Insanity, Or, The Index Matters

This story is the second in a series of shorts that I will write based on a prompt from Facebook friends.  Call it practice for 2011, when I take the WriYe challenge:  350,000 word count for the year.  That means 1000 words a day.  The word for this story is "Insanity".

A pine branch hit Leah in the face, a single needle hitting her in the eye.  Another one.  Thwack! Thwack!  Her head automatically recoiled in pain and she grabbed her right eye with a squeal.  The radiation of pain from the outside corner ebbed almost immediately, but she kept her hand there to ground herself.  It wasn't really working.  The world seemed strange, unreachable behind a stronghold of water and glass.  She tried to speak, but the words popped in her throat like a bubble to the surface.  Her heart raced, vibrating the hollow of her throat.  She panted slightly.

Suddenly, she found herself on the ground.  Her backside throbbed and her hands were in the dirt.  A flutter of pale blue t-shirt and her companion's face floated into her vision.

"Leah?  Are you okay?  I feel kind of fucked up, too."  His name was Sam, Leah thought, rather loudly, to herself.
"Sam."
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Your name is Sam."
"That's right, and your name is Leah.  With an H."
"I can't see straight."
"I can't either, really.  I think it was a mistake."
"Big mistake.  Paper."
"Yeah.  The left side of my face is numb."
"Is God mad at us?"
"I don't think so.  I don't think the index matters."
"But."
She didn't have an end to the sentence.  Just, but.  But, look at us, she screamed, inside her head.  Once again, her jaws had been forced shut by a nascent neural force she'd never encountered before.  This wasn't what she'd expected, when they'd been rolling the stupid thing in the valley behind the lake.  Rolling it in, of all things, index pages from Sam's grandmother's Bible they'd found in the guest room.  Though both of them were confused and cynical about what religion meant to them, the idea of smoking pot with Bible paper made them both uncomfortable.  They reasoned that as long as it was pages that didn't have actual Scripture on them, God wouldn't really mind.

And now, Leah thought with a shudder, they had been driven insane as punishment.  Because this, this was what crazy people must feel like.  Her hands were not connected to her body any more.  She could see them, but she didn't believe them.

Sam helped her to her feet, and she leaned on the smaller boy still once she was upright.  He squirmed but didn't leave her side.  She laced her arm through his and they started walking back down the path that ran along the lake and back to the house.

"We are totally fucked if Dad's back.  Or Grandma."
"Fuck."

Leah's heart began to race with fresh adrenaline.  They certainly were fucked.  Sam's dad would tell her dad.  And then she'd never be able to hang out with Sam again.  And Dad wouldn't care that she was crazy, only that she'd smoked pot.  Had to find a way to erase this, to make her sane again before they had to talk to anyone.  She felt smothered, muffled.  There was a curtain of water-glass following her everywhere.

Like radar, her hearing zoomed in on the splash of a paddle in the small, man-made lake next to the house. Her brothers had gotten ahold of a canoe, and were cruising the perimeter of the lake.  They were categorically denouncing the smoking of pot, and made fun of Leah and Sam for being "stoners", despite the fact this was the first time, ever.  Sam's older brother had given him a small plastic bag of pot.  It was bright green and magical-looking.  Leah didn't really know what good pot looked like, but this didn't seem bad.  She'd always been curious, and Sam was her best friend, so of course he asked her.

Water, Leah thought.  Splash some water on my face.  And suddenly, she was in the lake.  She fell to her knees and plunged her face into the brackish green water.  Real water, not like the imaginary water that was plaguing her.  It was cool and calmed her face.  She relaxed and smiled into the lake.

Sam grabbed her by her ponytail and pulled her head up and out of the water.  "What the fuck are you doing?"

Leah breathed in air and blinked her eyes free of water.  She was grounded, and the gravity of the situation hit her immediately.

"Fuck.  I'm fucking soaked."

She turned to see her brothers drop-jawed, paddles slack in their hands.

"I feel better, so.  Let's just go.  Go back in."  She trudged back onto dry land.  Sam still glared at her, wanting more of an explanation than she was capable of giving.

"I don't feel crazy any more.  I just don't feel crazy any more."

Discount-Holiday-Sale-Mas

Part of the gratification of Christmas, I feel, is packaging.  Literally, seeing things in their original packages, shiny and sealed with newness.  I saw people on the street yesterday, wearing their brand spankin' new hats, scarves, and boots.  I was, of course, jealous, but it struck me that the winter holidays play upon our fascination with the visceral feeling of pulling something open.  Not unlike the brief and beautifully horrific feeling of picking a scab or your nose. Or having bought a load of delicious groceries, and wanting to go cook everything at once, while stuffing your face with sweet potato chips.

The act of use.  Of consumption. Not even of plenty or enough.

I bought a pack of lighters at the store yesterday.  I also bought toothpaste, band-aids, rubbing alcohol, toothbrushes, tampons(in bright, eye-catching colors, natch), a pack of 24 candy canes, two thermal shirts and one t-shirt, handsoap, as well as dinner stuff for about 8 meals.  This, all of this, to me, is the same as Christmas morning.  Such is life, poor and hermit-like in New York City.

