the fire was there uninvited. the fire barged in and took things that were mine. the fire took me.
i write. i write because it heals me. i write because i have to write.
Dirt
Marla Holiday was one of those girls who was so awful that she had to get up early just to maintain her level of awful, and Rani knew it. Rani knew it because she had to wake up earlier to try and avoid Marla Holiday’s wrath reign of awful.
Today it was a mud-smeared sanitary pad stuck to the door of her locker. Rani carefully peeled it off and walked the ten terrible feet to the trash can to dispose of it. James Prentice and Stevie Gregson snickered and pointed, but it was no matter, Rani had become accustomed to her current life at St John’s college; the days passed, the fires were lit, they burned, and when there was nothing left but ash, Marla Holiday started another fire.
Rani supposed the bitch just simply wanted to watch the world burn.
And so it did. Like a phoenix. Over and over, and Rani was the one who felt the heat most of all. She returned to her locker, stashed her lunch, retrieved her poetry notes for English and kept her head low on the way to form class — a muddy pad was going to be hilarious for the rest of the school and she hadn’t washed her hair in two days, so the whole dirty thing was bound to show up again.
Rani didn’t wish to be popular, or even liked. Rani wished to be like the nerds, that she could fit in with them, but the books she liked were mostly horror comics and obscure essays or monologues in third person. The nerds seemed to think she was so backwards that she was mainstream. She had tried but the wall was apparently too high for her to get inside Nerd World.
Form was chaos as usual. Mr Harrington was a drunk (Rani assumed) and he always turned up late and dishevelled looking like he could use a gallon of cool water and a full English breakfast. He was also, ironically, British. Just like every other day, today was the same. Rani took her seat up the front — she prayed every night for a back-of-the-room seat but it never presented itself — and tried to get herself in order. The day was going to be rough; back to back physics followed by a calculus class that would most likely break her.
Rani watched the class and Mr Harrington but no one spoke to her and no one even seemed to look at her, and that was the gruesome beauty of being an invisible beacon. She was hidden until she was seen, and when she was seen, everyone saw.
Marla Holiday sat up the back of form and always spoke at the top of her voice. She was the too-loud blonde-coloured mean-girl centre of her posse. She was everything that Rani didn’t like about high school, but what was there to be done about that? The conversation was audible from here to there. The weekend and the parties and the oh my god how gross is Mr Harrington, and then —
“It’s like she lives in a fucking forest though, right?”
Marla Holiday’s band of bitches cawed their agreement and Rani could feel her oily teenager face growing a warm scarlet.
“I mean, does she even shower? It’s as if she wants to look like that.”
Rani did her best to not listen and started going over her poetry notes with her head down.
“You’d think her parents would do the kind thing and just take her outside and hose her down.”
There was another wave of approving caws from the bitch-band and then Mr Harrington called form class to attention. “Another great week ahead of us ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a rough voice as he dropped an aspirin into his tea cup. It fizzed and Rani watched him rubbing his temples.
The response was muffled disagreement. No one really wanted to be there — especially not Harrington — but they endured it together and Rani watched as he sat down to ignore them like he did each morning.
Marla Holiday wasn’t done though. “I hope she cleans it.”
Rani stopped writing and closed her eyes. She had the sick feeling she knew where this was going.
From the back of the room, everyone could hear Marla Holiday. “I bet it’s all hairy and wild. I bet it fucking stinks.”
The snickering erupted into laughter from more people than Rani cared to notice. This seemed to rouse Mr Harrington from his haze.
“Calm down, calm down ladies. Sit down and please, prep for your classes. Ms Holiday, I have no doubt that your weekend anecdotes are nothing but inspiring, but could you keep the noise to a minimum?”
“That’s not my main concern, Mr H. I mean the weekend. I’m just worried that some people in our form are really letting their standards of personal hygiene slip to an all time low.”
Mr Harrington frowned, looked around, and then looked down at his suit and vest ensemble. It was crumpled but clean. He looked back up, confused.
Marla laughed mockingly. “Not you, Mr H.”
Rani froze. Was Marla Fucking Holiday going to actually call her out and name her in front of the whole form?
Rani gripped her pen and stared straight ahead at Mr Harrington. She didn’t trust herself to look back at Marla Holiday without bursting into tears.
“It just makes me a bit uncomfortable when certain students don’t have the decency to turn up to school in a satisfactory state. I mean, a little bit of coverall can go a long way, do you know what I mean Mr H?”
Rani felt the world tighten around her. Her already fast heartbeat was speeding up.
The rock was small, but it shot up from the turtle tank in the corner of the classroom and hurtled with surprising speed towards Marla Holiday’s left cheek. She shrieked as she fell back and her band of bitches sprung out away from her, as if they didn’t want to get any scream on them.
Rani watched as Marla scrambled awkwardly back to her feet, holding a hand to her face. “What the fuck was that?”
A couple of the boys laughed. “Maybe it came from the dirty fish market up front.”
Rani felt the pen in her hand snap, just as the turtle tank exploded in a burst of glass that shot out in all directions. The dirt and rocks from it’s bottom rained down on the surprised class of students. Utter panic set in. Girls were screaming, boys were yelling, Rani herself closed her eyes against the flying dirt and, along with a few others, made for the door. Out in the hall, and to her relief, the bell rang and the rest of the school bustled her along as she attempted to brush dirt out of her hair and simultaneously disappear.
