The Night Before
In full
K_____ found herself all alone.
Alone under the cloying fluorescent lights of the local Chicken Chuckers at 8PM, taking slurps through the straw of the saccharine carbonated fizz she had randomly chosen from the soda machine. The smell of chicken grease was seeping into her jacket – into her skin. Dee had just left her. Dee was her armor, her protection for the last eight hours; her shift was over and the next bodyguard from the Punk clique hadn’t arrived. She felt bad for making Dee wait after her allotted time, it had already been thirty minutes past, so she told her it was fine. Dee could leave.
Dee was sweet. Kinda. Dee was a cantankerous firebrand. A keen eye for insults, her words could easily cut flesh; however, deep down was tenderness – she just didn’t want anyone to see it. In the same day, she’d shove someone into a garbage can, and later write a secret poem for one of the teachers she had a crush on – K____ knew this because she had found said poem. With Dee off, Fern – another member of the Punks – was supposed to take her place. She should be here any minute. Hopefully.
Once again, she found herself all alone.
Or had she always been all alone?
She always felt alone. Sure, she had friends. She was loved. Her parents loved her. Perhaps too much. Yet there was always this aching pit, an empty seed of loneliness which yearned with an unquenchable thirst. Middle of a heartwarming conversation -- yearn. Family dinner – yearn. Middle of a house party – yearn. She wasn’t sure when the yearning started, perhaps it had always been there. It sure thrived under the tonnage of the expectations put upon her by her parents. “Wait until Harvard gets a new valedictorian, or maybe MIT?” “The Church sends their thanks for volunteering. They are wondering if you can teach Sunday school as well?” “How’s our favorite captain of the Sunset High Summer Knights Soccer Team?” Confession – she wasn’t actually the captain, somehow, she began lying to her parents which had the effect of layering more pressure, but it just seemed easier to fan their expectations. Expectation on top of expectation, like laying bricks for Habitat for Humanity, one on top of another, growing denser and denser until it falls on its side because high schoolers aren’t supposed to know about structural integrity.
Her straw hit ice.
Every human needs an escape. So what if no one knew what hers was? No one really knew her that well. Her methodology was simple: floating between the cliques of the school, liked by all. Her effervescent spirit leaving a path of warmth in its wake. Making others smile always felt good – for a second. Like the way the hundreds of soda flavors at Chicken Chuckers felt, each hit sweet and fleeting. Sometimes sweeter, sometimes sharper. Sometimes a line of K.
She’s supposed to meet The Mage at midnight. It was the corniest codename possible. In her bag was the money she needed. The money she got the Jocks to extort out of the Nerds, promising fifty-fifty and then snagging all the stacks. Hence the protection. She told the Punks the Jocks were after her – didn’t even have to say why – there was enough animosity between the two they obliged immediately. Fern gave an incensed spiel about the nerve of those “’roided up meat heads” trying to force their will on everything. She felt a little bad about playing the cliques off each other but perhaps it was time to leave something else in her wake.
Maybe a refill of the Blue Splurge. After all, this azure soda was a Chicken Chuckers exclusive.
The only time she felt one with herself was in the wee hours between 3 am and 6 am. When her phone stopped buzzing with push notifications of event reminders and texts from people asking to hang out. It was her, the blue hue of the television in front of her and the aquamarine high. Music, at this hour, felt dense as water. Beats acting as gentle anchors as she slowly, gently descended into the depths, the shades of blue becoming darker with every line and with every line the lines of the objects around her began to blur. Blur and pulsate to the beat of the music. Her brain was unmoored and felt as if it had always resided in this space. Perhaps it had gills? All the barriers & masks she had thrown up were put aside; the knots and coils around her spirit like an anchor loosened – she could breathe. She’d throw on cartoons and watch them sync themselves to whatever groove she was listening to.
It would be easy to say at times like this her thoughts were her own, but really there wasn’t that much thinking. Instead, the palette of her emotions inked her entire being. Her sadness flew through her pores, the anger pooled at her feet, her joy soared around her ears. As she sank into the navy-blue darkness, her usual demons were buoys. Nothing to run from, but something to swim with. Her anxiety a life vest, her depression a propeller. The darkness, a friend.
