Dolores

There once was a girl named Dolores Shultz. Dolores Shultz lived in an ordinary home in an ordinary country with her father, her mother, and her younger brother. Dolores Shultz had yellow-blonde shoulder length hair, a thin frame, and gargantuan breasts that defied logic and reason.

Dolores Shultz spent her days going through the same routine. She would wake up and take an hour to get ready, drive her younger brother to school, pay attention during classes, have fun after school at cheerleading practice, and do her homework when she got home. On weekends Dolores Shultz and her friends would meet at the mall to shop or hang out.

Dolores’s life was entirely ordinary until the day a meteor crashed in the Pacific Ocean. The meteor emitted a strange radiation into the ocean water that eventually found its way into rivers. The tainted water then flowed into the lakes which flowed into the reservoirs. Eventually, the eradiated water found its way into a cup of tea Dolores Shultz was drinking.

People all over the world drank the meteor-infused water but nobody made mention of anything strange happening. However, Dolores noticed she developed a strange, but uncontrollable power. Dolores Shultz could read minds. Dolores no longer lived in an ordinary home in an ordinary country with her ordinary family.

At home, Dolores could hear her brother fantasizing about women he watched in porn and even some of her friends. At school, Dolores heard all of the horrible things her friends thought about her like how she wore the same color shirt two days in a row or how annoying they found her laugh. Over time, Dolores grew numb to how many thoughts invaded her mind from guys staring at her unreasonably large breasts. Every day Dolores heard the horrible thoughts from the people she loved, and she could do nothing to ignore them.

The thoughts began to eat into Dolores’s mind until all she could think about was how much people seemed to hate each other. She grew furious, but never told anybody about her abilities or what she was going through. Her family seemed oblivious to her pain. Her friends seemed oblivious to her pain. All Dolores could do was suffer alone.

Finally, Dolores Shultz had enough of the torture and lost control of her temper when a friend thought something of minor antagonizing value. The friend’s thought was paltry in comparison to the filth Dolores shifted through daily, but it pushed her over the edge. “Enough!” Dolores shouted, “I’ve had enough of all of your sick perversions! I’ve had enough of your disgusting and degrading thoughts about my boobs! I’m sick of all of you lying to each other all the time! Either stop thinking such horrible things or start telling the truth so I’m not the only one stuck listening to your crap!”

The students and teachers who gathered during Dolores’s rant were silent for a solid thirty seconds before the girl Dolores was mainly addressing spoke up. “Dolores,” the girl said, “We can all hear each other’s thoughts.”

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Read more short stories like this in my book, "A Traditionally Horrible Story."

For those wondering, each one is a short parable/allegory. of a topic important to me. Dolores represents how a person can be completely normal, except for the fact that they don't know they're normal, and how frustrating that can be.