away, stomach still in knots