Admit it. We’ve all had the urge to kill someone. A lot of times it doesn’t hit you in the actual moment something is happening to you. Like when a car drives by, full of teenagers slanting their eyes at you while you’re waiting for the bus.

“Hey, bitch! Go back to wherever the fuck you’re from!”

Sometimes it even takes a moment for it to sink in. Did… Did that really just happen? Are they talking to me? Yup. I’m the only one here.

That’s when the rage begins to build. It starts in the pit of your stomach, fills up every crevice of your heart, tightens around your throat, and pounds your head until the world darkens around you.

Then the thoughts come, in high-definition slow-mo. You see the one with his head sticking out, his tongue wagging in the air and his eyes pulled back into slits. And then there are his friends, the boys and girls with their mouths wide open in uncontrollable laughter, like hyenas ready to feast on rotting flesh.

Oh, how nice it would be if a semi truck came by at that exact moment and side-swiped them into fiery oblivion.

No, better yet, the one with his head sticking out, what if his head got knocked into a lamppost? No! A mailbox would make for much better acoustics, and then his head would come flying off and roll down the gutter like a giant meatball.

Then the car blows up in a huge fireball. Yeah… How delicious would that be?

Actually, I’m asking because I really don’t know if other people have these thoughts. Maybe it’s just me. Ever since I returned to this world, things have been so different… so bright… and loud… and fast. One thing hasn’t changed, though: the people.

There are exceptions, of course, but there’s still so much arrogance and cruelty and deceit. It’s enough to make a person wanna kill.

Like right now, even.

“Are you listenin’ to me, lady? I said more sprinkles!!”

It would be so easy to turn this snot-nosed brat into a pile of ash and bones. All it would take is a snap of my fingers. Just… a little… sna—

“Um, Sera…? I think we have some more sprinkles in the back.”

That’s Donnie, my manager of Buster Freeze, Home of 100+1 Flavors. He and I go way back, and he’s saved me more times than I can remember. I couldn’t have returned to this world without him.

“Remember those breathing exercises your therapist taught you?” he whispers. “In… out… in… out… That’s right. That’s good, Sera.”

Haha! It’s always so cute the way his ears twitch nervously whenever he tries to talk me down. Well, I owe him one.

Way more than one, frankly. Besides, I can’t be here cleaning up this brat’s remains. I’ve got night school to attend after work.

“In the back, you say?”

“Y-yeah… Next to the cups,” he says with a huge sigh of relief.

“Right.”

“And hurry it up, lady! I don’t got all day!”

“Sera…”

“I know… Breathe. In… out. In… out…”

But that’s all they are… just thoughts… for now. I do think about killing people, but I haven’t acted on that impulse yet. At the first job I had back in this world, I got angry at a customer for the kind of rudeness that seems commonplace here.

Before firing me, my boss told me, “A girl shouldn’t shout. It’s unladylike!”

Of course, he himself was frothing at the mouth, spraying spit all over my face as he spoke. But he was wrong. Rage is good.

It’s what has kept me going through an eon of suffering.

My therapist, Colleen, tells me that having anger is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it can be processed and channeled constructively. Maybe that’s why I like her so much.

Yes, I must channel my anger. Perhaps those teenagers or that snot-nosed brat or my former boss don’t deserve to die, but there are those who betray you and wound you so deeply that a thousand years of hellfire will never be able to cleanse the pain.

So yes, my rage is reserved wholly for them.

***

Imagine what it would feel like if you had to live every moment of your life wrapped up in chains, binding every square inch of your skin. Then, one day, those bindings fall away, and you step out of the pile of iron to stand naked under the moon, taking in a lungful of air for the first time in your life. What would you do if this happened to you?

Me? I went to go have ice cream.

I had heard so much about this magical food that had the power to make sadness disappear. I had to try it. But first, I had to cover myself. I was new to this world, but I knew even then that walking around bare as the day I was born was not the best idea. So I grabbed a handful of leaves, tied them together, slapped them on me, and started the hike down the hill to the bright lights below.

Was I overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds of the big city?

Not exactly. Nothing was going to distract me in my quest for the double scoop—not the buses belching smoke, not the LED billboards, not all the people snickering at me or making lewd comments. Or, at least, what I imagined to be lewd comments because I didn’t understand a lick of English back then.

My perseverance paid off. Soon I found a trickle of people licking caramel pecan sweetness off their upper lips and others frantically lapping up the rocky road melting all over their hands.

Following the trail took me to Buster Freeze. When I walked in, the freckled teen whose red hair was stuffed into a paper sugar cone hat barely raised an eyebrow.

“Welcome to Buster Freeze, Home of 100+1 Flavors. Would you like to try our world famous Funky Chunky Butternut Supreme?” I guessed this is what he was saying, but I didn’t know how to answer.

What I did know how to do was point.

“Erhm,” I muttered, pointing at a gallon of bright pink ice cream.

“The Camellia Tornado. One scoop or two?”

When I didn’t understand, he put up fingers.

“One scoop… or two?

That I understood. With ice cream, more had to be better, so I put up two.

The teen could barely contain his disdain.

“Sugar cone or cup?”

Again, silence.

“Sugar cone or… Never mind. Take it with a sugar cone. Trust me.”

With deft twists of his wrist, he piled two glistening pink orbs one on top of the other, nestled lovingly in a flaky, dimpled cone. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life.

But before I could grab it, he pulled it away from my reach.

“That’ll be five fifty,” he said. Seeing my confusion, he rolled his eyes. “Right, why would you understand and make my life easier? You need to pay for this. Y’know… money?” He pointed at the customer down the counter who was handing the cashier some bills.

Even in this day and age, money was used for transactions, it seemed. If money was the only thing between me and the magical food that would take away all my sadness, then money I would have. But how? And where?

I left Buster Freeze and roamed the city until I came to a man in a frumpy suit standing in front of a machine that spat out money like a mother bird feeding her young.

Was that all it took? Wow. Maybe this place wasn’t that bad after all.

There was a second machine beside the first. I stood in front of it and started pressing the buttons like I’d seen the man do, but nothing came out. This little bird remained hungry. Maybe if I pounded on the buttons a little harder…

“Me Tarzan. You Jane… hehe.” I smelled the alcohol before I turned around to see the man in the frumpy suit.

“Looks like you’re a little short on cash, huh?” he said, slurring his words. “Judging by that getup, bet you like to swing, don’t you? Hehe… Listen. You show me what you got under those ferns, and maybe I’ll cover you in a different kinda green. What do you say?” he asked, fanning the bills he had just taken out.

I may have been gone for a thousand years, but I knew what this was. It is written in the eyes of men when they desire to possess something they can’t have. It hangs in their voices as they call to you.

It’s a sound that has echoed throughout the ages.

“C’mon, sweetheart. There’s a cozy corner down this alley.”