Sleep Elixir
1½ squirt lavender syrup
½ squirt peppermint syrup
10 mg melatonin tablet grinded (berry flavor encouraged)
5 mg klonopin grinded
pamplemouse la croix
Moonlight and gentle rain.
The breeze pushes vines– wrapping around the cobbled exterior– deep into window-paned flesh. Blushing ivies peek gently by hunter green curtains and dance with centered panels of white lace.
Tall ceilings are an ode to supernatural chances and chilly breezes.
Green grass and full trees bless the town of Valley Village.
Mother nature is calling forward the act of vision, a prophetic intrusion.
A lamp in the shape of a rooster glows gently on a white shelf above the bed. This lamp, no matter the bulb, can provide light for a 30 foot room. A rooster refusing dullness. She found the lamp at a Wisconsin thrift store while visiting an older friend in college. She held it in her lap the entire bus ride home.
For years, she's watched passersby, peeping freaks, and determined joggers gaze into her room to forget themselves. Living on a historical trail, she didn’t mind the foot traffic, She just hated the ones that stopped. A man once stared into the light for 30 minutes and prayed. She ate a turkey sandwich and watched. The lanky shadow on the third floor.
A rooster lamp that burns all night at the end of her dock.
Donned in pink cotton panties, She rolls over on a queen bed. On the bed lies the following; a pack of parliaments, a tub of mini vaseline, jelly beans in a plastic bag with a spoon, a journal open to a page reading "days without 'drugs:' 89, days without consecutive alcohol: 33"
Her long torso curves like the way you hit a corner racing go karts. A gymnast in deep sleep, She grabs the pillow and jolts herself to the other side of the bed. Eyes closed she sits up, almost as if someone had choreographed her waking body to her dream.
She opens her eyes, She looks down. But the bed is no longer a bed, it’s a talk show desk. Confused, she reaches to check the time, except it’s not a phone, it's a mic. She looks out, her eyes adjust to bright lights. It's not a dirty room, it’s a live audience. She tries to wake herself. She’s not stronger than mother nature.
“I don’t believe that you exist but there is a wonderful fragrance in the air” -Jim Carrey
Curtains. Lights. She begins, without a moment to even consider hesitation.
"Ladies and gentlemen thank you for being here tonight. I’m not awake right now but I’m going to go ahead and speak. I’m like the podcast of the nightmare ex-girlfriend you never had. You’re not getting anything more than a titty flash and 8 hours of unadulterated childhood trauma. I don’t know if it's psychosis or a super power, but I’m a fantastic dreamer. True detective with big tits. Every night, there's a beginning, middle, and end." The girl takes a sip from a white mug on the desk. She continues, "My mom said I started to push the moment the doctor left the room. I waited right until I heard the door shut behind that doctor nerd and positioned my little toes. I wanted to birth myself. I wasn’t a basic bitch baby. My dad sprinted down the hospital hallway and snatched the white man’s doctor back to the delivery room like Obgynana Jones. Everyone in the room had a problem with my self-birth. You’re gonna be mad at me because I’m trying to pull 6 pounds and 9 ounces of weight?" The audience laughs. "I guess...I guess I've been a problem since I was born."
It was true. She had a fine childhood, but it was far from average. Her parents were kind, individualistic types. Her father, Ghafar, works engineering for a turtle conservatory. The matriarch: a former ballerina. Her mother, Isabella, created a name for herself as a top museum curator. They were smart parents, they never expected anything from their only daughter. Free-spirited types that believe children should go on their own paths (busy with their own lives). They sometimes wondered how they ended up with Her. Clementine wondered how further ahead they would be in the case of her absence. Not even absence, non-existence. Though it was too late to not exist, in her unfortunate case.
21 years ago, they immigrated together. Isabella and Ghafar bought a massive Victorian style manor on its last legs. It took time and more blood than expected, however, in a few years they built a home. In the reigns of craftsman father and creative mother, a charming manor is born. Most days, Clementine felt like her parent's real child was the house. She was just allowed to live in it.
The house sits on a Winnie-The-Pooh esque hill, no more than 25 feet tall. About a quarter mile down the hill-house, beautiful cottages and tudors run in perfect rows. Pastel bungalows and wisterias stretch across the lowlands. It's Dr. Seuss meets Wes Anderson. Strips of purple, blue, yellow, pink in charismatic order. The strips run down 200 acres, with roads on either side. About 950 homes. No picket fences or fountains, but ponds and mossy rocks. A real neighborhood with real people that breathe real air. There's no room for ticky-tacky here.
