[ WP ] Write a murder from the perspective of a cheerful inanimate object

Meg's face reflected in mine once more before she slumped down. Forehead met formica as she sort of bounced from the corner of the countertop, and landed, then, I assume, on the linoleum floor. Staring straight ahead, as I always did, at the corded phone on the wall, I saw Mike take a big step over something before circling around the rest of her body. Was it her legs? 
 
 Lily peeked around the corner, authority at six years old; Joshua sat some feet behind her on the carpeted hallway. She wove the coated rubber corkscrew of the phone cord around and around her fingers, then tucked it next to her face like a security blanket. Meg had used the blanket last week to mop up a spilled Jack-and-Coke. Joshua had teethed on the phone cord earlier this morning. The smell of burnt crumbs inside my wiring was strong, but I could still tell that the baby needed changing as he started to wail from where he sat, hopelessly, helplessly, uselessly. 
 
 A Mississippi sunshine is lush on a July morning. It's storybook-sexy, the kind that lets babies roll around on thin cotton rags spread on green grass, the kind that shines down when a boy learns to shoot a gun; when girls learn about the curl in mama's mouth with lipstick on, or a first kiss smelling like daisies and car leather. The sunshine woke Mike up early, and told him all the little plastic baggies in the house were empty. From the bedroom down the hall I heard him bellow to get her ass working so they could get a fix, get well, get what they needed. 
 
 Meg put a slice of white bread in the top of me. Breakfast for the kids before she left the house, every morning. Joshua gummed the phone cord. Meg pushed my red lever down and I stared at her with my painted, silly smile as she left, got dressed in fewer clothes than she went to sleep in, dabbed makeup over track marks. 
 
 Now Mike slung Lily over a shoulder and shut her bedroom door after the sound of her flopping down onto the twin mattress came through the house. Joshua padded after them, hands and knees. The kitchen was empty now, save for Meg and me, and then, with a *ding*, the slice of white bread. Toast.
