Oh, yes. My mother told me, just as yours did – conform, obey, be good. When young, I was even inclined to follow that advice.

A few years in, a little experience under the belt, and I learned, as most of us do, that if you play the game that way, you’re playing with a deficient deck. For that matter, you’re playing against people whose decks are nothing but aces.

Now, here, in the looming dark, I no longer seek solace in the idea that my mother would approve. The need has simply fallen away from me, as a snowflake – a melting snowflake – would. My grip intensifies; my knuckles make the popping sound that is the signature harbinger of my personal evil.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Dark and long lost to society, I chortle once, deep in my throat, as I rip the tag from the mattress.

It is done. The world frays a bit at the edges; my parents roll in their graves. And tonight, she will sleep, unknowingly tagless, a hollow shell of her former self, on the generic wreckage that was once “designer” product.