A Tale of Two T!ddiEz, Intro/Chapter 1

I am so sorry to have to subject you to what is quite possibly the worst piece of literature that has ever been conceived.
I am also surprised that the previous sentence didn't necessitate a comma. Huh.
Again. I am very sorry.
Unless I win a Pulitzer. In which case, you are welcome.
Finally got a comma in they're!... Ah, dammit!
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Text (ORSHEARN!)
Chapter 1

The city was alive. Not literally alive, like a beating heart or a walking man, but alive in the way that cities are when people are inside them and doing things. Cars honked. A dog barked. A bus squeaked its brakes. Somewhere far away, a bell rang, and nobody knew what for.

Heather Beck stepped out of the hospital at exactly 11 a.m. in the morning, which is a time that people agree is both before lunch but also after breakfast, so you can see why it is important.

She had just spoken with the doctors, who said her condition was ongoing. The condition was called giant boob syndrome. They said it in a serious voice, but Heather had heard it so many times that it sounded almost like a nickname now, like “Shorty” or “Lefty,” except hers was “Booby.”

Heather adjusted her blouse, which was too small but also somehow too big, the way paradoxes often are. Her blouse strained over her mountains, her planets, her sweater puppets, her overachievers. They stuck out like two mistakes in an otherwise perfect essay, except the mistakes were good ones that everyone wanted to see.

The sun caught them too, casting shadows that confused passing pigeons. One bird tried to land on her right one, which Heather had privately named Olga, but the bird thought better of it and flew away.

Traffic paused. A taxi driver slammed on his brakes, not because of Heather’s yabos, though maybe partly, but also because there was a red light. A man on a bicycle rang his bell furiously, which sounded like a dinner bell, and Heather felt a little hungry, though not for dinner.

She walked down the sidewalk with determination, or maybe hesitation, or a mix of both, which is possible if you don’t commit too strongly to one or the other. Her chest—her twin torpedoes, her cannonballs, her bouncy castles—moved like two jellyfish in a tide pool: in sync, mysterious, dangerous.

A mime was pretending to drown by a fountain, and then a fire hydrant actually burst open next to him. The mime waved for help, but people clapped instead, thinking it was part of the show. Heather nodded in respect. Art was hard.

On the corner, an old man dropped his cane when she passed. He bent over to pick it up, and then fell down instead. A group of tourists stepped around him to take pictures of Heather, though they pretended to be photographing the architecture.

Heather sighed. Life in the city was hard for a woman with chesticles like these. Her doctors had said she should avoid heavy lifting. She thought that was funny, since she was always lifting her own heavy things.

A little boy pointed and whispered, “Mommy, are those balloons?” His mother covered his eyes and said, “Don’t stare.” The boy said, “But they’re so big.” The mother said, “Yes, but that’s private.” Heather thought about correcting her, but decided that balloons could be private too.

She passed a bakery. The smell of bread filled the air like bread usually does when it’s been baked. A man carrying a tray of baguettes out front tripped over his own shoelace, and the loaves went flying into traffic. A bus honked. Bread scattered. One baguette landed across Heather’s cleavage like a tightrope walker. She flicked it off casually.

Finally, she saw the sign for the grocery store in the distance. The store looked majestic, like a castle, except smaller and with sliding glass doors instead of a drawbridge. Inside, she knew, there would be mayonnaise. And possibly destiny.

She took a deep breath. Her chest heaved like a stormy ocean with two large buoys floating dangerously close together. Somewhere, a police siren wailed. A man sneezed. A baby laughed. The city lived.

And Heather walked toward the grocery store.