Anonymous Phone Owners Continue to Use Those Very Items

Not to distract from the upcoming scavenger hunt (now starting tomorrow, May 4th, at noon E.S.T.) but here is the first chunk of digitally corresponded literary excellence from two anonymous contributors known mysteriously and creatively as A & B.

You may recall that A & B accepted the challenge to write an entire short story/novel by text messages alone. In their first two exchanges, they wrote:

(A) It wasn’t the first time she had done it, and it wouldn’t be the last, either.
(B) Glitter and glue stuck to the vinyl flooring.  Her eyes were bloodshot.

Now, the exposition of this short story? novel? is further developed…the character is rounded…it only gets more intense…

(A) She lifted her hand to the back of her head, as though confirming its secure position atop her neck. (B) The midmorning gloom of Cleveland in March sat at Marilyn’s single, small window, allowing (A) little in but the partial view of a still-bare Manzanita. She glanced up at the clock. Then at the fridge. Then up at the clock again, (B) and caught herself in the opulent 8 1/2′ x 4 1/2′ mirror that stood as the studio’s lone wall hanging. (A) She looked — not tired, she thought, but spent in a vaguely satisfying way. Or was it just tired? Marilyn scooped her coat up off the back of a chair. (B) It wasn’t obsession, or addiction, or even compulsion that kept her frantically behind, a mess trying to make her bus. (A) It was the fact that she systematically apportioned three to five minutes fewer than one would reasonably need for any given task. Knowing this did not improve her punctuality.
(B) On the street fliers for the special election pocked store fronts and windows. Three more days until it’s finally over, she thought. (A) A sense of anticipation was written in just about every face she could make out striding down E 9th, as though the city’s collective countenance had been synchronized by the morning news.