Half way through her physics double, the school secretary came and called her to the nurses station. Rani apparently didn’t have a choice — all students from her form were being medically assessed and sent home. Rani found herself in the small group whose parents weren’t home and so when called, hadn’t given permission; they were to stay at school, safe and sound.
Mr Harrington didn’t seem too pleased to be out in the sunshine — he had his wayfarers on and was greedily sucking on an iced latte from the caf — but after several cawing protests from Marla Holiday, he had agreed to let them sit out on the bleachers to study. Principal Carter had insisted that they not return to classes due to their traumatisation, as he called it.
Rani watched my Harrington lounging on the bench just down from her, with one leg crossed over the other. In a strange way, he was perhaps the only thing closest to a friend that she had at school. Of course they didn’t talk or bond or anything, but he was her English teacher as well as her form teacher and he always graded her fairly, leaving helpful and insightful notes on her work in scratchy fountain-pen ink. Rani pretended to study, but she watched Mr Harrington and the sweat that slowly started to bead on his face while she took a rare moment of enjoyment from not having to be on the look out for the next bitch attack.
That was until she remembered she was on a forced study break with Marla Holiday, James Prentice, and a few other not so influential kids — Courtney da Silva was a quiet bookworm, but so detached there wasn’t a way in hell she was going to talk to Rani or Marla Holiday or anyone else who even looked in her direction. Toby Carter was the Principal’s son and he was kind of an odd case in Rani’s opinion. The kid was (obviously) never caught doing anything wrong, but at the same time Rani suspected that he quite often was doing the wrong thing.
He seemed intelligent and wary but he hardly ever spoke or interacted, despite his father’s enthusiasm regarding his potential to be registered into the study body council. Toby seemed to have no intention of joining the council, but there didn’t appear to be a rift between he and his father about it. Rani wondered if that was perhaps merely the facade they had created/built up. If so, they had done a fucking good job.
Toby had a novel open on his lap on the other side of the bleachers and he was pretending to read it, a mirror of her own pretence. She watched him, and he watched Marla Holiday flirt unabashedly with James Prentice down on the grass. Marla Holiday’s cheek was cut a little from the rock and there was bruising starting to purple the surrounding skin. Mr Harrington sipped his iced latte now, and Courtney da Silva was genuinely reading her H.P. Lovecraft (Rani had noted it’s black and gold cover earlier and made a promise to herself to buy a copy just because it looked so damn cool). It felt like the six of them were in a bubble, at the school, but not really there — they had created their own little reality.
Rani was relaxing, she was drifting, watching her peers and her teacher and the glistening summer-day world. She felt as good as she could remember feeling for a solid year and that was exactly the moment that Marla Holiday’s echoing taunt rang out across the football field, across the bleachers, across the calm that had fallen — the lovely calm that Rani had almost fallen right down into.
“She’s just so fucking dirty. Dirty Rani. I mean look at the bitch, she’s dirt!”
It was loud. Too loud.
Mr Harrington hadn’t really stirred, but Courtney da Silva had looked up from her novel with wide eyes and James Prentice appeared red faced and embarrassed next to Marla Holiday. Rani didn’t look at Toby Carter — her eyes were fixed on the small sunlit vision of Marla Holiday out on the perfect green grass, dancing and twirling under the perfect blue sky.
Marla Holiday was laughing.
She was laughing and it was echoing around the football field and Rani was feeling that thing again. Her heartbeat hastening, he blood pumping hard and hot, the world tightening around her.
The dust from between the blades of grass on the field drifted up. Rani watched them, perplexed as the other kids and Mr Harrington up on the bleachers, but Marla Holiday and James Prentice were less perplexed than they were scared. James called out. It was a kind of shout-scream, but the dust was thick in the air almost immediately and it sounded like he was choking.
Rani wanted to be calm but everything around her was buzzing. The air, the feelings, the earth. The dust in the air, the rocks from between the blades of grass — she could feel them — she was reaching out and touching them. She was inside James Prentice’s throat, she was swarming around Marla Holiday’s perfect blonde hair.
Marla Holiday was screaming now. What the fuck. What the fuck. But Rani didn’t care. She was standing up, but the people on the bleachers — Mr Harrington and Courtney da Silver and Toby Carter, they were standing up, backing away from her — Rani felt something rising up inside her. She closed her eyes and felt it hot and brewing, coming from a place she hadn’t known was inside of her.
The mud came then, from out on the edge of the lake that sat alongside St John’s College. Rani felt it thick and wet and coming like a wave. It was heavy, but when she lifted her hands into the air it came more easily — she called it her. The mud hit Marla Holiday and James Prentice from behind and they didn’t have a chance. The two of them fell forward, slicked with mud and dirt. They were no longer laughing. Rani wondered if maybe she was laughing.
There was a shadow next to her and she knew it was Mr Harrington. Stop, he was saying. Stop, please. And Rani could hear it, she could feel him approaching her, but she lifted her hand again and the dust and mud flew up between them and he was gone.
Dirty Rani.
Rani was immense. She was indestructible.
