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“Kayla!” I hear my sister’s grating voice interrupt my crooning. “Remember our agreement?” she protests. “No Broadway show tunes before eight AM!”
“Oops, sorry, Laura,” I reply. Darn, just when I was getting to the good part. I can’t stand it when they stifle me. However, I also can’t stand being the target of an angry Laura Thornhill. Suffice it to say, she’s not a morning person. Or an afternoon or night person come to think of it. I return to tending to the pancakes in silence. I feel like Cinderella, made to cook and clean for my evil family and never allowed to let my talents shine through. Well, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration. My family’s not evil, and we all do our fair share of housework. Except for Fruitpunch, who does way more cleaning than anyone else. And Marc, who never does anything I’d consider decent cooking. Still, I always wanted to be Cinderella in a play. I was in the show for a few weeks running, before I got my big break, but I was about four years old then and I could only play one of the little mice. Life in showbiz was fun, but I’m glad to be taking a little break. Not that college life is a break by any means, but it’s a nice change of pace, especially since I’m back with my quadruplets. Even if that means I’m currently co-occupying this cramped galley-style kitchen with one of them…oh, make that two; here comes Marc.
Our brother, Marc, sidles into the kitchen. He is dressed in grey sweatpants, a black T-shirt featuring a picture of a UFO, and thick goggles pushed back over his hair. This is more or less how he looks 24/7. I know these are the clothes he slept in because the ensemble includes sweatpants. If these were his day clothes, he’d be in jeans.
“’Morning, ladies,” he says with a yawn, and starts scanning the kitchen for something edible.
“Good morning, bro,” I say cheerfully, flipping three cakes in the air. One of them comes down straddling the edge of the pan and breaks in half. Another hits the stove but missed the pan entirely. The third is MIA. I hear Laura sigh in frustration, and for a moment there, I think she’s going to gripe about my technique, but she doesn’t. I notices she’s looking unhappily at her shoes.
And let me tell you about these shoes, because they’re just gorgeous. They’re authentic oriental slippers that she brought with her when she moved to Canada from Japan. She’s got a few pairs like them, but these are her favourite, because they’re this gorgeous robin’s-egg-blue silk with tiny white flowers on the upper seam. I wish I could wear them. I’ve borrowed her purple ones, with permission, but they’re not as nice. She’d never lend her blue shoes. You have to be careful when you steal stuff from her, because she’s uber-touchy about that. She’s not a “fun” kind of sister, like Fruitpunch. But she’s dependable and fiercely loyal. Oh, but I wish she’d just lighten up and lend me those shoes. They remind me of “The King and I,” which I did try out for, but they wanted Anna to be someone older.
“Guys,” Laura said. “We’re going to start building our 3D Plexiglas sculptures on Monday, and the prof says we need closed, hard-toed shoes. Anyone want to come shoe shopping with me today?”
Marc and I exchanged glances.
“Bo-ring!” we say together and laugh. Laura grumbles under her breath; something about being fine on her own and something-something while she had the chance.
Marc pulls open the freezer door and retrieves a box of chicken strips.
“Oh, Marc!” exclaims Laura. “That’s disgusting! You’re making chicken strips for breakfast?!”
“I’m not making them,” he protests. “I’m reheating them.”
“Marc, I’m making pancakes for everyone,” I interject.
Marc and Laura both look at the smoking pile of batter dripping over the edge of the pan and make the same nauseated face. I love this family.
Suddenly, I hear an ear-shattering EEEEEEK coming from the common room. I quickly click off the stove and we all rush to the source of Fruitpunch’s scream.
“What’s wrong, FP?” Marc asks.
She looks really upset. Something awful must have happened. We’ve got to assess the situation, gather all the evidence, and question all angles. Gawd, this is like CSI: The Dorm! I’d love to be on that show.
Fruitpunch heaves a sigh, distressed.
“I lost my favourite dancing shoe. The good one that’s all slick on the bottom and lets me slide on the linoleum.”
The other three Thornhill quadruplets take a moment to accept the graveness of the situation.
“What’s that over there?” Laura asks, gesturing to a shapeless lump by the kitchen door. Marc wanders over to examine it.
“Er…” he begins, leaning in closer, “it’s not a shoe.”
Fruitpunch hangs her head and slumps her shoulders. Seeing as she has flawless posture, to see her like this is truly alarming.
“Harietta,” I say, calling her by her real name in a soft voice. “Don’t you worry, because we’re going to help you find your shoe.”
“Hai, Ichiban. Go get the other, so we know just what to look for.”
Fruitpunch nods and smiles briefly. We’re having a tender moment here.
“Oh, Crikey! It’s a pancake!”
We all startle. Then I start to whistle innocently. Fruitpunch skips off to her room, which is how she always moves. She soon comes skipping back, holding a shoe. Before I can get a really good look at it, Laura grabs it and starts to sketch a mirror image. “I’m making a Missing Shoe poster,” she explains. You guys go ahead and have breakfast.”
