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the button on the arm of her wheelchair said "power."

real funny, she'd think in her head. telling me i've got fucking power. telling a gimp that they've got power in their little finger, which is about all i can even move. hilarious. she'd have said it out loud, if her jaw weren't wired shut. as it was, any clever thoughts like this just came out as "sjir aleiru. gflsork siorkfld..."

et cetera.

the button, the one that mockingly read "power" underneath it in white, was small and green and protruded obscenely from the smooth black plastic arm of her hight-tech wheelchair, like a nipple. like a green pimple. not red, like all important buttons are in movies, like the power button on her computer and on her tv and on her vcr, but green. calming green. green for health and wealth. green for go.

also green for envy.

everyone used to envy her. if she was honest with herself, she knew she missed it, the jealous looks on other girls faces because of the attention from men, the money her parents threw at her, her nice clothes, nice house, nice car. they were jealous because of her popularity, her beauty, effortless sex appeal. she was on top. she was the best. everyone else's envy was her strength, her power. her perfection. "nothing like getting run over by a trailways bus to send you on a fall from grace," she'd always say to herself. well, "noirtk reou a jkgd...." et cetera, if you want to be exact. but she was thinking the former.

she knew she was a joke, zipping around the hallways of the hospital in her expensive power wheelchair. her parents had bought it like an apology, like her camero was, like her video camera and big-screen television. the problem is, an expensive wheelchair makes you feel as shitty as a cheap one. the problem is, a state of the art wheelchair isn't a working spinal cord. when her dad told her "it's state of the art, honey," she felt like screaming back "my SPINE was state of the art, you fuck!" but all she said was "muf DOFIL diljfs eoitr alr, adf dkhf!"

et cetera.

there was that gross little green nipple button, the power one. it said "power" and she thought that wouldn't it be nice if it worked like the power buttons on her tv and her vcr and her computer - if she could just press it and there would be nothing. she would narrow and shrink and until she was just a point of light, like on her big-screen color tv apology, and then nothing.

it said "power".

she wanted to use it to turn herself off.