She lifted both her hands and felt the world break open underneath her. The rocks and dirt and mud flew upward and Marla Holiday was still screaming through the mess of it. All Rani had to do was tilt her head and the mess started to swirl around. It was becoming a storm. A dirty brown storm.
Dirty Rani.
She brought her hands down with force and everything, every rock and stone and fragment of earth, everything hit the football field and the bleachers. For once Rani felt louder than Marla Holiday. It wasn’t her voice; it was her bidding.
Toby Carter and Courtney da Silva were trying to run away with Mr Harrington. To get as far as they could from Rani. She turned to look at them and through the thick brown air she was sure that they were laughing. She would stop them laughing. She would stop them forever.
Dirty Rani.
She lifted her hands again and Marla Holiday continued to scream through the thicket of dust and rocks and dirt.
Rani thought of Moses as she brought her hands together and then separated them again, calling the earth to her, calling it back away.
Everyone was shouting. James Prentice had his hands over his eyes and was scrambling away, back towards the bleachers. Marla Holiday was still on the ground, face down, screaming into the dirt. Rani laughed.
She had a clear line of sight to Marla Holiday and so she walked slowly towards her. The far off voices of Mr Harrington and Toby Carter and Courtney da Silva were telling her to stop and please no and no don’t. Rani heard them but all she could do was laugh at how small they were; how weak and behind her they were.
Marla Holiday lifted her dirt-caked face from the ground and let out a pitiful sob.
Rani smiled.
Dirty Rani.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Black Mamba: Part IV
Black Mamba: Part IV
Part I
Part II
Part III
In a strange twist I ended up liking Bucky the most...
Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was avoidance. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t heard from Lola in four months, or maybe it was something else that had drawn Buck out to that particular patch of dirt down at the back of his parents property. Bob and Rita Mason were still in Europe and to be fair, Buck had thought more than twice about starting to dig where he had. So maybe this time he wasn’t being completely irresponsible.
For at least a week he’d gone back and forth, toying with the idea. There was something down there and he was sure of it. He was sure it was down there. Something. Instead of working on his final exam studies or the immense history assignment that would soon be due — the things he should have been doing, and he knew it — he found himself kicking up dust and walking to where the space between the trees called to him.
Most of the properties in Coster Park were sprawling and Buck had heard about the Dupont twins finding a half-pound lump of gold out near their dam. He wanted something like that to happen to him. Shit, he wanted something to happen to him and he was sure there was something down there, under the dirt.
So once school had let out on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days before the party that he and Stacey were planning, Buck took a large shovel from his father’s tool shed next to the stables. The dirt was hard and compacted, dry on the top, but darker and easier to move the deeper he got. He couldn’t tell you how long he was down there because it was morning by the time he woke up in his bed, dirt and mud caked on his skin and bed sheets. He was late for school.
Eating a peanut butter toast and using his cell phone to take photos of the hole, Buck managed to get later and later for school. He was impressed by how deep he had gone. He found it almost hard to believe that he’d done it by himself. He quickly texted one of the pictures to Stacey and then jumped on his push bike.
At school he promptly got detention.
“Bucky,” Stacey said as they sat down to an early lunch and the cog continued to turn inside Buck’s head. “Buck, what is this man? Are you missing her or something?”
Buck shook his head. He knew that Lola was a distant memory. A very fucking close distant memory, but still, that wasn’t what was bothering him. “I found something.”
“You found something?”
“Yeah man. It’s this big, flat, stone thing. It’s like ancient, something. Egyptian maybe.” He shrugged, “I dunno. It’s big and flat and it’s at the bottom of the hole that I dug last night.”
Buck saw Stacey roll his eyes in frustration. “You dug a hole?”
“Yeah man. I mean, I had this feeling, and I’ve been thinking about it and —”
“You had a feeling?” Stacey unwrapped his lunch burrito.
“Yeah man. It’s like —”
“And it’s Egyptian or something?”
“Yeah. Man, it’s fucking incredible. Wait until you —”
Stacey looked up sharply and Buck knew he was in trouble.
“What about your history essay?” Stacey asked accusingly.
Buck was silent. Stacey took a bite of his burrito. Buck knew the point his best friend was trying to make but that didn’t really matter. What he needed to do right now was go to the library.
“Look man, this Lola business is no good for you,” Stacey said with a mouthful of burrito. “Focus on Robbie. She’s happy — Jesus, she’s nice — she’s good for you.” With a shrug and a look of forfeit, Stacey remained at the lunch table while Buck continued turned away and continued on with avoiding his detention.
The library wasn’t unknown to him, but it was definitely not a place he frequented unless he wanted to spy on Lola. She was usually in the corner of one of the couches in the fiction section with her legs tucked underneath herself and her mind somewhere far away. Buck liked to watch her facial expressions as she leafed through paperbacks or scrolled in her phone or stared off into space. She wasn’t there today.
He made his way to the history section and felt a stab of guilt that he wasn’t working on his essay. He brushed it away. Robbie would text him about it later anyways, after a prompt from Stacey, and the guilt would stab again. No need for Buck to worry about it now.
Ancient Egyptian history encompassed a large amount of books, but he didn’t have to spend too much time looking. There were quite a number on hieroglyphics and translating them.