“Laura, you’re not eating?” Fruitpunch asks. Laura looks at the petrified lump Marc has been prodding and shudders.
“No.”
After breakfast, Laura and I walk down to the campus library to photocopy the poster. Our plan is to make about a hundred copies and post them all over campus. We’ll put the whole place on red alert for Fruitpunch’s missing shoe. We left Fruitpunch and Marc back in the dorm. Marc says he’s using the remaining shoe to build a shoe-finding-device, and Fruitpunch said she wanted to look around in her closet some more.
Laura and I post about five “Have You Seen This Shoe?” posters around the library entrance before we start our trip around the campus. Next stop is the caf in the main building. It’s busy for a Saturday, which is good, because this way, more people will see the posters. The caf walls are huge windows with thick pillars at set intervals. Laura and I head off in opposite directions, tracing the caf, and leaving a sketch on each pillar. Just as I’m starting my second wall, I see a group of girls I recognize from the dance program. Perhaps they might have something to do with this? Deep down, I knew they didn’t, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“Excuse me!” I shoot out and stop them in their tracks. “Might one of you ladies happen to know something about…” I savour the dramatic pause. “THIS!” I thrust a photocopy of Laura’s sketch in their faces.
“Um, no,” one replies, dubiously. They look at me like I’m a total freak, and I admit it, I am. But this is too fun. They were playing it casual, of course. Just like the real thief would.
“Yeah, we have to go now,” says another, and they all begin to move away. This is when I should have taken my cue to break character.
“I’ll see you in court!” I yell. One of them turns around.
“Why? Did the retaining order come in?”
The others giggle.
“That’s restraining order,” I mutter. Damn. They could have played along. I feel the presence of someone standing behind me. I whirl around and come face to face with Laura.
“What the hell are you doing, baka? We’re supposed to be putting up these posters.” She grabs a bunch from my hand and starts slapping them on the bare wall I was responsible for. I feel so stupid. I’m supposed to be helping Fruitpunch, but I’m bound by a strict code of behavior. This is just like in “Paths of Glory,” when those soldiers were ordered to –
“Hey, Kayla-chan, let’s move! We’ve got a whole campus to do!”
The two of us traipse through the lecture halls, putting up a poster every ten steps or so. We’ve gone through the two largest lecture hall buildings, and hoped the glue would last until classes resumed for the week. Or that we’d find the shoe sooner.
Soon enough, we reach the fine arts block. This is true Thornhill town, seeing as I’m in theatre, Laura’s in visual arts, and Fruitpunch’s in music. We visit the visual arts section first. There are a few students in a handful of the rooms, hunched over spotless lightdesks arranged in an immaculate grid. The place looks like a cross between a hospital and a spaceship. As Laura hangs posters in the stark white hallway, I lean into the window of the only inhabited room that doesn’t look like it’s overseen by Bones McCoy. There is a young guy in there, wearing punk rocker clothes under an apron, safety goggles, and thick gloves. He is pulling a “Friday the 13th” on a bunch of sheets of different coloured plastic. There was a sign by the door that reads “Must be wearing protective gear.” I guess that’s why Laura needs to get some new shoes this weekend.
By this point, we are out of posters. We make one last quick stop to the music section to personally look for the shoe. I become Sherlock Holmes and search around the string instrument lockers. I never understood the string instruments. They’re so…stringy.
“Anyone who plays as beautifully as Fruitpunch must diligently practice for years.” I say aloud, in sudden awe of my quadruplet sister.
“I think she started in high school,” Laura answers. “Or maybe middle school.”
“Elementary, my dear Laura.” It just slips out.
“What are you -”
“Nothing, I just - ”
“Take that off your head!”
I begrudgingly remove the folded stray party flyer and return to my own life. It is time to go home.
Laura and I have only just shut our dorm door behind us when we hear a shriek of delight coming from Fruitpunch’s room. She skips out to greet us, cheering “I found it, I found it!” We all exchange warm and triumphant smiles. Fruitpunch pirouettes and gracefully perches on the couch, clutching her shoe and beaming at it in admiration.
“Now my favourite pair of shoes is complete again,” she chirps.
“Er, actually,” Marc says, emerging from his cocoon-like bedroom. “I’m afraid there was a little problem with the ShoeFinder 3000.” He sheepishly holds out a pile of tattered leather and plastic and string.
“Oh - ” says Laura.
“- My -” says Fruitpunch.
“- Gosh” I say.
There is a long uncomfortable silence. Fruitpunch is the first to eventually speak up.
“It’s okay, Marc. Thank you for trying to help me. And thank you, Laura and Kayla, for all the effort you put in, too. The shoes were my favourites, but they were just things. I can replace them. Knowing I can count on you guys is much more important.”
She gets up to throw the ruined shoe in the garbage.
“So,” she says, dusting off her hands. “I’m going to go buy a new pair tomorrow. Would any of you like to come with me?”