The girl takes a sip from the mug on the table and leans into the microphone. "This coffee taste like ass, we got to do something about it, Jerry baby."
"Oh we're back on? Can we work on a hand signal or something..." she composes herself. "It’s really truly a blessing to not live in a McMansion." The audience bursts out in scheduled laughter. Talk shows, you know.
Suddenly–
A mist slithers up Her spine. A red glow grows in her stomach. The redness pushes out of her body, enveloping the room. She had most definitely been here before. Have you ever experienced deja-vu in a dream? It's like taking a nap in Tallahassee and waking up in Paris. She had been chasing the red glow since she was 5 years old. Well, whatever the equivalent of 'chasing' means in a dream. But it always felt real, like she was running for her life while her body rest. The glow isn’t like an imaginary friend, it’s a part of your soul playing hide and seek. A sensational experience, an overwhelming comfort, a version of love doused in a purity she had never experienced. The red orb is the only entity in Clementine's life she could trust. For the orb would only show its light when Clementine needed sight most.
Clementine opens her eyes to her room for a brief moment. She looks around, it appears as if someone has spray painted a red line across the walls. Her eyes quickly shut. She's back in the studio. Our girl--whether it be a blessing and a curse--could dream 12 hours and remember it the next day. While she couldn’t admit it, lines between reality and dreaming were becoming harder to distinguish. It’s a funny thing. To be haunted by living out your dreams.
'There, Phaedrus my friend, don’t you think, as I do, that I’m in the grip of something divine?'- Socrates, The Symposium (238C)
She never really had to try hard in school. In 3rd grade science class, she wondered for the first time if class would ever be hard for her. That sentiment rang true throughout her entire scholastic career. She maintained a 4.3 GPA through high school, graduated with honors, had friends, and was average looking. She wasn’t quite the center of attention nor was she a fly on the wall. She drew eyes if she wore tight clothes and tried that morning. Her torso was long, her hips were wide, and her waist was tiny. Her hair was long, red, and wavy. She never let into the temptation of childhood scandalization. Except for the time she was caught kissing the captain of the junior soccer team in the locker room during a pep rally.
A virgin nerd with an overactive brain, Clementine pursued aerospace engineering at a university upstate. She got an almost full ride. After her first semester, she was recommended for graduate classes by the head of the department. By her second semester, she had lost 30 pounds from the amount of shit she put in her body to just to keep up.
"I got to a point in my life where everyday I was getting high enough to forget my own zipcode." The girl stands up from behind the desk. She's wearing a pink pantsuit with pewter-silver heels. Chic. "I ruined everything at 19 years old. This isn't the Steve Harvey show, I'm not about to turn this into a positive story. I lost everything. My job, all of my friends, my routine, my first love. Everything. And I haven't gotten back. I don't know if I ever will. It ab--"
BANG!
A large noise interrupts her.
The noise gets louder. Louder. And louder. louder! louder! louder!
"What the hell is going on? Jerry, cut the lights, babe.’" She stands up and walks away from the desk, following the noise. "It looks like tonight's show will be ending earlier than expected.’’ She looks back at the rows of disheartened audience members and mouths a sweet sorry.
She looks behind her, to backstage, searching for the source. "Nope. That’s not where it is." She rips off her shoes and begins sprinting for the exit on the other side of the studio.
She feels her feet shift from the concrete studio floors to the shaggy carpets of the corridor. Away from the crowd, she slows down to catch her breath. 1,2,3,4,5. She rips off her bra. Good. She looks up.
15 doors all with a different names on them. 7 on the left. 7 on the right. 1 at the end. It's the only marked door. She inches closer. She looks at a drawing of a red seed. What horrible odds, but we can always count on petite lionne to prevail. "If only, I could look into the eyes of the glow" she thinks. And with that, she runs to the furthest door. "This has got to be it,’' and with one swift turn; the handle falls off, the door caves in, and she falls into the sound of white wind.
She screams. The glow swallows her like Melville’s monster. Wetter than a tongue swimming in white nothingness.
Beep Beep Beep. A vibration saves her.
She wakes up right before peeing. She didn't but it was a close one. She looks down at the bed, that’s a bed. And her phone, that’s a phone. She grabs the bag of jelly beans off a cheetah pillow and puts a spoonful in her mouth. She stands up to silence her phone alarm playing a Lady Gaga song at 5:55am. She looks down at her phone to an alarm that reads: “WAKE UP. FIRST DAY OF NEW SCHOOL”