Buck flicked through his photos trying to find one that was clear enough to make out the inscriptions on the flat piece of stone at the bottom of his excavation hole. There was one that was fairly decent but some of the markings were still too hard to make out. At the end of a half hour, and with his ignored detention probably earning him another, all Buck had deciphered was — The Snake Leader something something again lift.
It seemed wrong and he knew he’d fucked it up, but his mind had stopped lingering on the hole he had dug. It was wandering now and it was wandering to Lola. He flushed with guilt, feeling as if someone had been watching him. His phone buzzed. It was Robin.
Hey baby. So, Safety Stacey is telling me you’ve dug a fucking hole and are avoiding your essay.
Buck like Robin. He liked how crass she was, he liked her bright painted nails, he liked her unbreakable happy smile, he liked how eagerly she had gone down on him on multiple occasions.
Bucky knew he was a dick.
He hesitated and then flicked off the message without responding. Maybe he could convince Lola to come to the party instead of Robin.
Part I
Part II
Part III
In a strange twist I ended up liking Bucky the most...
Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was avoidance. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t heard from Lola in four months, or maybe it was something else that had drawn Buck out to that particular patch of dirt down at the back of his parents property. Bob and Rita Mason were still in Europe and to be fair, Buck had thought more than twice about starting to dig where he had. So maybe this time he wasn’t being completely irresponsible.
For at least a week he’d gone back and forth, toying with the idea. There was something down there and he was sure of it. He was sure it was down there. Something. Instead of working on his final exam studies or the immense history assignment that would soon be due — the things he should have been doing, and he knew it — he found himself kicking up dust and walking to where the space between the trees called to him.
Most of the properties in Coster Park were sprawling and Buck had heard about the Dupont twins finding a half-pound lump of gold out near their dam. He wanted something like that to happen to him. Shit, he wanted something to happen to him and he was sure there was something down there, under the dirt.
So once school had let out on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days before the party that he and Stacey were planning, Buck took a large shovel from his father’s tool shed next to the stables. The dirt was hard and compacted, dry on the top, but darker and easier to move the deeper he got. He couldn’t tell you how long he was down there because it was morning by the time he woke up in his bed, dirt and mud caked on his skin and bed sheets. He was late for school.
Eating a peanut butter toast and using his cell phone to take photos of the hole, Buck managed to get later and later for school. He was impressed by how deep he had gone. He found it almost hard to believe that he’d done it by himself. He quickly texted one of the pictures to Stacey and then jumped on his push bike.
At school he promptly got detention.
“Bucky,” Stacey said as they sat down to an early lunch and the cog continued to turn inside Buck’s head. “Buck, what is this man? Are you missing her or something?”
Buck shook his head. He knew that Lola was a distant memory. A very fucking close distant memory, but still, that wasn’t what was bothering him. “I found something.”
“You found something?”
“Yeah man. It’s this big, flat, stone thing. It’s like ancient, something. Egyptian maybe.” He shrugged, “I dunno. It’s big and flat and it’s at the bottom of the hole that I dug last night.”
Buck saw Stacey roll his eyes in frustration. “You dug a hole?”
“Yeah man. I mean, I had this feeling, and I’ve been thinking about it and —”
“You had a feeling?” Stacey unwrapped his lunch burrito.
“Yeah man. It’s like —”
“And it’s Egyptian or something?”
“Yeah. Man, it’s fucking incredible. Wait until you —”
Stacey looked up sharply and Buck knew he was in trouble.
“What about your history essay?” Stacey asked accusingly.
Buck was silent. Stacey took a bite of his burrito. Buck knew the point his best friend was trying to make but that didn’t really matter. What he needed to do right now was go to the library.
“Look man, this Lola business is no good for you,” Stacey said with a mouthful of burrito. “Focus on Robbie. She’s happy — Jesus, she’s nice — she’s good for you.” With a shrug and a look of forfeit, Stacey remained at the lunch table while Buck continued turned away and continued on with avoiding his detention.
The library wasn’t unknown to him, but it was definitely not a place he frequented unless he wanted to spy on Lola. She was usually in the corner of one of the couches in the fiction section with her legs tucked underneath herself and her mind somewhere far away. Buck liked to watch her facial expressions as she leafed through paperbacks or scrolled in her phone or stared off into space. She wasn’t there today.
He made his way to the history section and felt a stab of guilt that he wasn’t working on his essay. He brushed it away. Robbie would text him about it later anyways, after a prompt from Stacey, and the guilt would stab again. No need for Buck to worry about it now.
Ancient Egyptian history encompassed a large amount of books, but he didn’t have to spend too much time looking. There were quite a number on hieroglyphics and translating them.
Buck flicked through his photos trying to find one that was clear enough to make out the inscriptions on the flat piece of stone at the bottom of his excavation hole. There was one that was fairly decent but some of the markings were still too hard to make out. At the end of a half hour, and with his ignored detention probably earning him another, all Buck had deciphered was — The Snake Leader something something again lift.
It seemed wrong and he knew he’d fucked it up, but his mind had stopped lingering on the hole he had dug. It was wandering now and it was wandering to Lola. He flushed with guilt, feeling as if someone had been watching him. His phone buzzed. It was Robin.