“Sure, okay, sounds like fun,” I chorus with Marc. Laura sits back on the couch, blinking. Then she speaks one word. “Baka.”
Back to the Top
Marc's Story
By Captain Quirk
Marc leaned back on his bed and stared up at the cosmos. The planets slowly cycled in their eternal dance, shining deep in the dimensionless astral plane, glittering in the blacklight. The moons orbited around the planets, which in turn orbited around the sun, and the whole system, too, was revolving around something…something else. Something intangible. Like electrons around a nucleus. Like Marc’s thoughts around his mind. There was something happening, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Once or twice, the ghost of an answer glided through his conscious, but it was off again. Off on another revolution. And another revolution there would be.
Marc turned over on his side and shut his eyes. He tried to focus. Everything he knew, everything the entirety of the scientific community knew, was based on a paradox. Marc knew he was part of something big, part of a system of the men and women of science. Of logic and reason. Not hope. But ironically, everything they had worked on was based on hope. Empirical testing could be written off as a series of flukes. Every experiment, every exploration, had to start with a question. An inspiration. A hope; a dream; a fear. The stuff of children’s bedtime stories. Marc wondered, “who am I to write these stories off as a fluke?” Marc wondered, “Who am I?”
Marc prayed to the god called fluke. His left-brain aptitudes and his industrial curriculum education had lead him to think that the goal of science was to disprove nonsense. Filter out the zeroes, and be left with only ones. But deeper down, he knew, no, believed that he was in it for something great. He wanted to prove things. He’d keep digging through the data, panning for gold and shaking out that pan in every angle until one day, in that pile of ones, there’d be a shiny gold nugget.
He reached over the edge of his bed and groped around on the floor for his ET figurine. Nonsense though it was, he’d ever-so-empirically proven that a nineteen-year-old genius can take comfort in the presence of a plastic toy. Although Marc was extremely passionate about his studies, ET offered him something no question or investigation could. He offered him hope.
Marc had always been a bit of an outcast. He grew up not knowing his parents’ faces or voices. When he was very young, he had received a letter from his mother. The letter told him that when he was a baby, he had scored unusually high on intelligence and aptitude testing, and that he was sent away to a school that would nurture him in ways that home life never could. The envelope had a return address from the other side of the world. From that point on, Marc knew…he was an alien.
Marc’s elementary school experience was isolating, to say the least. He was taught one-on-one, and learned very quickly. His teacher thought he was developing very quickly, but even then, Marc knew enough to disagree. So what if he could read by the age of three? So what if he was doing long division at the age of seven? That was no consolation to him when he had nothing to talk about with any other kids his age.
Immersing himself in his studies was the only option he had available to him. Inside his mind, he had an infinite number of questions, and the hope that just beyond his mind was that infinite number of answers. He would spend the rest of his life trying to draw the correct lines to link them up. Just like on the intelligence test. But decoding the universe was a lonely destiny. When he was in grade four, or rather, when he was ten years old and reading a grade nine level textbook, his teacher came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Why don’t you take a little break? There’s a good film on soon.”
Marc nodded, wandered into the TV room, and plunked down onto the chesterfield. The film was about a boy, about Marc’s age, who didn’t fit in with any of the other kids he knew. Marc was immediately taken with this story, completely empathizing with Eliot. After all, Eliot, too, had a secret world. Or rather, a secret friend.
From that night on, whenever Marc wondered about the universe, he was surer than ever that it was his destiny. To an outside observer, Marc was just a boy sitting there, staring at the ceiling, or with his nose in a thick, yellowed book. But on the inside, Marc knew, no believed he was flying on a bicycle, over the moon. He could follow the moon, as it circled the earth, and he could chase the thoughts and ideas and dreams and hopes and fears as they spiraled through his mind.
A few months later, Marc had completed the accelerated high-school program. This coincided with his eleventh birthday. When some unknown man in a dark suit handed Marc his diploma, Marc had received another gift as well. After shaking the hand of the dark suited-man, he moved along the line and shook the hand of his teacher as well. The teacher caught him by surprise and handed him a little box, wrapped in dark paper with a star pattern on it.
“You’re a real star, Marc, and don’t you forget it. I wish you the best of luck on your journey out there.”
THUD! A thump on the other side of the wall started nineteen-year-old Marc back to physical reality. He thought he heard Laura and Kayla exchanging some nasty words, but he had ways of dealing with this. He folded his pillow and pressed it over his ears, and visualized the spinning planets he knew, no, believed were up there.
Shortly after graduation, Marc was welcomed to work on Particle Telescope project at the University of Sydney. This was exciting, but again, lonely work. Marc’s youngest coworker was more than twice his age. Most of them took him seriously, as a scientist, usually, but there was still that wall there. That barrier. Marc’s version of science didn’t like barriers.
