.. as opposed to someone you betrayed. Inanimate toiletries get used up, properly, if you follow the labels. With humans–well humans–already there is something inanimate-sounding about that, isn it? I mean, best friends, aunts, uncle, cousins, lovers, ingredients as common as nitrates and pectin and artificial flavors.

You are saccharin. One of the oldest tried and true ingredients. You promised things or at least made people think you did–and you didn’t keep those problems. Inanimate objects were thrown at you, for your lies and betrayal.

The last things someone threw at you, right after some hot rollers from a woman’s hair, was a small bottle of aloe vera gel. I kind gel. Soothing. Not make-believe.Truthful bottle of aloe vera. You open the bottle sniff, you squeeze it just a bit, the dollop forms upended you squeeze more and more until its viscocity and opposing gravity and other forces topple its perfect sphere. It flattens out, disappoints. Unless you rub it on you.

That’s it: that’s the rub.