June 3rd, 2014

 

My Parents are going to kill me. Whatever…

 

I sat in the sticky leather chair of the tattoo parlor. The walls were stained white with red accents. The sounds of tattoo guns whirring floated across the room. Paintings were scattered across the room, from abstract pieces to over the top grim-dark aesthetics. I glanced down to check my grocery bag was still there; it was. A young woman in her early 20s with blue hair drew the needle close to my face and placed it against my left lobe. 

 

“Breathe in”, she calmly said.

 

I breathed in, The pain from the piercing was barely noticeable. One down, three to go. She moved to the other lobe, then to my upper ear. When it was done I had both my lobes pierced and two helix piercings on my right ear. I got up, grabbed my bag, and went to look for some earrings to put in. I picked out some basic thick black loops for my helix piercings and a matching set of crystal earrings and necklace. They were a vibrant aqua, which matched my cyan jacket perfectly. I paid for the jewelry and left. I pulled out my flip phone (my parents didn’t trust me with an actual phone) and I dialed my best friend.

“Hey Rachel!”

 

“Hi Delilah! How’s it going?”

 

“It’s going alright, my parents are still on my case about school. I got my ears pierced.”

 

“Nice! How’d you get your parents to approve?”

 

“I didn’t… I was hoping you could help me cut and dye my hair. I am tired of my parents deciding what is best for me.”

 

“Yeah, I get that, I guess come over whenever you can.”

 

“Ok. I am on my way.”

 

I walked to the bus stop and waited. After 10 minutes a bus stopped and I got on. I got off a few stops later. I was in the suburbs. I walked through rows of homes until I got to Rachel’s house. If I didn’t know where she lived it would have been impossible to find her. Her house, just like every other,  was a nondescript white with blue accents. I knocked. Rachel opened the door. She held a cigarette in her left hand, which she probably stole from her parents. The right side of her hair was buzzed while the other side was kept long, her black hair flowing lazily behind her shoulder. She was wearing a My Chemical Romance shirt with a pink triangle pin on her breast. Cheap earbuds hung out of her pocket. She adjusted her pentagram choker, while beads of sweat fell down her face.

 

“Glad to see you Delilah. OMG, those piercings look soooooo cuteeeee. You ready?” She was always such a sucker for body mods.

 

“Born Ready.” I handed her the bag. She pulled out a bunch of bleach and my 30 volume red hair dye. She walked me over to the guest bathroom. She grabbed an old wooden chair from the dining room and placed it in the bathroom. I leaned over the tub, and she turned on the water, lukewarm water drenched my scalp. She worked her hands throughout the hair, making sure to get every inch wet. She sat me up on the chair.

 

“How short do you want it my liege?”

 

I pinched my hair just above my shoulders. “This high, my lady.” we both giggled. 

 

Rachel quickly went to work, deftly snipping at parts of my hair, until several inches had been cut. I looked into the mirror, it was so much better feeling already. Instead of that gross long, pin straight hair I was forced to keep, my hair was so much more wild, curly, and me; It felt like heaven. I gazed down at Rachel’s work. I was surrounded by piles of thick black hair. You could barely see the white tiles in some places. It was hard to believe that it was all on me.

 

We went to Rachel’s room to wait for my hair to dry. It was dark and messy. Her bedspread was half-falling off the bed, there were piles of dirty clothes everywhere. Band posters were hung on every wall. The room exuded its own unique scent: it was a combination of weed, cigarettes, cologne, and Rachel’s own unique aroma. She tossed up the blanket and pulled out a makeshift plastic marijuana humidor from under her bed.

 

“You want one?”

 

“Yeah, why not?”

 

She rolled a joint and handed it to me. I carefully placed it in my mouth. Rachel grabbed her butterfly BIC lighter and flicked on the flame, dragging it carefully under the joint until it started smoking. I took a puff and passed it to Rachel. Rachel put her DVD of Ghost In The Shell into the player and we both sat staring at the movie on her cheap LG. Half the time was spent actually watching the movie, while the other half we were just talking and cracking jokes.

 

“Hey, after we dye your hair, can we go to the woods and do dumb shit?”

 

“Yeah, send a picture to my mom, I want her to be pissed.”

 

“Hell yeah”

 

Once my hair was dry I went back to the bathroom. Rachel grabbed a white towel and draped it over my red shirt. She put on gloves and slowly began to bleach my hair section by section. Every time carefully applying it to each strand of hair. My eyes wandered around the room while she worked. I looked at the stucco that coated the walls, noticing every imperfection. I looked at her sink, following the grain up and down the cabinets. Before I knew it, an hour had passed, and my hair was a light orange-blonde. Rachel applied the toner and then drenched my hair in my red dye. It was perfect. My hair underwent a drastic transformation. It felt so wrong, and yet so right.

 

Rachel quickly grabbed her car keys, and humidor and wrote a quick message on a piece of paper she taped to the fridge, Going to be gone tonight, going camping. Love you. -Rachel. She dragged me to the passenger seat of her Blue 1997 Toyota Corolla. She drove about an hour into the woods to the North-east of Halifax, We stopped briefly in North Preston to get gas and snacks. Eventually we stopped. We were on an overgrown dirt track in the middle of nowhere. It was surrounded by Maples and Birches as far as the eye could see. The smell of pine was everywhere. It was easy to breathe, the air was so clean. I could hear the sound of birds chirping, calling from tree to tree. We got out of the truck and posed for a selfie. Rachel took the photo and sent it to my mom, Mrs. Awan, on her contacts.

 

Her reply was almost immediate. “Young ladies! I am furious!” 

Rachel and I stared at each other, with mad grins on our faces. 