Hey baby. So, Safety Stacey is telling me you’ve dug a fucking hole and are avoiding your essay.
Buck like Robin. He liked how crass she was, he liked her bright painted nails, he liked her unbreakable happy smile, he liked how eagerly she had gone down on him on multiple occasions.
Bucky knew he was a dick.
He hesitated and then flicked off the message without responding. Maybe he could convince Lola to come to the party instead of Robin.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Black Mamba: Part III
Black Mamba: Part III
Part I
Part II
I suppose it's ironic that my chattiest character ended up having the least amount of dialogue...
Robin was cold but the night was good, so it didn’t really matter. Convincing Min had been one thing; convincing Min’s mum had been entirely another. The second vodka sunrise was going down just a treat and Robin knew that Bucky was absolutely pining for her.
As she sat on the edge of his ‘excavation site’ — which was really just a big fuck-off hole in the ground — she couldn’t remember feeling this good for a long time. Mini was lost in Stacey’s new-found attention, and it didn’t really seem to matter that Buck was acting like an idiot. Robin arched her back and cracked her spine. Buck always acted like a fucking idiot, so; whatever.
She was happy with how her makeup had turned out tonight. More than happy. And Mini looked damn good in the red v-neck top she had leant to her. Robin felt the cold dirt shift underneath her skirt and wished they were back at the fire — at their little detached party. But Bucky was intent on shovelling away at his hole, just like he had been for the last couple of days.
Robin watched from across the hole as Stacey held Min back, making sure she wouldn’t fall, sneaking glances at her cleavage, and appearing far more nervous than Robin had expected. The two of them were enviably cute. Much more so than Bucky and Robin, and she hated them for it.
It was hard to be on the outside. Robin wondered if she was already done. She was the same age as Min, but she’d done so much and she felt used up. She ached for that new feeling — that ‘just scratching the surface’ feeling — she resented how weathered she felt herself to be. Mini was a brand new, budding flower. Mini was gorgeous and completely unaware of it. Mini was enviable.
Robin was all talk and all sex. She always had been. And she hated that about herself.
Robin knew the things that boys liked.
Boys liked you to make a solid first move. Boys liked you to want them. Boys liked you to act as if their dick was the greatest thing you’d ever seen, even when they knew it wasn’t. And Robin was no fool — she knew girls wanted similar things, she had just never really been into girls. Robin liked boys and so she had learnt how to do the things that boys liked so that she could have boys.
Boys wanted to chase, but not so long or so far as to make them legitimately tired. Boys wanted to woo, but not so much as to max out the credit card or find themselves at a craft fair. Boys were willing to go as far as it took to get the pussy, but once they were done it was nap time and that was that.
Robin knew she was generalising, she knew she was lumping the male collective into an immense, unrealistic stereotype, but she liked Buck, and unfortunately there seemed to be nothing that wasn't stereotypical about the man-child that he was.
Robin sipped her vodka sunrise and surreptitiously watched Min and Stacey. She knew they must have kissed early. Of course they had. Min’s face was flushed and the pair of them had a different dynamic to earlier. Robin smiled to herself. She saw Stacey pull Min in close, on the other side of the hole and all she wanted was for Buck to hold her like that — to want her as if she was something special; something to be sought after and treasured and adored. She wanted him to give half a shit.
Robin looked down into the hole and saw Buck trip, drunkenly, on his own shovel. Just as she was about to stand up and yell at him for being clumsy, an ice cold wind rose up from the excavation hole.
Robin felt as light as a cloud. Something cleared in her mind. Her thoughts were. She dropped her drink.
Bucky?
But before she could actually say his name. She was not herself.
Her body felt long and curved and twisting.
She was not herself. She would never be herself again.
Part I
Part II
I suppose it's ironic that my chattiest character ended up having the least amount of dialogue...
Robin was cold but the night was good, so it didn’t really matter. Convincing Min had been one thing; convincing Min’s mum had been entirely another. The second vodka sunrise was going down just a treat and Robin knew that Bucky was absolutely pining for her.
As she sat on the edge of his ‘excavation site’ — which was really just a big fuck-off hole in the ground — she couldn’t remember feeling this good for a long time. Mini was lost in Stacey’s new-found attention, and it didn’t really seem to matter that Buck was acting like an idiot. Robin arched her back and cracked her spine. Buck always acted like a fucking idiot, so; whatever.
She was happy with how her makeup had turned out tonight. More than happy. And Mini looked damn good in the red v-neck top she had leant to her. Robin felt the cold dirt shift underneath her skirt and wished they were back at the fire — at their little detached party. But Bucky was intent on shovelling away at his hole, just like he had been for the last couple of days.
Robin watched from across the hole as Stacey held Min back, making sure she wouldn’t fall, sneaking glances at her cleavage, and appearing far more nervous than Robin had expected. The two of them were enviably cute. Much more so than Bucky and Robin, and she hated them for it.
It was hard to be on the outside. Robin wondered if she was already done. She was the same age as Min, but she’d done so much and she felt used up. She ached for that new feeling — that ‘just scratching the surface’ feeling — she resented how weathered she felt herself to be. Mini was a brand new, budding flower. Mini was gorgeous and completely unaware of it. Mini was enviable.
