Fisher (tenth_life) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2012-07-06 10:47:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | 2009-09-12 |
i remember when, i remember, i remember when i lost my mind
Who: Gretel + Zhari
Where: Downtown, unspecific.
When: Early, early morning.
What: Gretel eats granola, talks to birds, considers the entertainment value of an identity crisis. It's been a hard week.
There was quite probably, if not certainly, a word for the experience of sitting outside at four AM, too tired to sleep and too sleepy to hide it, eating homemade granola out of a paper cone you rolled out of a newspaper that referenced you getting stabbed during lunch at school.
Gretel was fairly certain it wasn't a happy word, like "giraffe."
She tugged up an over-sized sleeve to check her watch: 4:17 AM. It'd be two hours at least before sneaking back into her own bed became a priority. After that breakfast, family, hospital--homework? Jenna had helpfully dropped off Gretel's missed assignments, or, wait, hadn't one of the girl's bubbling minions done it? Someone she had chemistry with, maybe? Wait, was she taking chemistry? Gretel frowned, trying to think past the dull throb between her eyes. After a moment, she gave up and popped another grainy chunk into her mouth. Her tongue rolled over the ingredient, automatically cataloging: rose petals, walnuts, currants, black pepper, the compulsory mulish oats.
Gretel idly licked a flake off her thumb and mentally scrolled through her worries.
Well, there was Penny's accidental fifteen minutes of fame, but that mess was turning out to be fairly easy to manage. Arranging her own bad press online served to both derail genuine suspicion and generate protective sympathy. With a little luck and a couple more well-placed "hurtful" comments, she'd have the cat in the bag--to be skinned at her leisure. (After spending consecutive hours wading through Facebook, Gretel deserved an extended metaphor of her choosing. Bloody hell, why couldn't these kids learn to type out their words...)
Her health, on the other hand, was a harder problem. Gretel had conducted quick, cursory checks on her blood and found nothing to inspire optimism. The miasma of the backlash persisted in her system. What's worse, she was having to expend additional power to hide the malingering, aggregating her already weakened state into genuine distress. Fooling her--Penny's father at home was one thing, but what if his concern for her health eventually resulted in closer examination? Gretel couldn't very well hex an entire lab to hide her blood test results. Or, at least, she couldn't do it twice. So far, the best plan she had was faking a stereotypical teenage cheer and tucking an obfuscation charm between her bandages.
God, if only she could sleep, if only she could have a night of pure, dense, uncomplicated sleep. Sleep without thought, without memories shuffling by like hungry ghosts that refused to look her in the face, that taunted and pinched, sticking their tongues in her heart...Gretel took a fistful of granola and let it trickle out of her fist, a gust of wind scattering it on the pavement. A nearby sparrow hopped closer to the grains, its drab brown head tilted sharply in her direction. Suspicion little bugger.
"Oh, don't you start, brownie." Gretel flicked a currant in the sparrow's direction; it bounced back, but didn't fly off. " What, like you're going to get a better offer? I see how it is. Maybe I should give the goods to some pigeons, eh, how would you like them walnuts? You'd be pretty sorry then, you little feathered gnat. Yeah, I bet you would. I bet you would oh, son of a whore, I'm talking to a bird."
Mein Gott, she was starting to sound like--like Penny.
Gretel pointed her finger at the bird. "Tell no one."