Her cup made noise as ice collided with one another at the stir of her straw.
She had always wanted to create, and under this aquamarine spell, the ideas flowed like a river. Her notes app on her phone was filled with ideas for stories, paintings, music videos – shards of her spirit she hoped to show off one day. Her parents, the school, did not put her trajectory towards that of a creator. Rather a cog in some massive ship engine. She’d rather just sink.
Perhaps that’s why she has been texting the new kid. Nothing too consequential, more like seeing how a fish bites to her lure. The new kid had the memory of a fish, no idea what had been going on in this city, the pressure she had been under. They didn’t know her. She liked that. She could be anyone.
Welcome to Chicken Chuckers! We wish you a Cluckin’ good time!
She resurfaced and inhaled a breath of grease-infused air. The reverie came to a halt with the trademarked robotic greeting.
The sound was pierced by a multitude of “brah”s and “duuuuude”s as a gaggle of jocks (surely they wish they were a murder of jocks) burst into the restaurant, fresh out of evening practice, ready to load up on carbs and protein. She sank into her chair and slung her hoodie up. It’s amazing how safe a simple hood can make one feel. One moment you are there, and the next it’s as if it is just you and a polyester-cotton blend. With the hoodie up, she stood up, and as inconspicuously as possible began slinking towards the exit. Her heart was racing. A wince. Thu-thump. She realized she left her trash on the table. Thu-thump. No turning back. Thu-thump. She opened the door and left.
Welcome to Chicken Chuckers! We wish you a Cluckin’ good time!
Thu-thump.
She stepped out and breathed in suburbia. The one benefit of endless miles of asphalt of four laned boulevards and baked parking lots allowed one to witness the spectacular displays of the heavens. The sky was blood orange as clouds and setting sun rays did the day’s final dance. The hum of traffic enveloped her as obsolete, styrofoam fast-food receptacles tumbled on by like tumbleweeds of yore.
Her meeting with The Mage was at 11pm. A couple of hours needed burning. Her mind turned to the slackers, who hung out behind HaBiBi-Q after school. She had no beef with them – yet. Rather, she usually enjoyed overhearing their austere pontification of mundane matters such as which Halloween candies were elite.
“Double stuff reigns supreme,” proclaimed Bobby. The derelict, forever-beanie-wearer, head-in-the-clouds ruminator.
“It’s all about fudge dipped.” Rebuked Plink, who the entire school knew as a walking encyclopedia of film.
“Blonde Oreos are my pick. The harmony of the vanilla-on-vanilla flavor is akin to the finest sopranos”, argued Chili, who one day woke up as a roly-pollie yet was completely unphased – it helped they were always lost in the tunage.
With a sentence, the debate came to an end, “It has to be Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches.” The leader had spoken. She was famous throughout sunset high for loving the gray sweatpant so much, she had become consumed by them.
With the proclamation, the others began nodding in agreement having not even considered other Oreo flavored desserts.
“Oh, hey K______,” they greeted in unison.
“Hey all, I have a few hours to kill mind if I join y’all?”
“Not at all.”
After twenty minutes turned to forty and forty turned to sixty, she felt a buzz in her jeans. Finally, Fern had hit her up.
Hey soz I’m late. Smthn came up.
No problem
Meet at the arcade?
Omw
Glitch Gorge was the local arcade. Mixing in classics such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, with newer titles like the latest Mario Kart, even a Fall Guys cabinet row. It was one of the few places in town where everyone seemingly got along. You’d see a jock playing Ocean Hunter, with a member of the Nerds right next to him putting up hoops in the NBA Game Time cabinet. Punk & Prep playing Contra, the neon lights dimming the social strata people built up while the blue glow of the screens highlighting the contours of each individual face.
“Hey,” K___ said.
“Hey.”
“What were you up to?”
“Sorry, I’m late. Was caught up on my next hit.”
“What are you planning?”