Robin was all talk and all sex. She always had been. And she hated that about herself.
Robin knew the things that boys liked.
Boys liked you to make a solid first move. Boys liked you to want them. Boys liked you to act as if their dick was the greatest thing you’d ever seen, even when they knew it wasn’t. And Robin was no fool — she knew girls wanted similar things, she had just never really been into girls. Robin liked boys and so she had learnt how to do the things that boys liked so that she could have boys.
Boys wanted to chase, but not so long or so far as to make them legitimately tired. Boys wanted to woo, but not so much as to max out the credit card or find themselves at a craft fair. Boys were willing to go as far as it took to get the pussy, but once they were done it was nap time and that was that.
Robin knew she was generalising, she knew she was lumping the male collective into an immense, unrealistic stereotype, but she liked Buck, and unfortunately there seemed to be nothing that wasn't stereotypical about the man-child that he was.
Robin sipped her vodka sunrise and surreptitiously watched Min and Stacey. She knew they must have kissed early. Of course they had. Min’s face was flushed and the pair of them had a different dynamic to earlier. Robin smiled to herself. She saw Stacey pull Min in close, on the other side of the hole and all she wanted was for Buck to hold her like that — to want her as if she was something special; something to be sought after and treasured and adored. She wanted him to give half a shit.
Robin looked down into the hole and saw Buck trip, drunkenly, on his own shovel. Just as she was about to stand up and yell at him for being clumsy, an ice cold wind rose up from the excavation hole.
Robin felt as light as a cloud. Something cleared in her mind. Her thoughts were. She dropped her drink.
Bucky?
But before she could actually say his name. She was not herself.
Her body felt long and curved and twisting.
She was not herself. She would never be herself again.
Black Mamba: Part II
Black Mamba (Part I)
And now, Part II...
Stacey was jittery with nerves as he set up the tables of snacks and drinks and ice.
Buck watched him from a chair out on the lawn. “We better get that fire started soon.”
Stacey balked. “Bucky, you should get the fire started. I’ve been doing everything else while you’ve been lounging there going on and on about your ridiculous ‘excavation site’.”
“Fucking Safety Stacey. Man, sometimes I think you have little to no faith in me.”
“That is exactly what I have Bucky — little to no faith.”
Buck grinned at him and Stacey couldn’t help but roll his eyes in amusement. The two of them were on the very cusp of graduating and with Buck’s folks away in Europe for the month, they decided it was the perfect time to throw a preemptive celebratory bash. More so, and Stacey had thought it to himself as they had quietly discussed it at the back of algebra, he knew Buck would invite Robin because of their current far-too-obvious tango, and that was good. Robin would definitely bring along her cute friend Min. Those two were hardly seen apart at school.
Stacey’s mind was on Min as he set out plastic cups and emptied bags of corn chips into Buck’s mothers’ serving bowls. The poem had been what had first stuck to him. The girl was pretty, of course she was, but he didn’t want to be that kind of guy, even though he knew he was. He was just like everyone else who would be at the party tonight, but Min — there was something about her. Something else. She was so quiet, and yet so close to Robin, as if the two of them were bound by blood instead of friendship. Sometimes Stacey couldn’t really understand it, the girls just seemed like such opposites.
Stacey!
Buck was calling from where he still slouched in his chair.
Stacey shrugged and gave up. He scuffed through the dirt and over to the crude fire pit they had dug earlier that day. As he started tossing in chunks of wood from the pile and scrunched up newspaper pages, Buck similarly started his inevitable interrogation.
“So, this Asian bird.”
“Don’t say Asian bird, Bucky. She’s Chinese and her name is Min.”
“Oh my god, Safety Stacey, why are you being so precious about this?”
“I’m no being precious, you dick. I just like her. And you should know her name, she’s Robbie’s best friend.”
Buck hauled himself out of the chair to grab another beer from the table. “I only need to know Robbie’s name, she’s the one I’m banging and she’s the one I want to continue banging. Speaking of, please tell me you’re gonna bang Mindy tonight?”
Stacey was on the edge of angry, but he bit his tongue on what he really wanted to say. “It’s Min, not Mindy, and no, we’ve barely even spoken.”
Buck cracked open the beer and it fizzed up out of the can. “Woah!” he said, shaking his hand over the dirt. “Anyways, what was I saying?”
“Something about being an impolite, racist oaf?”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Buck crossed his eyes idiotically. “No, what I’m saying is that is perfect. If you don’t know her that well, you can bang her and not have to worry about anything else. You made it nice with that Latino chick for like weeks without having to bother with the back and forth bullshit that I get from Robbie.”
“Jesus Bucky, don’t say Latina chick. Her name was Cindy and she was Portuguese. We dated, casually, and it just didn’t work out. I wasn’t using her.”
Buck picked up the matches from the table and came over to the fire pit next to Stacey. “Cindy,” he repeated, “sounds very fucking close to Mindy, doesn’t it old boy?”
Stacey didn’t bother with a response this time. He crouched down and started rifling through the pile of wood for the larger pieces.
Buck seemed to feel the tension. “Look buddy, I’m sorry. I’m only having a go because you seem to really like her, yeah?”
Stacey shrugged. “I guess I probably do. I don’t know…” Stacey paused, remembering that day in english class. “Did we have eleventh grade English together?”
