Brenton
itumeleng kganyago
Shea
Always Eighteen
AhmedStars in My Head Part One Chapter 4
November 21st 2007 12:53
SHARNEE’S BOOK
Last night I lay awake and thought about the world. All the bad things. All the good.
And all the reasons I wished I could care.
IN my dream last night I saw a girl with wings. She told me,
“The stars are in your head”
When I woke, my head hurt.
Last night I lay awake and thought about the world. All the bad things. All the good.
And all the reasons I wished I could care.
IN my dream last night I saw a girl with wings. She told me,
“The stars are in your head”
When I woke, my head hurt.
Michael met Faith outside the school buildings. He’d packed a change of clothes in his bag, which he’d put on in the school toilets just then; jeans and a black Slazenger T-shirt. Faith wore her school uniform.
“Where’re we going?” She seemed hardly aware of his presence, other than a face to question.
“Dunno. You hungry?”
“Yes. Yes a little.”
“You wanna grab some lunch?”
“Some lunch. Yeah, sure.” Slowly they walked down the footpath. Clean blue glass shards littered the ground. Dead bats hung off powerlines. Dry grass waved in the breeze, grass seeds sprinkling around their ankles. Slightly alive trees stuck out of the ground at various spots. They walked through the playground together. Together, but in a way apart.
Faith felt distanced, not just from Michael but everyone, every person, every living thing, the universe.
And herself.
Past the park they walked behind the public toilets. A huge blue gremlin grasping a syringe was graffitied onto the brick wall. Below it was written;
ALWAYS QUESTION NEVER ACCEPT
The monsters bloodshot eyes bulged out. From it’s huge gob dripped enough saliva to sink Darwin.
In the mass of trees behind the loo, he thought he saw someone silver walking. He craned his neck. Nothing. He shrugged.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Faith followed Mike to a wooden fence. Beyond the fence lay a blowing sea of dry grass.
“C’mon,” said Michael, jumping over the fence.
Faith lifted one leg over the fence and slid slightly to the other side. A small chunk of wood put a hole in her knickers.
“Shit,” she muttered, lifting her other leg over and sliding off as inconspicuously as possible.
“Y’right?” asked Mike.
“Yeah.”
They began to move through the long grass.
***
Faith sat at the table, followed by Michael. Up the road lay rows of houses, including Tom’s Sharnee’s and Mike’s. Down the road lay more small shops and some fields, including the one they had just come from.
The waitress came, a black-haired woman called Jessica.
“Hey Mike. Faith. How are you both?”
“Good enough Jess” said Mike. Faith gave a small unconfident smile.
“What’s happening in your world Faith?”
It’s falling apart
“Not a lot”
“How’s your mum keeping?”
Too bloody stupid to know her daughter’s insane
“Pretty well.”
“How’s Lola been? She hasn’t been here a while.”
She’s dead
“She’s dead”
“She’s dead? What I… geeze. I’m so sorry. I don’t… wow. Far out. How… did… y’know, she kinda… no, sorry it’s none of my biz. I’m sorry.”
Jess started walking off.
“Hit by a car. We were walking home and a car swerved off the road and hit her. I heard her bones breaking as she rolled over..”
“No!” Jess turned, her eyes fierce. People turned to look at her. She ignored them.
“I’m sorry. Thank you for telling me and all but I can’t here this. I really can’t.” She turned quickly and half ran back into the main of the shop. Faith looked away.
“No one will. No one can hear it.”
SPEAK YOU MORON! SPEAK! SAY YOU CAN HEAR IT! Thought Michael, but couldn’t squeeze the bubble of words up his throat.
“I just see it. I see is sometimes. When I’m in class I see it- over and over again. And I can’t tell anyone.”
YOU CAN TELL ME! YOU CAN TELL ME!
“You can tell, a, phychyatriss… or a councilor or some, thing.”
“Why? So they can tell me I have post-traumatic stress or some shit? To tell my mum I’m a suicidal nut?”
“You could tell… me?” Faith looked at him and leant forward.
“You sure you wanna know? I know you and Lola talked now and then..”
“I’m ready.” Not true. If there were ever a time Mike was very not-ready for something this was it. As she spoke, the imaged spread over his mind like a graveyard mist, a nightmare pulseless and bloody.
“The car hit her legs. Her body twisted. It began to roll up the car, a thousand loud cracks as she rolled, her bones breaking. The windscreen shattered red where her face hit it. She landed on her back on the road behind the car.” She paused and studied the salt shaker. The lid was dented.
“I ran over to Lola. There was blood bubbles in her mouth. When the driver got out, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to move but my whole body was frozen stone, pulled to the ground by some impossible weight. When I next saw Lola, she had tubes in her face, protecting her.
The tubes made her look so safe and beautiful.” Faith smiled slightly.
“She was a beautiful girl. Her face perfect. Her legs were, legs! Like legs legs, not these chunks of blubber” She said, giving her thigh a whack.
“And she had natural cleavage too. Real boobs. Decent things… oh sorry. Am I embarrassing you?”
“No, it’s OK” said Michael, who was only half lying.
Faith looked at her watch.
“I’d better go home. Mum’ll start whinging if I’m out too late.”
“Sure. I’ll take you home.”
“I’ll get a lift from Tori’s mum. Jus’ down the road.”
“Oh. OK. Hey, I’d like to see, you again, y’know.” He gave an inward cringe. It seemed Mike the dickhead had returned.
“I’m free Saturday”
“Cool. See you then.”
“See you tomorrow too.”
“Oh yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow because that’s Friday and we have school on the Friday. On all Fridays actually,” said Mike the dickhead.
***
A poster blew down the path and slid through the gutter, a quick blast wrapping it around the flag pole. Sharnee walked past it, then stopped and went back to it, something about it catching her attention. She grabbed it, hauled it from it’s crumpled position and looked at it.
“Well. Wouldya’ve thought it?” She grabbed it tight and ran up the stairs to the main port racks, where Tom, George and Michael sat, talking.
“Check this out,” she said, unraveling the poster as the others craned their necks to see it. George gasped.
“It wasn’t! I, it, wasn’t a hallucination thing! I saw the Tin Man!”
“Damn straight,” said Sharnee.
“Thought it was him,” half-grunted George.
“I saw someone silver in the bush,” Michael added helpfully, but everyone ignored him. They looked at the poster. Below a huge photo of the Tin Man was written.
VOTE 1: MAVERICK BOOTLICKS
RESPONISBLE, SMART ADULT CITIZEN.
‘I WILL SEE TO IT YOUR NEEDS ARE TAKEN CARE OF’
JUST TICK THE BOX WITH; BOOTLICKS, Maverick
IN THE UPCOMING TOWNMOUNTAIN ELECTION
“I’ve heard about this guy,” said Sharnee, grinning. “Apparently after he lost the last one he did a survey as to why. Half the people said they thought he was a jerk. The other half didn’t know who the hell he was cos he was always dressed as Pooh Bear.”
“Pooh Bear?”
“He’s an actor.”
“Ahh”
“So he’s running in an election dressed like that? Strange.”
“He’s hell fussy too. When he sees the typo on ‘responsible’ he’ll freak.”
“Would that be worth seeing?”
“Michael babe,” Sharnee said, grinning. “This guy exploding? Let’s just say I would miss Home and Away for that.”
“Woah.”
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