He started a small project alone. It was actually a series of repeat experiments, just to make sure he could handle all the equipment properly. He was to chart a small constellation, using one of the telescopes. No big deal, and after all, he knew, no believed he wouldn’t really be working on it all alone. Marc had ET with him. The two aliens made their way to the observation room they had been allowed for the project. Marc set the co-ordinates and began graphing the pinpointed pin-pricks of light where they fell, on the page of the sky to the page in Marc’s notebook. Simple enough. Just a few calculations to check that it was all in order and – wait. What was that?
Marc thought, no, he knew, no, he believed he saw an unexpected point of light glide across the field. He checked all the charts; there were no asteroids or comets expected in this area tonight. Nothing out of the ordinary should have appeared in that section of the sky. Marc carefully double-checked the telescope settings. Everything was as it should have been. Except that ghostly light in the sky. He felt a chill. Of fear. Of excitement. Of hope.
Marc brought out ET and told him, very quietly, that all the other scientists’ work was wrong. They had left something out. They can’t possibly say that Marc’s work was wrong, because just look through the lens, and there it was. The Other. He had the universe to back him up on this one. He had seen it. “We have visual confirmation.” That is one step short of making contact. Just beyond his reach was “phoning home.” He knew, no believed it.
The other scientists didn’t. When he told them, they’d laugh it off; pat him on the head, and say, “probably just some dust on the lens, kiddo.” But that is what they think. The best they can do is guess. They are nonbelievers.
Nineteen-year-old Marc looked up at the cosmos and sighed.
“I know what I saw that night, ET.”
ET nodded in acknowledgement.
Back to the Top
You're Not Alone
*NOTE: Rock and Roll Suicide (C) David Bowie
Fruitpunch's Day
Laura's Day
Marc's Day
Kayla's Day
Fruitpunch's Day
The hypnotizing sound of falling water and the artificially sterile scent of cheap soap flooded Harietta’s mind. She stood absent-mindedly under the showerhead, just staring at her toes and idly wondering if there was time to go back to bed. She had awoken to the songs of the birds at about a quarter to seven that morning. She had wandered over to her window to listen and hum along with them, and was thrust too far into consciousness to return to her slumber.
“Today’s a big day,” she thought, as large drops of water freeze-framed into double-helixes as they rode down her hair.
“Today is the day of my music test. I should be getting ready right now; leaving time to practice. I’ll start washing now.”
There was a long pause as her mind wandered. She thought she heard a faint knocking sound, but her senses dismissed it.
“Where’s my soap?” Harietta ‘Fruitpunch’ Thornhill thought, before disappearing back into her well-padded imagination.
Suddenly, the gentle cascade turned into a grapeshot of harsh icy pellets. Fruitpunch was startled out of her trance, washed quickly, and shut off the water.
No sooner had she unlocked the bathroom door did her quadruplet, Laura, fling it open.
“THANK-YOU!” Laura bellowed in a sarcastic, sing-song voice. As Fruitpunch made her way to her room, she heard the bathroom door slam and lock behind her. She was unaware that she was humming to herself, though she danced to this music as she closed her door, flung her towel onto her bed, and rummaged through her closet to find something nice to wear.
* * * * * *
She was still humming as she poured out a glass of soy-milk and set it down next to her bowl of strawberries. The song consumed her. She was oblivious to her quadruplet siblings chattering excitedly around her. That was fine. She was more comfortable in her trance, and needed to relax before the test. This test, like any, would be scary, and Fruitpunch needed all the help she could get from soybeans and Rock and Roll Suicide.
“Bye, everyone,” she said as she and her violin left for the courtyard to practice a few more hours.
* * * * * *
It was peaceful outside. The birds were reciting their old stand-bys as Fruitpunch supplied them with a ghost of Tchaikovsky’s. She was in another kind of trance, one of extreme focus. Her eyes were locked on the pages of sheet music laid out on the bench beside her. Every fleeting note was glued to her. Until the most unfortunate gust of wind sent the little black dots and sticks to join the birds.
Panic hit Harietta like a tsunami of hydrochloric acid. She felt the helpless pages as if they were still swirling around her. The iron-bar door slammed shut on her mind. She was frozen, helpless, trapped in a rubber room of projected fears. It was dark. She was alone. And the walls were suffocating in the ghosts of sheet music.
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget.
With trembling hands, she put the bow to the strings. Gone. Try as she might, Fruitpunch could not perform without the staffs in front of her.
It lingers, then you forget. Oh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide.
* * * * * *
The morning passed. Fruitpunch had gone to the music wing and both of the campus libraries, but her search for another copy had proven…well, fruitless.
She looked at immense (and now somewhat ominous) clock on the wall by the library doors. It was coming up to one o’clock. Her test was at three. She realized that she had skipped lunch; highly unusual behavior for her, but she was too stressed to eat now anyway.
In despair, she began to run. It didn’t matter what or where she was running from or to. All that mattered was that she was moving. Fast. Her home-made gale would blow the fears from her mind. The clock didn’t move…it was still there on the wall. Had the time even changed? She had to race to come up with something before time could run two more hours ahead of her.
