Blah blah

Parallysed.
Darkness.
Solid black all around, swirling like heavy liquid over my
eyelids.
I knew the moment I snapped them open it would all be gone, trickled
away as if it were never there. I knew I would see the comforting green
square of alarm clock and the soft outline of my dressing gown (warm
bareskin. Hung up after a hard days hunting.), but, for now, it was
still a nightmare. The walls were running it, mirrors reflecting its
shadow, clothes in the closet bulky with its sickly body.

You can make it stop. Open your eyes my dear. Open them wide.

I do as I'm told.
It's all gone, that slippering, evil darkness drained out and a warm
dim fuzz left as it's replacement.
I breath.
In.
Out.

Now go back to sleep

"Michelle?" Karen bats at my arm. I blink and stare at her, as if she
were a long way away, peering over the top of a well into the dank
creature below.
I was dreaming again. Thinking about last night, all the nights, the
fear that filters through my closed curtains and into my head when the
lights go out. Karen doesn't know about me, though. She thinks I'm
normal. She thinks we're best mates.
We're walking home. The geography homework is crammed in the bottom of
my bag. I won't do it as homework makes me ill, but perhaps I'll copy
Karens. What are friends for?
"Michelle!" Karen mutters angrilly, tugging my arm more urgently and
beginning to whisper again. Her hair falls in a curtain, silky over my
cheek, her hot breath batters my ear and she's off again, talking about
Betsy Cutler in the year above who's sixteen and pregnant.
This type of shit, this gossip, is life-or-death for Karen. If she
isn't bitching, or whispering or linking my arm she can't survive. And
even though I feel like poison afterwards, and the sickness in my
stomach spreads as my mind goes into overdrive imagining all the ways
People could find out what has been said, I still join in. Why? Why do
I do it? Why do I freely hate Karen for it but overlook it in
myself?
Sometimes I imagine what she says about me. One part of my mind refuses
to believe she could be so disloyal, but then again she's disloyal to
just about everyone we know so why should I be an exception? I imagine
her arm snaking through Katrinas, or Jessies or Drews. I see her head
bent close to their ear, that low snickering voice daring them to
disagree. I think miserably about my weight, the blackheads on my nose,
the crooked bottom tooth. God, she must have a field day.
I say goodbye at the top of Montague drive and walk down towards my
house. Its large and white, bought by May Annes millionnair daddy. I
should be gratefull I live in such nice surroundings, but to tell the
truth I'd be just as happy in Karen's Semi Detatched. My house id full
of blond wood floors and designer lightswitches. The kitchen is never
messy, never full of baking smells and bright plastic fridge magnets.
Its full of blue steel lamps and huge chrome appliances. The fridge
itself looks like a walk in closet. It has an ice crusher.
The scene as I come in the door never changes. Even though it's four o
clock, Mary Anne will still be in her peach silk Dressing gown, one
naked brown leg flung over the side of a squasy arm chair and a glass
of something expensive balenced on the other. She'll ask me what I ate
at school then go back to whatever issue of Harpers and Queen has been
delivered.