“I can’t say, sorry K____, you know how it is. A single word gets out, and I can get in a world of shit,” Fern said, “sometimes I wonder how people can just live their lives without seeing all the waste we use. We pick up our dog’s shit with plastic bags, put them in plastic bags, send them to a mountain of plastic which will stay there until the end of time. Imagine an alien civilization finding our remnants of compostable organic matter seran wrapped to preserve it until the heat death of the universe, they will think we are insane. Some society that dictates our waste be placed in a sarcophagus. Guess that’s what video games are here for. Wana play a round of Street Fighter?”
“Yeah, for sure,” she chose Chun Li.
Fern, like Dee, was also a wildfire. Both of them ran with the Punks. Whereas Dee let her fire touch whomever was in proximity, Fern had focused the flame with a laser-like precision. Her passion was climate change, and doing anything possible to raise awareness, no rule, law, moral would stand in her way. Last year, the school’s air conditioning combusted on the rooftop. As the school gathered onto the football field as the many fire drills prepared them to do, the field had a message burned into it, “LIVE WITH YOUR ENVIRONMENT.” The students & faculty had to sweat through the rest of the school year.
“So, what did you do to get in trouble with the Jocks?” She chose Blanka.
“Haha, I can’t say, you know how it is,” she blocked the electric double knee bomb Fern sent her way.
“Touché,” she replied, “Must have done something fierce to have the whole punk clique acting as your personal bodyguards,” as she dealt with the spinning bird kick.
“Thanks again,” she was losing momentum, Chun Li was at the corner of the screen.
“Don’t sweat it, I don’t think anyone would dare cause a ruckus here. It’s like the watering hole in those nature documentaries, no matter how big or small, lion or gazelle, elephant or hyena, the watering hole is sacred ground. A good place to lay low,” round two had begun.
“You think The Mage will make one of their item drops today?” K_____ asked. This is how The Mage communicated with the masses. Suddenly, you’d find cryptic flyers advertising a traditional video game shop with items. Gaia Blades, Stardrops, Boots of Blinding Speed, Estus Flasks, on and on, all code words for what was in stock.
“It does seem extra lively in here today, doesn’t it?” And so, they let the hours tick by, in between punches and kicks, rounds and races, the neon lights rained upon them at the arcade.
The Mage was odd. They were a centerpiece of the flow of drugs through the town, yet money never seemed to be their true modus operandi. Seemingly, it was storytelling. The Mage ran the highest stakes Dungeons & Dragons campaign in town. The players served as unsuspecting drug mules – fetch quests would spill over to reality where item shaped satchels would require delivery from point A to B. Payment was managed via in-game currency, a crypto called Mana. Every campaign session would have a guest player, this would be a prospective customer. The choices made within the campaign affected whether The Mage would deem them trustworthy. Sure, there were other dealers in town, but no one dealt in the same quality The Mage offered. Fortunately, K____ had met the leveling and reputational threshold to make deals directly.
Deals still only occurred in the building the campaign ran. A dark room in some rent-a-space. The Mage had an eye for theatrics – obviously. The room had black walls, floors, ceilings, and at the center, a spotlight illuminated a table. On one side, four chairs, on the opposite side behind a dungeon master’s screen, the DM’s chair. There, robed, lay The Mage themselves.
“Ahh, Alumandi of the Rolling Hills,” The Mage only ever called people by the name they used on their character sheet. Around The Mage, the name you chose on your first encounter would be yours for life. K____ had made the name up on the spot, having chosen a rogue as her base class.
“Do you need a replenishment of the same potions and elixirs, O Tactful Alumandi?”
“Aye, I do.” She always attempted to keep up a high-fantasy tongue around The Mage.
“It was less than a fortnight since your last visit to my humble apothecary, dearest Alumandi,” K____’s eyes shifted to the side, “Yet, I must remember, it is not in the realm of a humble shop keep to question a client,” K____ wanted to exhale but couldn’t, “It is; however, my business when one stirs the pot, as they say, fair Alumandi. Be weary of this business you have found yourself in. I know you have undercut the Jocks and taken advantage of the Nerds. I do not appreciate undue conflict outside the realms of the narrative I wish to tell, for what narrator would I be if I did not understand the scope of a toil. Resolve this, turn to your wits, or this tale may not lead to a happy ending” K____’s tongue was at the back of her throat.