“Please,” she thought as she sprinted through the crowds. “Wait for me. Please, I’m coming. Please, wait!”
But time waits for no Fruitpunch.
Feeling extremely time pressured is enough to make someone want to run, not even looking where they are going. However, running while not looking where you are going can create the even more unpleasant sensation of a hard and sudden impact.
The next thing Fruitpunch saw was the sky. It was a beautiful sky, which contained beautiful birds, and somewhere, beautiful music.
And the clock waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a café, but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suciide
Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
“Hey! Watch where you’re – Fruitpunch?”
Laura bent down to help her sister up. An expression of concern crossed her face, and Fruitpunch told her everything.
“Well…” said Laura, carefully, “it’s not the end of the world.” She shrugged sympathetically. There was a long silence, graduated away by Laura’s melodic crescendo. The song sounded familiar to Fruitpunch. Aha! It was the song she was humming that morning. Then inspiration hit her like a nerf ball – a lighthearted and inviting proposition.
“Oh, thank you, Laura!” FP exclaimed. Laura looked puzzled.
“O-okay…” she stammered. “Well, glad I could help. Gotta get to class now. Ja ne!”
“Shalom!”
And Fruitpunch took her violin out of its case and began to practice a song she didn’t need to see the notes for.
* * * * * *
It was three o’clock in the auditorium. FP’s professor was glaring at her from over the top of a notepad. Pen in hand, he nodded to her. She returned the nod and began to play.
Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth…
FP closed her eyes and flew upwards, riding on the sounds she was coaxing out of the instrument. The dreary looming darkness of her fears surfaced and dissipated, like bubbles breaking the surface of a lake.
Oh no, Love, you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no, Love, you're not alone!
Ribbons of hope swirled around her in a symphony of colour. She was playing it by ear and it was sounding great!
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful!
FP took a bow.
* * * * * *
Fruitpunch cheerfully skipped to the caf, swinging her violin case. She hardly noticed the wait time to get her pasta salad because she was so deep in thought, just humming to herself…you’re not alone.
She carried the Styrofoam container back to res, hoping to eat with one of her siblings. For some reason, solitude would not suffice as the proper emotional conveyance just now. Just as she was approaching the door, she heard a joyful (yet bloodcurdling) scream. It was the war-whoop to end all war-whoops. Waiting for her on the other side of the door was Laura, who seemed very happy about something. They settled down at the table together to share their victories, when the front door burst open once more.
“ARGH! They’re here, they’re here!” screamed quadruplet Marc.
“The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming!” shrieked Marc’s friend, Randal.
“Wait…for…*glup*…me ” panted Marc’s other friend, Brody.
Laura gave them each a visual pat-down.
“What the hell’s going on here?” she demanded.
FP wasn’t really listening to their replies. She was concentrating on the taste of the delicious pasta salad and the tune of “Rock and Roll Suicide.”
Her scruffy, lanky-framed brother was playing verbal hot potato with the frail-looking, acne-stricken Randal and the pudgy, greasy Brody. She didn’t quite hold onto their words. That was fine. She was happy to be in good company.
Laura's Day
Laura angrily hammered at the bathroom door. She was not in the mood for games this morning. Not today, of all days. Today had to go perfectly. For that, she would need to look perfect. For that, she would need her hairbrush, which was mistakenly left in the bathroom.
“Whoa, sis!” Kayla exclaimed, having just snuck up behind her. “Take a chill pill!”
“Sure, sure, hand it all off on that laid-back California attitude! I’ve got things to do!”
“Laura…” said Marc, who was now also crowding her.
“Shut up, Marc. You piss me off too.”
“But I’m not laid-back,” he protested.
“You’ve also never been laid; what’s your friggin’ point?”
Marc shuffled away, muttering something about “Science-is-my-only-passion.” Laura didn’t care. She wanted her hairbrush, and banged on the door again.
“Oh, give her a chance,” Kayla badgered her. “C’mon, let’s go get some breakfast -”
“You mention anyone named Tiffany, I swear, I’ll give you such an ass-kicking!”
The girls returned to the kitchen. Marc was fiddling with the toaster. This morning’s breakfast would clearly not be toast. Laura sat at the table with her head in her hands.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just really stressed. Today I have that class with Amy. Yes, that Amy. I wanted to ask her out. But I won’t today if I look like hell.”
“You look fine,” said Marc with a dismissive shrug.
“Says the guy who electrocutes himself every morning with a toaster,” Laura said dryly.
“Excuse me!” Marc looked deeply offended. “Never have I once electrocuted myself…with a toaster.”
“Then how do you explain that hairdo!” the girls joked in unison.
“Aw, bite me.”
“Come on…” Laura whined, jokingly. “I’ve got a wit like a guided missile!”
“Yeah, obsolete and corroding,” he muttered.
“Hey Marc,” began Kayla. “Look out, you have two strands of hair sticking out the same way!”
