IV.

Friday, November 7th, 1997 .

Everything’s crap.

Even Katie is shunning me now. She spends all her time with her new boyfriend. They even sit together in the school-bus. Laughing, giving each other little kisses... completely ignoring me. So I sit all the way in the back, alone, and I listen to music. We barely even talk anymore, me and her, and when we do it’s always about school stuff or TV or who’s going out with who, and so-and-so’s party. None of that interests me anymore, I’d rather be completely silent if all we have to talk about is that senseless, boring drivel. I remember, we used to talk, really talk, about our future and our parents and our crushes, but now… how did we end up like that?

I’m happy for her, he’s a great guy and when they do acknowledge my existence he’s really nice to me, but… oh I don’t know.

We went to the mall together during lunch hour, just me and Katie. It could have been a nice opportunity for some kind of friendship moment, but no. We were walking silently, going from store to store. She started listening to her music so I did too. Two zombies walking in zombie land.

And now it’s Friday night. By myself, which is kind of a blessing. Karen’s out. Mom and dad are with their friends, downstairs, having a drink, talking loud, talking too much. Thankfully I had an early supper so I evaded the obligatory “Hi Jennifer how are you Jennifer how’s school Jennifer you’re so tall Jennifer have you dyed your hair Jennifer?”

Yes.

Because Gordon said:

“Suffering is my enemy.
I shall not resort to pain
as a means of aggression.

I SHALL NOT RESORT TO AGRESSION AT ALL!
FOR REMORSE IS THE SEED OF WAR,
IS THE SEED OF MADNESS,
IS THE SEED OF HATE,
IS THE BIRTH
OF BLACK IN THE BREAST.”

Black in the Breast. So I died my hair black, even if it’s naturally dark. Black black black black black, like rotten leaves in the water and the water in the gutter and the gutter that flows down in the sewers. Black like the attic. Black like when I wake up in the autumn morning. Black like the inside of our pumpkin after the candle blew out.

Before they got here, mom asked me to help her with the cake she was just finishing. Holding out the icing thing, she said: “Hey Jen, my cake is done, you wanna do the dollop?”

It’s my “specialty”, according to my family. “You do great dollops!”

My specialty… it’s only my specialty because you decided that it was, to make me feel special or something.

Everything seems so artificial to me.

I’m now sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to their conversation. They’re drunk by now, or at least my parents are. I can hear it in their voices. My dad’s laughter is shrill and out of control, my mom’s voice is slow and over-emphasized.

It should make me laugh to listen to the “grownups”. I used to do it all the time with Karen, we’d have such a thrill spying and then running off to our rooms when we just couldn’t keep the laughter in any longer. Now, alone, not even caring if they spot me on their way to the bathroom or the kitchen, it just brings me down.

“I just do as Life dictates, now matter how degrading it can be sometimes,” says my dad.

Oh why, dad, why? Everything they’re saying, it just shows how much unhappiness they’re hiding, or maybe just ignoring, or maybe, maybe even unaware of.

Later, after the smell of pot has permeated the house, I hear my mom saying: “Only when I’m writing, can I have an intelligent conversation with myself.”

How about having an intelligent conversation with somebody else? How about calling me over for something other than a fucking dollop, once in a while?

They talk and talk, sometimes they’re so incoherent, and the music so loud, that I can’t really tell who’s talking, and what they’re saying. I put my head on my knees. I keep feeling a slight pinch under my eyes, my tear ducts trying in vain to produce some tears.

Back in my room, thinking about what I just heard my dad explaining to the others. Something about lucid dreams, and how when he was younger he used to fall asleep with his fingers pressed down on the vein in his neck, stopping the blood-flow a little, and that somehow this brought on a state of lucid dreaming. He went on to tell about one dream he had where he was a witch about to be burned at the stake, and he finally managed to wake up before it happened.

The lady-friend asked if it was dangerous, and my dad said he knew of someone who ended up dead, not doing it the right way.

What “right way”? How cool it would be to be able to control my dreams, to do whatever I want, fly or travel or talk with Gordon Filligreen. I can’t ask dad for details, he’ll say it’s too dangerous.

Maybe I’ll try it anyway. And maybe it doesn’t really matter if I do it “right” or not.