The choking stench of sunscreen. Blistered skin and sweat-drenched shirts. Buildings palpitated, dreaming of cooler days. A human's bodily proteins begin to die at 105* Fahrenheit.  Outside, it was a sweltering 115 degrees.
Hiding behind the line dividing shade and merciless heat, Frances gingerly swiped away an ant on her forearm. It fell on naked concrete. Then it thrashed about, sputtered, and froze. Surprised, Frances nudged it with shaking fingers, but its vitality had already been replaced by a shell of burning heat. The girl muttered something akin to wish you luck in ants' heaven.
The heat reminded her of something she had read that morning, about a Brazilian nightclub fire.  242 deaths, it reported.  Frances dropped another ant onto the concrete, watching its last moments of struggle. She doesn't remember when it all started, but at some point she became a fan of the morbid. Death was an amalgam of tragedy and fascination.

    You can become a mortician, the brother once joked.

One.
Two.
Three.
Four . . .  She squatted, careful not to block out the steaming sun.  The ants dropped from her fingers and scurried away the moment their nimble legs felt the pain. It was too late. Within mere seconds, the ants were cooked alive. Burned, to a crisp. Just like the teenagers caught in the nightclub fire.
Five.

     Life was so fragile. Brittle.

The young girl decided to step up her game. Six and seven. Sticks. Stones. Weaponry. And three to five more.
Her own one-sided warfare against the innocent.
Reaching for the nearest broken branch, Frances' stable hand patted the rough patches of drying grass to find an adequate poking device. It was a mass ritual with ants. She jabbed the stick in the nearest ant hole she could find. Gouged it inside out.The girl liked to imagine that the ants were in great pain--severe pain, even. Frances was the ruler of it all, and SHE controlled it all.

     You bite her youthful skin?  She'll put you on that concrete without hesitation.

    You seem defiant? Off to the concrete you go.

Frances ignored the dull pain of resistance that ran up her left arm, forcing her fingers to move, move, move. She began churning out the tiny cadavers defiantly, testing the limits of her body.

     See what I could do when I tried?

People from school saw her hunched over under the grueling sun, and the rumors spread about how a poor girl had mentally snapped.

It was Wednesday.

Frances hadn't shown up at school for some time, some emphasized.

    Did you see her arm? She can't dance anymore, can she?

    At least it wasn't her dominant arm, still sucks though.

    She's probably still the top student, come on, another chimed in. And she gets to skip school.

Whispers in the hallways stopped caring if Frances was an earshot away--she was now a ghostly existence in the minds of even her friends.

Her simultaneous presence and invisibility might have started a few months ago, on a Thursday.

    Frances, let's stop.

    Okay, okay. Last one, I promise. The girl pled in reply.

Despite the visible discomfort among her friends, the bottled words had to be released. What she needed wasn't pity.  She needed understanding.

    Fine, last one.

    Thank you. So, um, I read all the breaking news on CNN the other day. Don't you think it's sad how we ignore the tragedies around us every day? 

Her friends stared at her without a word, eyes hollow. Frances blushed with frustration, voice trailing bit by bit.

   Remember last year? Like, why do you guys think Dylan d-

The girls collectively stood up, leaving Frances on the ground. They were over it already, and had no time to spare.  

Devastation. Disease. Drugs. Death. Dylan.

Dejected. Endangered. Deceased. But her friends didn't understand. Discomfited, distanced, detached. They had their own worries--and no time for feverish delusions, daydreaming, debilitating thoughts.
Their pity turned sour.

    Only you have time to do that.

The words hung in dying air. The friendship, too, was gone.
Frances has since added Dylan to the piling list of grievances--drug overdose, they said. Dylan was everyone's friends, but no one noticed his depression. There was only RIP written in facebook posts he would never see. She began noticing things that were no longer filtered, and wondered if living was worth it.

It was lunch time. Frances skipped again, heading instead to the nurses' office. She smiled a bit, a gesture now familiar to the lady. The woman nodded, and the girl dove onto the cold bed in the next room. Squeezing her eyes shut, Frances allowed the memories to flow.

Her mother hugged her 3 times in the snippets of her memories.
First time was when her teacher praised her. Second time was at a formal art award ceremony. Third time was recent. An SAT score of 2370. Any lower wouldn't have been enough.
Sighing, Frances took out her phone and scrolled down her breaking news dashboard. With each headline, her hands felt colder. When the government said casualties, it meant broken families and empty seats in crowded places.
Tap. Next Page.
Everything she bought cheaply probably involved minimum wages and desperate parents who grasped at straws or boot straps for a chance to escape poverty.
She clicked the homepage.
War. Ebola. Broken men and lives lost. 
Maybe Frances was a bit insane. Her heart was too easily damaged, and it couldn't cope with the wounds. 
Friday came.
The girl, gathering bits of courage, decided it was a good idea to talk to mother, the one person who hadn't disappointed her yet.

    Mom, what do you think about suicides? Awkward laughter.

Mom was cooking. Too busy. Silence.

    What . . . Hmm . . .Would . . . Say I died, would you . . . I mean, what would y--

    Honey, I don't have time for this, the woman said, as she has always said. Stop thinking about useless things, don't you have a history test tomorrow?

Frances froze, and slowly began nodding her head.

    And Frances, I know you are better than that. No daughter of mine would be as stupid as those girls that jump off the Golden Gate Bridge over a breakup.

The mother handed her pungent onions and a glimmering knife, smiling.

     Ah, Frances! Before you go, want to help me chop the onions and wash the knife afterwards?

Catching her stretched reflection on the metallic surface, Frances smiled back, mesmerized.

    Sure.

But the smile seemed a bit sad.