“What’s that thing called? A Van der Graaf generator,” Laura’s voice dizzily probed.
Marc shook his head and swore silently at the toaster. A brief silence descended upon the trio, only to be broken by Laura’s fist descending upon (and nearly breaking) the table.
“FUCK! What the hell is she doing in there?”
“Alright,” said Kayla. “I’ll get her to hurry up.” Kayla reached for the kitchen sink and turned the hot water tap to the limit of its arc. Laura hustled to the bathroom door. Finally, her damp sister emerged from the steam.
“THANK-YOU!” she spat. She charged into the bathroom, slammed the door behind her, locked it, and recovered her P.O.W. hairbrush.
Laura felt she had to look great. Amy was not the kind of girl who would go out with just anyone. She had met her in their art history class, the class that would be taking place again this morning. Laura brushed out her hair and pulled it tight into the two buns she always wore. She did this by force of habit, and because she wanted her mind free to fantasize about “the girl from row 7.” If all went well, this Friday would be one unforgettable evening.
* * * * * *
Laura confidently sauntered down the aisle of the lecture hall, taking care to snag a seat in the seventh row. The hour approached 9 am with footsteps like thunder. Like a bag of corn kernels under heat and pressure, the lecture hall began to fill up and the noise level soared. Laura saw Amy slide into a seat, and so she scootched over to sit next to here.
“Hey there,” Laura said, putting on her prettiest smile.
“Hey,” Amy returned a grin.
“So…you like this class?”
“Yeah, I guess. You?”
“Oh, yeah. You live on res, right?”
Amy nodded. ‘Wow,’ thought Laura, ‘she looks amazing when she’s agreeing with me.’
“So you don’t go off campus much?”
“Naw, I do.”
“You wanna go somewhere with me? Like tonight?” Laura didn’t believe in wasting time.
“Hm? Like…go somewhere? Like…”
“A date, yes.”
Amy turned this over in her mind. Laura waited with baited breath. She felt as if she were about to explode.
“Sure,” Amy said, finally, and gave another sparkling smile.
Laura still felt like exploding, but now the debris would include more euphoria than anticipation.
The class quieted down as the prof began talking. Through the old man’s droning voice and the darkness of the lecture hall, Laura could feel her heart glittering.
* * * * * *
The autumn sun shone on the cement steps of the astronomy building. Laura would normally never appear in such a place, if not for her friend. The girl, a science major with an interest in quantum physics had met Laura on a lark. One of Laura’s lighter art courses had been open as an elective to what Laura previously referred to as “the untalented.” She and the quantum girl had been friends since the start of the semester. She still didn’t know the girl’s real name, though, and called her ‘Rizlie’ like everyone else did. That may have been her last name. No one really knows.
Laura and Rizlie sat on the steps and gossiped over their lunch break any day their schedules collectively allowed. Today would be such day. As Laura carefully extracted a tangle of glass noodles from a paper bowl, she told Rizlie about her luck with Amy. Rizlie smiled over her tuna sandwich.
“Where are you going to take her?” Rizlie asked.
“I don’t know yet. Do you know of any good dance clubs not far from here?”
Rizlie pondered this for a moment.
“Oh, yeah. There’s a place about a 20-minute drive from here called Subterrania. Friday nights are glam rock nights.”
“Glam rock?” repeated Laura. “I’m not so familiar with that.”
“I can lend you this.” Rizlie said with a smile. She reached into her backpack and retrieved a CD. Laura read the cover.
“The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”
Rizlie nodded.
“Listen to it when you get the chance.” She gathered her belongings and stood up.
“Well, I’ve got a class now. Good luck with Amy!”
Laura nodded and smiled. She looked around. She was alone on science-nerd turf. It was honestly kind of unsettling. To break the silence – or rather, that muted buzz of things-going-on-but-nobody’s-talking-to-you that was worse than silence, she fished around in her bag for her CD player.
Laura leaned back on the cold, hard stairs with the headphones over her ears.
Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide
* * * * * *
Soon it was time for Laura to get to her next class. She put the music away, collected up her things, and trudged off to the arts buildings. She was still humming.
Things were going great! She had just had a nice lunch with Rizlie, she was on her way to her favourite class, she had a date with Amy on Friday, and –
THUD! Some idiot had just run headlong into her. Laura, instincts engrained by years of martial arts training, managed to turn her backwards stagger into a graceful, twirling jump. She landed on her feet, letting the clumsy runner fall.
“Hey! Watch where you’re – Fruitpunch?”
It was, indeed, her quadruplet sister. Laura bent down to help her up, and heard FP’s entire story. The music test, the missing lyrics, time running out. Laura thought, but sadly, she had no advice.
“Well…” said Laura, carefully, “it’s not the end of the world.” She shrugged sympathetically, to show how bad she felt about not being able to help. There was a long silence, at least Laura thought there was. She eventually caught herself humming. She had been getting louder and louder, until she finally realized. It was that damn song still stuck in her head. She was worried that she had offended FP by humming in her time of tragedy, but instead, it looked like the tune was welcomed.