I don't feel bad.  I feel great.  A month like any other month.  And poor?  Well, poor can be perfect.  Poor  means creativity and character.  Poor means more time on your hands.  Poor means parties with friends and true time over potlucks and homemade presents.  Poor and perfect, like that beautiful farmboy.

I get it, I do.  I'd go back in time, if I could, to tell myself at 17, "As you wish."  Poor and perfect.

Cake

This story is the first in a series of shorts that I will write based on prompts from Facebook friends.  Call it practice for 2011, when I take the WriYe challenge:  350,000 word count for the year.  That means 1000 words a day.  The word for this story is "Cake".

Cake. Cake everywhere. White icing splattered on the wall. Yellow cake like bare insulation stuck to the ceiling. Pink pulled sugar roses crushed into the carpet. The remnants of the Tasty FotoArt print were iced to the wall like a whitewash poster. A pile of liquefied cake in the center of the room held a small, burned candle; a wax reproduction of the numeral 5.

The Tasty FotoArt print hung in three separate pieces, a triptych of destruction. The edible "paper" was actually a wafer whose contents were described cryptically on the website as "FDA approved ingredients". Whatever the material, and despite being blown into three ragged pieces, the picture of a smiling golden retriever was impressively clear.

With a start, the woman slumped against the wall, underneath a slowly descending top tier of the cake, awoke. She shook her head, dazed, and looked around dejectedly at the state of the room. She closed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead, only to find a sizable glop of icing entangled in her hair. Her hand found the stopwatch that hung around neck, and clicked it to stopping without checking the time.

It seemed that, regardless of FDA approval, or the clarity of their patented edible dye system, Tasty FotoArt's edible adhesive reacted negatively to charcoal white buttercream frosting topped with saltpeter sugar roses . Negatively, the woman mused, was a poor synonym for "explosively."  The committee would notice that.  She sighed and stood up, combing out more of the icing.  Briefly incinerated, it was sugary viscous stuff.  She unclipped her walkie-talkie from her belt and called for the clean-up crew.

"Bring in the German chocolate this time. I'm gonna take a shower."

She glanced around for her clipboard to find it had skidded a few feet away and was rather prettily dusted with an obliterated sugar rose. She brushed it off without sentiment and pulled the pen from behind her ear. She ran her finger down the list, to the word "Yellow". She checked the box marked simply "FAIL" and slid her pen back behind her ear.

"Look, Ma," she muttered. "That Ivy League education being used, right before your eyes."

She pulled one more handful of icing from her hair, letting it fall to the floor with a soft plop.  The door swung open, spilling the clean-up crew into the room quick like ants.  She stood primly to the side while the helmeted team filed in and readied their portable pressure washers.

"Thanks, boys. Merry Christmas."

She shut the door behind her, as the roar of chemical sterility followed her down the hall, through the locker room and was finally dulled by the hot spatter of the shower.

Dead Soldier

Impatient lovers, in great haste,

have many a dead Kimono soldier made.

throb

the way a smoke ring looks
is the opposite of
how my mouth feels.

Cough

Alright, so.  My roommate, Phil, is autistic.  A highly functional case of Asperger's Syndrome.  He goes to the bathroom and harrumphs and coughs and hacks for long periods of time.  I hear every single sound, and I can't stand it any more.  I bought him honey lemon and chamomile cough drops tonight, and strongly suggested he check them out.  I feel bad, because you're not really supposed to criticize the sounds people make in the bathroom. That's private.  But, Phil's moved to harrumphing in the kitchen.  So, I feel I can approach it.  I don't want to be mean.  He's a harmless guy.  But he's incredibly annoying.  I share a bathroom with him.  The Lucky Soap I buy for 99 cents is, I guess, not his style.  We've got two bottles of handsoap on the bathroom sink.  One, mine.  Cheap and delightful smelling.  His, expensive.  Also, delightfully smelly.  I don't understand.  The handsoap at Whole Foods(which is the only place Phil shops) has to be at least $5 a pop.  And I've tried to explain to him the idea of switching off getting household items for the apartment.  I don't know why it hasn't sunk in.  Am I a bitch?  Sometimes, I feel like a bitch.

Dumb

he's so good at playing dumb
and i'm so tired of being the wiseguy.

so dumb to think(and not say)
that some boy(not a man or a teacher or a father or a god)
could handle my heart
better than i can
myself.

dumb.

dumb, too, is
that, gee whiz,
life in someone else's apartment,
making her dinners,
taking her checks,
and accompanying her
to other people's weddings,
will, of course,
keep you alive.

i guess that ain't dumb at all, now is it.

dumb keeps you smart when i'm talking.
dumb for goddamn sure keeps you walking.

Infidel

She suddenly, earnestly wants water.  Tap water, from the bathroom sink.  The mineral surety of the unfiltered spigot and cozy feeling of familiarity- the bleary-eyed, midnight shuffle to the sink, mouth dry and needy.  Flat and, against all reason, solid in a storm of turbulent emotion.  Sand dunes of doubt and insecurity.  Breathtakingly swift changes in a topography that was a mystery to begin with.

© Sara Gaddis 2010