A green velvet pouch slid across the table.
“My calculations estimate a charge of 312.7 mana, wise traveler,” K____ exhaled.
She pulled out her smartphone and with a couple of swipes and taps made the transaction. The idea of snagging the satchel and running skipped through her mind, thinking of the possibilities of such an action. Most likely, one of the constant players of the campaign would come after her. Unknowingly perhaps, of just what real life actions were involved, the deed probably framed as some sort of bounty quest to slay a beast. Around the quest, narrative adornment would be just enough to give the player the rationalization needed to come after her. The reward would probably not even be money or anything tangible, rather a special item or mythic-rare weapon for the character to use within the campaign. The buzz from across the table signified the transaction had processed.
“May your journey be as sweet as a babbling brook, Alumandi the Rogue. Until our fortunes cross again.”
The deed was done.
Time now to be consumed by herself.
Subsumption.
She had hit the ocean floor – it felt wondrous. The bed of sand below her was the softest thing on the planet. Above, her thoughts swam like fish. A school of thoughts wondering what, truly, was the best Oreo. Another though, swimming through the current of forgetfulness – the fact she had forgotten to do her Physics homework. She laughed, which turned into a stream of bubbles which rose to the surface. A coelacanth drifted on by carrying with it an ancient fantasy of driving away from here, in a car.
She followed this guide deeper. The water grew colder, and this wizened fantasy unfolded once more. A drive to the mountains. The mountain peaks crowned in symmetry by the peaks of clouds. In the car someone who shared a mountain of feelings, the plane of silence between them both uncomfortable and comfortable. A canyon of shared history. She never knew why her consciousness settled into this scene time and time again.
She surfaced back into the ocean with a tinge of melancholy. One would think drifting from the surface, where the sunshine radiated and danced on your skin and sinking towards the pelagic zone, the abyss, would be scary. Describing the comfort it gave her would make people think her insane – or so she thought. Why would anyone want to be consumed by darkness? Yet, her high made the darkness comfortable. The darkness never judged; it just was. The darkness didn’t put labels on her; it was just there. Always had been there, always will be there. Some songs touched on this, these songs became her obsession. Lyrics like in the pines, in the pines where the sun don’t ever shine, I’d shiver the whole night through. The woman in the narrative of the song chose to sleep in the darkness of the woods. So perhaps some people understood. She sighed, again letting loose another stream of bubbles.
A meek fish drifted around her periphery. The new kid. She wondered if he was awake, she turned her body around, face down, towards the sand. Her face became illuminated by the blue light of her phone as her reverie broke.
She typed out a message. Deleted it. Typed out another, deleted it. Yet again. Typo.
She settled with:
Hey ;)
An incoming phone call and the message lay unsent.
Ava.
The name laid splayed across the phone and a forgotten promise to hang revealed itself. An expedition to Wave Way to drink a couple then regret it the next day – the one reprieve being smothered in a hoodie during the morning periods of school. The phone continued ringing, an impasse whether to let it go to voicemail. Suddenly, she could hear an engine idling as her consciousness left the comfort of her ocean floor. As she floated up to the surface, she recalled she had asked them to pick her up. The idling engine was, in fact, them, in front of her house. She had to pick up.
“K______! We’re outside”
Speaking was hard right now, outside of her pelagic comfort zone, sounds seemed to emanate from everywhere. She knew this was a side effect of the drugs – auditory hallucinations. Didn’t stop it from being disconcerting.
I’ll. Be. Right. There. Is what she thought she said. It’s what she hoped she said. She levitated off her sofa-throne and began ambling onto the door, throwing on her rain jacket and shades to keep the world an arm’s distance away.
“Sooooo how’re things?”
The SUV she hopped into roared off. Below her, old cans of beer. Next to her Ava driving. Behind, two other preps equally trashed, setting up lines of something or other.
“Yeah, they are okay.”
“Ugh. You won’t believe what Father told me today.” Ava began on one of her usual tirades against her parents. Her whole life had been given to her, unfortunately, that included her personality. As of late, she’d been trying to crack through the shell her parents gave her. Crack through it and shed light into whatever lay within her. This meant she’d been dressing down, cozying up to other cliques, trying to avoid the massive shadow of her net worth laying above her. “Can you believe that K____?”