Buck scoffed. “The fuck would I remember?”
“Nothing, I just…”
“Go on, spit it out Safety Stacey. I know you’re tryin’ to tell me something right now. May as well go ahead.”
Stacey worried he was about to blush, but he stood up and willed himself to be the Stacey that most people knew him as. “There was that day that we had to read out our poems. You didn’t even write one, remember? Anyways, that was the first day that I really noticed her, Min. She read out her poem and it was called ‘From The Trees’ and it was not at all what I was expecting.”
Buck was poised with his beer just an inch from his face, his eyes narrowed; the cogs were turning; he was remembering. “Wait — wait wait wait. I do fucking remember that day.”
Stacey was almost taken aback. “You remember her poem?”
“No, not the poem, the day. It was free ice cream day at the caf.”
“What?” Stacey was pretending he didn’t remember that fact, but of course he did.
The devilish expression on Buck’s face was not a good sign. “Oh. My. God.” He took a step back, feigning shock. “You salty dog! Here I am, thinking Safety Stacey is a reformed man. Thinking that he likes girls because of poems and rainbows and unicorns.”
Stacey shot Buck the bird but at the same time he was gritting his teeth, bracing for what he knew was about to come.
Buck paused again, savoured the moment before he took the kill shot. “I know you know what I’m talking about. Free ice cream day?”
Stacey said nothing.
“At the caf?”
Stacey stayed silent.
“We sat outside on the green, and it was like a million degrees out, and we were on that bench opposite Robbie and her little Asian chick friend, and the ice cream was melting down onto their hands and they were licking it up, and I said, damn I wish Robbie was licking my —”
“Don’t even fucking say it.” Stacey was standing up and his tone was mush angrier than he had meant it to be.
Buck held up his hands in forfeit. “Dude, I was only gonna say that you were thinking the same thing. I know you would never say it out loud, like me, but there’s nothing wrong with thinking it.”
Stacey looked off into the trees. He wasn’t really angry, he was more embarrassed. Of course the ice cream thing had stuck in his mind. He had watched Min as she carefully — delicately — licked melted pink ice cream from her fingers and wrist. He had been almost hard just at that. But that wasn’t it.
It had been the poem. He hardly paid attention in English class, let alone for stuff like poetry, but something about Min’s quiet voice and measured pace had pulled him in. He couldn’t remember the words. He remembered the poem — it was aggressive, violent in a way, and she used swear words, which Mrs Heller had said was okay but shouldn’t stand as an opening for everyone else to include cussing in their work.
Stacey remembered the ice cream as well, and he wondered what her tongue felt like. Was it sweet like melted ice cream? Was it wet? Was it warm?
He knew he wanted Min, but he knew they were from different places. Not that she was Chinese. It was that he was a big idiot and she was intellectual and withdrawn. He was a jock in most ways — he had a reputation that she had no doubt heard about — but he hoped he was more than that. He wanted to be more than what most people thought about him. He wanted to write poetry as good as Min’s. He wanted Min.
Buck’s face was serious when Stacey finally looked up. “Safety Stacey. I'm sorry I was a dick. It’s been a while since you liked a girl — actually I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you like a girl before — so let’s leave this baby to burn a little,” he said, looking at the growing fire, “and go check out my awesome excavation site where we are gonna find some stuff that’s gonna make us so uber rich.”
Stacey gave in. “Fine. Just please promise me that there won’t be any goddamn snakes out there. I hate snakes.”
And now, Part II...
Stacey was jittery with nerves as he set up the tables of snacks and drinks and ice.
Buck watched him from a chair out on the lawn. “We better get that fire started soon.”
Stacey balked. “Bucky, you should get the fire started. I’ve been doing everything else while you’ve been lounging there going on and on about your ridiculous ‘excavation site’.”
“Fucking Safety Stacey. Man, sometimes I think you have little to no faith in me.”
“That is exactly what I have Bucky — little to no faith.”
Buck grinned at him and Stacey couldn’t help but roll his eyes in amusement. The two of them were on the very cusp of graduating and with Buck’s folks away in Europe for the month, they decided it was the perfect time to throw a preemptive celebratory bash. More so, and Stacey had thought it to himself as they had quietly discussed it at the back of algebra, he knew Buck would invite Robin because of their current far-too-obvious tango, and that was good. Robin would definitely bring along her cute friend Min. Those two were hardly seen apart at school.
Stacey’s mind was on Min as he set out plastic cups and emptied bags of corn chips into Buck’s mothers’ serving bowls. The poem had been what had first stuck to him. The girl was pretty, of course she was, but he didn’t want to be that kind of guy, even though he knew he was. He was just like everyone else who would be at the party tonight, but Min — there was something about her. Something else. She was so quiet, and yet so close to Robin, as if the two of them were bound by blood instead of friendship. Sometimes Stacey couldn’t really understand it, the girls just seemed like such opposites.
Stacey!
Buck was calling from where he still slouched in his chair.
Stacey shrugged and gave up. He scuffed through the dirt and over to the crude fire pit they had dug earlier that day. As he started tossing in chunks of wood from the pile and scrunched up newspaper pages, Buck similarly started his inevitable interrogation.