“Oh, thank you, Laura!” FP exclaimed. Laura looked puzzled.
“O-okay…” she stammered. “Well, glad I could help. Gotta get to class now. Ja ne!”
Laura turned and began walking towards her next class.
“Shalom!” She heard FP call over her shoulder.
* * * * * *
It was about five pm. Laura returned to the dorm and flung herself on the couch. Today was going so well.
“Is this my new destiny?” she cheered to no one in particular (there was no one else even there yet).
“Give me a sign!” she cried. Laura reached over and flicked on the radio.
And a familiar song started playing.
And Laura gave a triumphant cheer.
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful!
She heard someone struggling with the front door. She turned off the radio and got up to let the next Thornhill sibling in.
Fruitpunch skipped in, balancing her violin and a container of food. The two of them sat down at the table to share their stories, when the front door burst open once more.
“ARGH! They’re here, they’re here!” screamed Marc.
“The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming!” shrieked Randal, Marc’s skinny and ugly friend.
“Wait…for…*glup*…me ” panted Brody, Marc’s fat and ugly friend.
Laura looked at them all as if they were screaming idiots, which, at that moment in time, they were.
“What the hell’s going on here?” she demanded.
“We saw them, we saw them!” Marc blurted out, sounding very scared. “WE SAW THEM!” he exclaimed, once more, this time triumphantly.
“Saw who!?”
“Extraterrestrial life forms! We went to the observatory, and we - ”
“Summoned them!” shouted Brody, between gasps.
“Yeah, and now…THEY’RE HERE!”
Laura shook her head and made her way over to her bedroom.
“Annoying as he is,” she thought, “he’s still my brother.” She thought of him fondly, in a psychiatrist – patient relationship sort of way. Laura pulled her easel onto the balcony and began mixing paints. She wanted to capture forever the feeling of this perfect day.
Marc's Day
It was early morning on what Marc hoped would be one of the best days of his life. Sitting alone at the breakfast table in the dorm room he shared with his quadruplet sisters, he pondered the day’s events to come. He and his friends, Brody and Randal, would – with any luck – be making First Contact. It was all set. Their search for extraterrestrial life would end and a new era for both the human and newfound alien races would make its momentous beginning. There was only one thing missing.
The machine they had built to send a signal into space was missing a piece. To finish it, he needed a small metal coil, one that could withstand high levels of heat.
“Of course!” Marc exclaimed, slamming his glass of orange juice onto the table. He sprang up from his chair and began dismantling the toaster.
Fiddling with the chrome-coloured box, he was busily ignoring the pervasive banging sound coming from the direction of the bathroom. Shortly, Marc’s curiosity got the best of him, and he went to see what all the fuss was about.
Laura was pounding furiously on the bathroom door and Kayla was standing behind her.
“Whoa, sis!” said Kayla. “Take a chill pill!”
“Sure, sure, hand it all off on that laid-back California attitude! I’ve got things to do!” Laura snapped back. Marc hated conflict. He found it so distracting. Just imagine the wonders of science and technology that could be bettering life for everyone right at this moment - if only people weren’t sidetracked from inventing by trying to reason with the nay-sayers, or begging snooty old-fashioned types for funding, or worrying about what country was going to try to turn the cure for cancer into a doomsday weapon.
“Laura…” said Marc.
“Shut up, Marc. You piss me off too.”
“But I’m not laid-back,” he protested.
“You’ve also never been laid; what’s your friggin’ point?”
There was no sense in trying to reason with someone who refused to be reasonable. Marc returned to the toaster, reminding himself quietly that it was better to create something good – like the device for First Contact, than to respond to and perpetuate something bad – like punching out his sister for being such a bitch.
Marc shook his head. “No,” he thought. “She’s not really a bitch. She’s just a little angry sometimes - ”
But his thoughts were interrupted by the two noisily coming into the kitchen. Kayla patted him on the shoulder to say ‘hi,’ while telling Laura to cheer up. Laura was sitting at the table with her head in her hands.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just really stressed. Today I have that class with Amy. Yes, that Amy. I wanted to ask her out. But I won’t today if I look like hell.”
Marc looked at Laura as objectively as he could.
“You look fine,” he said with a dismissive shrug.
“Says the guy who electrocutes himself every morning with a toaster,” Laura said dryly.
“Excuse me!” Marc protested, deeply hurt. She could make fun of his appearance, his taste in hobbies, his eccentricity, and his lack of a love life all she wanted, but NO ONE was EVER to mock his abilities pertaining to inventing.
“Never have I once electrocuted myself!” He said, angrily. He wasn’t often so emotional that it disrupted his usually logical thoughts – and this was no exception. He had just remembered that time with the tiny model Tesla coil.
“…with a toaster,” he finished. Accuracy was more important to him than pride.
“Then how do you explain that hairdo!” the girls joked in unison.
“Aw, bite me.”