“No, not at all.” She settled back into the music of the car. Trying to ride each note as it swam into her cochlea. The car rode through cliff-side roads, higher and higher as they ascended to Wave Way. The passengers in the back babbling about the newest drama in school or who likes whom, or who doesn’t like whom.
“Ugh, K____. I’m so glad you get me. I feel like we just understand each other, don’t’ we?”
While they both shared an affinity for numbing themselves with substance, besides that there was little in common. Hiding their addiction bounded them but their personalities kept them apart. K____ played a part for her, just like she did everyone else. Ava had no idea about the empty seed within her soul. Instead, K____ played the part of a doting friend. Ready to have a shoulder to cry on, in return for free car rides, booze, and cocaine. Ava was gentle, tender, and lost. K____ had no time to help guide a lamb.
“We sure do…” She hoped there was enough positive inflection in the sentence or at least that Ava was drunk enough to not notice. Periodically, she’d open her phone again, and look at the text unsent. Hover over the send button, then pull back. The high began settling her into her car ride and soon it felt as if she could see the car speeding down the cliffside roads in third person. Disassociation. The driver letting substance take hold while drifting in and out of the double-yellow. Other cars driving past, furious, letting their generational hatred out, whispering out platitudes like, kids these days.
Car after car. To text or not to text. Blur after blur.
Finally, she sent the text. Decided to put her phone down and not look at it when to her surprise there was an immediate response. The new kid and her began conversing, a little back and forth. Blurb after blurb. She looked back out the window, a weird sense of contentment fizzling within her, Ava and the others still chit-chatting away. It was too good to be true. As she glanced out the window, from the blur of cars she witnessed one car seemingly slow down. Within the black SUV, a group of Jocks. Suddenly, the contentment within her was drained and the emptiness grew boundlessly. She felt cold. Her breath felt distant. It felt as if she was outside the car. It felt as if time was this gelatinous object, she was both stuck in and whizzing past. The face of the driver of the SUV was imprinted on her brain. It looked at her and judged her. The face was the leader of all the Jocks in Sunset High. The star of the soccer team. About to head to Harvard to captain their team. No one at Sunset High worked harder than the captain. She was relentless. As opposed to K_____, she thrived under the pressure – no mask needed. K_____ hated her. Her high had twisted into a low, a low as the darkness trickled towards the edges of her vision. This low had one aim, to assert dominance. The low placed the opponent’s car squarely in front of her own, put her in control. Now she was the driver and a game of chicken commenced. She wasn’t going to lose. Fuck her.
Then oblivion.
From Ava’s perspective, K_____ seemed to have lost control. Suddenly putting her arms over her, debilitating her ability to drive causing them to swerve into the cliff-face soon to be met by the dancing Christmas-like adornment of the first responder’s emergency lights.
Then oblivion.
K_____ woke up to numbness. Then pain. Then numbness again. Numbness. Pain. Throughout the rhythm she could feel the seed of emptiness in her still there, for some reason the seed was invincible. To her left, Ava was still to come to. Behind her, the two passengers had left. Slowly, she peeled herself off the dash. Her limbs begrudgingly listened. They unbuckled her, propped her up, and got her out the window. The fresh air stung in her lungs as she inhaled, a revitalizing sting. Around the serenity two figures in the distance, the passengers of the car, huddled around each other talking on the phone. Her brain began to analyze, what would their parents say? What would her parents say? She shut her brain off and instead began walking. Walking across the street. Over the guardrail, and down the sloping cliffside. The brambles of the growth pricked her, lashed against her jeans, she paid no mind. Instead, she’d just walk. Walk away from this, from her troubles, from everything. Maybe to the beach, find her underwater haven. She’d walk.
Meanwhile, Ava woke to a web of lies already spun by her compatriots. The ambulance would get there soon. Their parents not long after. They’d have to blame K_____ for drinking, for doing drugs, for the crash. Their parents would all have to call the principal, the superintendent, and begin politicking.
K_____ would have to no longer be a student at Sunset High.
Ava would have to walk to school tomorrow.