 

“You both should know better than to sneak off without my permission.” I was starting to feel nervous. 

 

“I am calling your parents Ms. Johnson. You are a bad influence on my daughter. Unless you clean your act up Delilah won’t be able to hang out.” We both know Rachel’s parents would do nothing, they were way too busy to pay attention to her 

 

“As for you Delilah… I am disappointed in you, after all that your father and I have done for you, this is how you repay us?” A classic mom guilt trip. I am so sick of having to do what is best for my family. I want to do what is best for me. She then proceeded to talk about how allah is disappointed in me and how piercings are wrong. Whoever god is needs to care about feeding the homeless and making people happy instead of being focused on making my life a living hell.

 

“Ugh I hate her so much, I can never be myself.”

 

“I know, if fucking sucks, I guess we have to make this trip worth it then. What do you want to do? Well, besides eat, I need to fucking eat bad.”

 

“Same.”

 

We popped open the trunk and used it to sit.Inside was various pieces of trash, a flashlight, some tampons, and a guitar case: my guitar case.

 

“I totally forgot I loaned this to you. I guess no camping trip is complete without a guitar song.”

 

“I forgot I had it! I haven’t played it much since you lent it.”

 

I picked up the case and undid the latches. I lifted up the lid revealing my guitar. I picked it up and tuned it by ear. I briefly played some open chords to get into the rhythm of playing again. When I was warmed up I started playing “Counting Stars” by OneRepublic. Rachel immediately understood and began slapping her thighs to the rhythm and whistling the synth. Eventually, we both sang the lyrics together. When it was over we both celebrated. It felt so good playing with someone.

 

I sat the guitar down and began to ravenously eat the sandwich, chips and Pepsi that Rachel bought; Rachel did the same. It was gone in 15 seconds flat: That food never knew what hit it.

 

“Hey There Delilah? Isn’t this forest oh so pretty?”

 

“It is.” I replied tersely, “you know I don’t like jokes about that song. Every boy in middle school tried to seduce me with it.”

 

“Sorry, I thought it was funny.”

 

“It’s okay, just steer clear from pop parodies, they clearly aren’t your strong suit.”

 

“Okay. okay! I like more than just MCR, you know? Anyway, do you want to explore?”

 

“Yeah, lead the way.”

 

I followed Rachel for 5 minutes until the trees parted and we were on the shores of a small lake. The calm ripples lapped up against the rocks. We sat on the beach, and threw rocks. I tried to skip them across, but I could never get it. Rachel on the other hand had no issue. Every rock she threw bounced into the distance, forming a line of splashes in its wake. After we walked along the shoreline until we got to the opposite side. We still decided to go deeper into the woods. Rachel was hoping to find a good spot to smoke. I was just having fun spending time with my best friend. We trudged through brush and broken branches until we entered a clearing. One the opposite end was cliffs, with a cave carved right in the center The blue-grey stone surrounding it was covered in thick clumps of orange, green and blue lichens and mosses. Spruce trees towered on either side of the entrance and small bushes grew above the hole.

 

“Do you want to go in?”

 

“No! That sounds like a great way to get mauled by a bear.”

 

“There are no tracks around, I’ll shine my flashlight in there.”

 

“Please don’t get yourself killed.”

 

“I won’t! I have done this kind of shit a million times.”

 

Rachel turned on her flashlight and stepped closer towards the mouth. The walls of the cave glistened with moistness. We could see the end of the cave already. We decided that the cave was decidedly bear-less. I followed Rachel into the cave, her silhouette black against the lit up cave walls. We got to the back of the cave. In front of us was a rock shelf that had 2 divots that looked like it could seat us both. I hopped on; it was surprisingly comfortable.

 

“Hey! Look! It’s perfect!”

 

Rachel sat in the divot next to me,”It is, and it doesn’t feel half bad.”

 

I absently felt along the stone, feeling its smooth surface below me. I kept moving and eventually I brushed Rachel’s hand. I withdrew.

 

“You know I don’t have a virus right? You can touch me.”

 

“Yeah, I don’t want to make–”

 

“You don’t want to make it look like we are a thing? Trust me, just because you hold my hand doesn’t mean you and I are instantly an ‘item.’”

 

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

 

I slowly returned my hand to a position close by. I felt something loose. I picked it up. I opened my hand. In them was a small Blue stone. I twisted it with the light, it sparked in streaks of green, blue, and purple. Each color bounced and played off of each other, it was beautiful. 

 

“Wow, that stone is beautiful. You should take it.”

 

I wanted to say I will, but no words could come out. The stone felt glued to my hands. Each second that passed the stone grew brighter, the colors shone with their own light, spinning rapidly. The temperature kept rising. It was getting hotter. I started sweating. The temperature kept climbing. The pain was shooting up my arms, my forearm was covered in geometric glowing light, pulsating the same colors. It was unbearable. It felt like the stone was searing my skin. My vision went white. I felt my insides swirl and my head spin. I tried to scream but no sound would come out. I felt bits of wall assault me, hitting my teeth and skin. Then everything went black. From the blackness all I swear I could hear a robotic voice spewing out data,

 

“43 6f 72 72 65 63 74 20 62 69 6f 2d 73 69 67 6e 61 74 75 72 65 20 69 64 65 6e 74 69 66 69 65 64 2e 20 43 6f 6d 6d 65 6e 63 69 6e 67 20 65 78 74 72 61 2d 64 69 6d 65 6e 73 69 6f 6e 61 6c 20 63 61 73 63 61 64 65 20 61 70 70 72 6f 61 63 68 2e 20 53 74 61 6e 64 20 62 79”

 

“Wake up…”