Poor Reflections

PENNY

My morning isn’t going according to plan. I’m not that big on plans to begin with, but wow, I’m not asking for much here. All I wanted was to drift from wake-up call to mid-morning mellow to afternoon pick-me-up to evening lullaby, just like any other day. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

The hallways are still flooded with students at their lockers, stowing their stuff and chatting and catching up and taking selfies and pointedly ignoring me, which is fine, really, cuz I really kinda don’t want to run the risk of remembering anything right now. I'm wandering around in a sort of half-panic. I check my phone again as I walk, trying not to look anyone in the eye. It’s not yet nine o’clock, and my morning wake-up call is already wearing off.

I’m sweating. God, how am I already sobering up? Did I not take enough? Have I somehow built up a tolerance in the span of 24 hours? Does white have an expiration date?

I can feel a pressure building up in the back of my mind, like something threatening to break through the chemical dam I’ve so carefully maintained over the last few years. I want to hurry, but I’m taking a circuitous route around this wing of the school to get back to my locker, hoping that the new girl will have left by then.

I can’t believe I almost told her everything. What the hell was that? Once, I can almost understand. I get a wild hair up my ass (wait, is it hare? I can see rampaging butt rabbits making people do crazy shit) every once in awhile and try to do something stupid, but I’m pretty good at catching myself. But twice? Why am I so compelled to tell this complete stranger my life story?

I slow my pace as I realize two even weirder things – why (or, even better, how) did I try to get a read on her, and how did that read pull up nothing? I shudder as lavender eyes win a staring contest with my mind.

I’m stressing myself out. I just have to make it back to my locker and let mellow Molly massage my mental mess back to mush. I pause at a water fountain for a drink – gosh, my throat’s dry – and try to calm down as the motor kicks on with a grinding cough, indicating maintenance will be necessary within–

Oh no.

Cold dread floods through my body. I stare at the floor waxed within the previous twenty hours– okay, no, I stare at the ceiling tiles still showing water damage from heavy snowfall the previous winter– dammit, fine, I’ll just shut my eyes.

There. Now, think.

I had hoped the incident with Twilight had been a fluke. Isolated. But no, that’s too much to hope for. Despite my best efforts, my mind is now fully cogent. So, problem: I’m lucid. Solution: take mid-morning molly an hour early and hope the rest of the day stays on track. I just have to make it back to my locker.

Easier said than done. I’m tempted to try to make it there with my eyes closed, but the hallway’s too crowded. I really, really don’t want to open my eyes, though. It’s like standing on the high dive at the pool; the longer I stall, the worse it gets. With that in mind, I take a deep breath, open my eyes, and set off at a brisk pace.

I keep my eyes glued to the floor to try and avoid looking at anyone – it’s not like I can forget where I’m going in this state, but even people’s shoes are scuffed and worn, a result of the depressed economic environment since– just keep moving Penny, don’t look at the Chuck Taylors, the very finest in canvas-based footwear, worn almost exclusively by– stop it!

God, it’s worse than I remember it being. I’m almost sprinting back to my locker now as the data input threatens to overwhelm my sense of fashion tends to be dated compared to that of the coastal cities as culture drifts inward towards the midwestern dirt encrusting the sole’s edge is old, multi-layered, the workboots of a farmboy, non-standard considering central location for high school though not unprecedented, considering the small number of northern farms that send their students to the city for higher eduation, including– no! Don’t think about a ten-year-old girl, sandy blonde hair tied back with a scarlet hair tie, stares back at her with anger, pain, and tears in her eyes.

Penny stares at the girl, her distant kin, as she stands there in her black dress. Suddenly her own clothes are replaced with solid black, and she stands in the expansive front yard of a farmhouse–

Blinded by my reverie, my runaway train of thought derails as I slam into someone. I knock them over, and a collection of sketches tumbles to the floor. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I say as I bend to help pick Zachary, seventeen years old, abusive mother, forty-two stitches over the last– I shake my head as I turn to run into the crowd, but I lock eyes with Brandi, showed up drunk to school for a solid week after– god dammit, no! Stop looking at Kelsey, spends time shuttled back and forth between two parents who don’t care about Thomas who abandoned his girlfriend after she got pregnant and Caleigh got pregnant the summer before last but she never– shut up shut up SHUT UP!

I slam my head into a locker and shut my eyes again and try to choke back a sob. Failing that, I look to see that hey, this is my locker. Thank god. I twirl the lock – seven to twenty-seven past zero to eleven important number prime number eleven goes into one hundred and eleven eleven times but always comes back one of these days I’m going to just start screaming and never stop, but I don’t think that’ll be today as I wash down the pill with an ice-cold Red Bull and take a deep breath.

I’m shaking, but I already feel a small measure of control as studies have shown the placebo effect takes hold well before the drug has a chance to work its magic. I shift a stray sweat-plastered lock of violently pink hair back behind my ear as I head for the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I reach for the door as it opens in front of me–

“Oh, hey, Penny. Jeezus, you feelin’ alright, cuz?”

NOOO–

The cloudy sky above rumbles with distant thunder, threatening rain.

Shadowy faceless figures clad in black float to and fro, aimless, void of personality or tangible form. They blend with the gloom of the heavy, overcast sky. They are irrelevant.

Today is a day for heartfelt, polite, and utterly meaningless platitudes. It all fades into a background din of white noise. Penny pays it no heed.

This is not a day about her.

A family, distant kin, is stricken by tragedy. The mother and father are gone. They were people that Penny had long looked up to, that her own parents had pointed to as paragons among their fellow men and women, and now they were dead. The tattered remnants of that family grieved, incapable of comprehending anything beyond the scope of the tragedy that had befallen them.

This is a day devoid of laughter.

A grandmother looks after her granddaughter, a child barely capable of speech. A grandson, old enough to know true grief, clings to her arm and chooses not to speak. It will be a long time before he decides to speak again.

A middle child is missing. She is the one Penny seeks, as she has done in her memory so many times before.

Penny finds her standing alone, off to the side. Her back is to the shadowy gathering. Penny walks up behind her, and the girl turns.

“She keeps askin’ for ‘em.”

Penny doesn’t know how to respond to this. There is no response to this. She remains silent.

“Ah can’t keep listenin’ to her. Ah had to get away.”

Penny moves closer. Allison flinches away.

“Don’t. It’s bad enough that everyone else treats me the same way they treat her. Don’t you go doin’ the same.”

Penny tries to think of something to do, or say, or even think. Words fail her.

“Ah hate her.”

“No, you don’t.” An automatic, if sincere, response.

Allison turns to face her, eyes brimming with angry tears. Her voice is calm as she says, “Yeah. I really do.” She lowers her voice to an unsteady whisper as she says, “Almost as much as Ah hate them.”

“Allison–”

A voice calls out from the shadows. “Penny! We’re leaving, dear, come on!”

Allison wipes away the tears in her eyes before they can fall. None appear to replace them. “Go. You ain’t doin’ me any kindness by stayin’.”

Penny opens her mouth to say something – anything! But the words will not come.

“Penny!”

Allison turns away from her, jaw set. Penny watches her best friend’s heart turn to stone, and as she has done a hundred times before, does nothing.

Wordlessly, Penny turns and leaves.

Trapped within a point of view, powerless to alter the course of her memory, an older Penny screams at her younger self to act. To make a dumb joke, to reach out and hug Allison, to set something on fire – anything other than pointless inaction.

It is, as always, all for naught. Young Penny climbs into her family’s car as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

Wait, this isn’t happening. This isn’t now.

The world softens at the edges and begins to fade away to nothing. The car door slams shut, and Penny wakes up.

I blink.