Revealing Works Wednesday

DISORDERLY COMPACT

Episode 1: The Teeny Window

Skyler – Journal entry  June 2012

My bed was hard. No fluffy pillows or cushy comforter for this girl. I had a quilt. 

A quilt.w

Worn, delapitated faded, and pancake flat. There wasn’t even any air worth a darn trapped between all that stitching. Apparently it had taken our neighbor, Rosie, three years to make it for me so Grandma Seven insisted I use it.

For like what…eternity? I coiled a stray string from the tear in my jeans around my finger and waited for the annoyance to pass. Black ink from the tip of my pen pooled on the thin page in my journal; I wiped the excess goop off on my knee and wrote my name through the threads--Ebony Jade.

She said Rosie began patching the beloved squares of fabric together into my blanket of wonder right after I was born. Eh…she gave it to me when I was six. You do the math.

I liked it at first. It had that Brats meets Barbie-frolicking-in-a field-of-poppies feel. I was into it at the time. But the foofy flowers and frilly lace wore on me. I went cold turkey on those when I rounded past eight years old, and by the time I hit thirteen black and blue were the only colors on my walls, in my wardrobe, and tinting my hair. I didn’t mind red, either. Only it had to be crimson or scorching in some sinister background. Scarlet O’hara on Goth roids sounds about right.

The end of the pen tipped from my grip and brushed coolly against my tongue. I shrugged, pondering what to write next, and glanced up at Grandma Seven stirring her special herbal tea in the doorway of my room. The woman was nuts for letting it stew exactly two and a half minutes. No more; no less.

A faint smirk lifted my cheek lopsided, and I felt my face brighten.

Grandma Seven had a way with delivering an appropriate and stern eye, gouging deep into my soul, but she never scolded me or forbid me to explore my otherworldly interests.

No. She just makes me write them down like I’m some chronicle or something. Blah. I doodled a pentagram intersecting a heart on the folded corner of my journal. 

She would answer my questions about religions from Buddhism to Catholicism to even Wicca. We talked about Heaven and Hell, the afterlife, and reincarnation. Not the typical subjects for an elementary aged kid, but I’ve never claimed to be average. I had a soft spot for these places.

I’m a horror buff, student of all mythical stuff, and all around creepy girl. And I’m one heck of a wiz in the realm of kick-boxing and fighting in general.

I flee-flicked the teeny lint ball I’d collected from the whole in my tattered jeans. It catapulted a whole two centimeters into the air and actually landed farther up my thigh. I blew irritated air out of my mouth, a bead of saliva balancing on my lip. I licked it away tasting the burgundy lip balm coating my lips. Teetering on the page, my pen absentmindedly rolled out a glob of ink. I was too busy gazing at my teeny window, still wrapped in cellophane like years ago. My bottom lip curled inward, catching on my front tooth. I wasn’t like this back then, when I saw my future wave at me through this same teeny window.

A shady image had called to me from the plastic-covered glass, and I had answered. But quickly wished I hadn’t.