“So, this Asian bird.”
“Don’t say Asian bird, Bucky. She’s Chinese and her name is Min.”
“Oh my god, Safety Stacey, why are you being so precious about this?”
“I’m no being precious, you dick. I just like her. And you should know her name, she’s Robbie’s best friend.”
Buck hauled himself out of the chair to grab another beer from the table. “I only need to know Robbie’s name, she’s the one I’m banging and she’s the one I want to continue banging. Speaking of, please tell me you’re gonna bang Mindy tonight?”
Stacey was on the edge of angry, but he bit his tongue on what he really wanted to say. “It’s Min, not Mindy, and no, we’ve barely even spoken.”
Buck cracked open the beer and it fizzed up out of the can. “Woah!” he said, shaking his hand over the dirt. “Anyways, what was I saying?”
“Something about being an impolite, racist oaf?”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Buck crossed his eyes idiotically. “No, what I’m saying is that is perfect. If you don’t know her that well, you can bang her and not have to worry about anything else. You made it nice with that Latino chick for like weeks without having to bother with the back and forth bullshit that I get from Robbie.”
“Jesus Bucky, don’t say Latina chick. Her name was Cindy and she was Portuguese. We dated, casually, and it just didn’t work out. I wasn’t using her.”
Buck picked up the matches from the table and came over to the fire pit next to Stacey. “Cindy,” he repeated, “sounds very fucking close to Mindy, doesn’t it old boy?”
Stacey didn’t bother with a response this time. He crouched down and started rifling through the pile of wood for the larger pieces.
Buck seemed to feel the tension. “Look buddy, I’m sorry. I’m only having a go because you seem to really like her, yeah?”
Stacey shrugged. “I guess I probably do. I don’t know…” Stacey paused, remembering that day in english class. “Did we have eleventh grade English together?”
Buck scoffed. “The fuck would I remember?”
“Nothing, I just…”
“Go on, spit it out Safety Stacey. I know you’re tryin’ to tell me something right now. May as well go ahead.”
Stacey worried he was about to blush, but he stood up and willed himself to be the Stacey that most people knew him as. “There was that day that we had to read out our poems. You didn’t even write one, remember? Anyways, that was the first day that I really noticed her, Min. She read out her poem and it was called ‘From The Trees’ and it was not at all what I was expecting.”
Buck was poised with his beer just an inch from his face, his eyes narrowed; the cogs were turning; he was remembering. “Wait — wait wait wait. I do fucking remember that day.”
Stacey was almost taken aback. “You remember her poem?”
“No, not the poem, the day. It was free ice cream day at the caf.”
“What?” Stacey was pretending he didn’t remember that fact, but of course he did.
The devilish expression on Buck’s face was not a good sign. “Oh. My. God.” He took a step back, feigning shock. “You salty dog! Here I am, thinking Safety Stacey is a reformed man. Thinking that he likes girls because of poems and rainbows and unicorns.”
Stacey shot Buck the bird but at the same time he was gritting his teeth, bracing for what he knew was about to come.
Buck paused again, savoured the moment before he took the kill shot. “I know you know what I’m talking about. Free ice cream day?”
Stacey said nothing.
“At the caf?”
Stacey stayed silent.
“We sat outside on the green, and it was like a million degrees out, and we were on that bench opposite Robbie and her little Asian chick friend, and the ice cream was melting down onto their hands and they were licking it up, and I said, damn I wish Robbie was licking my —”
“Don’t even fucking say it.” Stacey was standing up and his tone was mush angrier than he had meant it to be.
Buck held up his hands in forfeit. “Dude, I was only gonna say that you were thinking the same thing. I know you would never say it out loud, like me, but there’s nothing wrong with thinking it.”
Stacey looked off into the trees. He wasn’t really angry, he was more embarrassed. Of course the ice cream thing had stuck in his mind. He had watched Min as she carefully — delicately — licked melted pink ice cream from her fingers and wrist. He had been almost hard just at that. But that wasn’t it.
It had been the poem. He hardly paid attention in English class, let alone for stuff like poetry, but something about Min’s quiet voice and measured pace had pulled him in. He couldn’t remember the words. He remembered the poem — it was aggressive, violent in a way, and she used swear words, which Mrs Heller had said was okay but shouldn’t stand as an opening for everyone else to include cussing in their work.
Stacey remembered the ice cream as well, and he wondered what her tongue felt like. Was it sweet like melted ice cream? Was it wet? Was it warm?
He knew he wanted Min, but he knew they were from different places. Not that she was Chinese. It was that he was a big idiot and she was intellectual and withdrawn. He was a jock in most ways — he had a reputation that she had no doubt heard about — but he hoped he was more than that. He wanted to be more than what most people thought about him. He wanted to write poetry as good as Min’s. He wanted Min.
Buck’s face was serious when Stacey finally looked up. “Safety Stacey. I'm sorry I was a dick. It’s been a while since you liked a girl — actually I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you like a girl before — so let’s leave this baby to burn a little,” he said, looking at the growing fire, “and go check out my awesome excavation site where we are gonna find some stuff that’s gonna make us so uber rich.”
Stacey gave in. “Fine. Just please promise me that there won’t be any goddamn snakes out there. I hate snakes.”
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