“Come on…” Laura whined, jokingly. “I’ve got a wit like a guided missile!”
“Yeah, obsolete and corroding,” he muttered.
“Hey Marc,” began Kayla. “Look out, you have two strands of hair sticking out the same way!”
“What’s that thing called? A Van der Graaf generator,” Laura’s voice dizzily probed.
With superhuman effort, Marc returned his focus to the task at hand - extracting the coil from the toaster. He wasn’t sure how much time would pass before the next interruption, but assuredly, it came.
“FUCK!” Bellowed Laura. “What the hell is she doing in there?”
“Alright,” said Kayla. “I’ll get her to hurry up.” Kayla reached for the kitchen sink and turned the hot water tap to the limit of its arc. Laura hustled to the bathroom door.
“Good,” thought Marc. “Now it’ll be quiet.”
“So,” Kayla said cheerfully. “What’s up for today?”
Marc rolled his eyes. He was just a bit annoyed for the additional interruption, but glad for the opportunity to share his plan.
“Well, my friends and I are going to reach the aliens today -”
“Aliens? Whoa, cool!”
And Kayla flipped back and pretended she had an extraterrestrial spore thrash its way out of her torso. At the end of her performance, she laughed and told him she’d be just “doing whatever” all morning and had classes all afternoon.
Class? Marc suddenly remembered that he had a class to attend that morning. More precisely, a class that was beginning in approximately seven minutes. Marc grabbed his backpack from where he’d thrown it in the hallway and dashed out the door.
* * * * * *
Two hours later, Marc waited by the door of the lecture hall. The students, having just been liberated from their 115-minute prison-sentence, filed through the aisles and oozed out the doorways like cattle emerging from a stuffy barn on the first day of spring. Brody, one of Marc’s closest friends and a collaborator on Project First Contact, was trudging up the steps to get to Marc and the door.
“Damn,” Brody sighed. “How did you get up here so fast?”
Marc shrugged. “Let’s go find Randal.” Randal was the third member of PFC.
“Oh, yeah. I talked to him last night on IRC. He wants to meet us for coffee, like,” he checked his watch. “Now.”
* * * * * *
The three of them sat at a small table by their favourite coffee shop. It was their favourite because it was furthest from the high-traffic areas of the school.
“Okay,” said Marc, in a collected and business-like way. “So here’s the plan. We go to the observatory at sunset.”
“Wait a sec,” Randal interjected. “Why sunset?”
“Cuz that’s the soonest time after class hours,” said Marc.
“Yeah, before, they’re’ll be people there,” Brody added.
“Right, at four-thirty or five this afternoon.”
“What’s that have to do with sunset?”
“Forget sunset!”
“Marc, d’j’ou get that coil?”
“Ugh, didn’t have time. I can get one before tonight though.”
“Okay, I have one more question. We know how to send them a message…but what message do we send?”
“Um…what about ‘Hi, hello, I’m Randal, this is Marc and Brody -’”
“Gotta say ‘we mean you no harm,’ or ‘we come in peace,’ or something like that.”
“What if the aliens don’t speak English?”
“Ah, then we say ‘nous venons en la paix’”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Brody!”
“What’s the SETI greeting?”
“Forget THAT!”
“Oh, hey, hey, how about…like…music?”
“Like an MP3?”
“Format doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, what music?”
“Oh, OH! Something from Apocalyptica!”
“Don’t be stupid. We need to start ‘em off with the classics…John Williams.”
“Why start with the classics? Why is it always the classics? Says who, man, says who?”
“Fine, Marc, can you bring some John Williams?”
“I’ll get something, but,” Marc looked at this watch. “Later. I’ve got a class now. See you at zero-hour.”
* * * * * *
It was three in the afternoon, right after Marc’s last class of the day. He was making his way back to residence to retrieve the toaster coil and trying to come up with the perfect song to send.
This would be his least-favourite stretch of the trek back to res. He had to cross through the music building. He hated how busy the place was; crowded, and always with the wrong people. He didn’t like to walk through here, but it took a good ten minutes off the trip.
It was an interesting paradox. Marc hated crowds, and generally disliked people for the most part. He wasn’t unfriendly, he thought, he was just interested in other kinds of things. So how odd that he had dedicated his life to making contact with other sentient beings. Was that really his path?
You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it.
Whatever. He hated most of these artsy types (save for his sisters, but that was a different story), and yet, here he was, charging through their territory and trying to think of an audio track that would help him meet more of the same. Aliens and art students, art students and aliens, a swirling mess of galaxies all revolving around one thing. The Search. The Quest. The Question.
It’s Answer.
That song…
As Marc passed the auditorium, he slowed down. The door was wedged open and the most beautiful sound was spilling out into the hallway, like the glow from a nightlight into a frightened child’s bedroom. Marc stopped to listen. A very talented violinist was playing, and Marc waited for several minutes, just listening. This was the sort of song that could really pull you in and just not let you go. You didn’t want it to. No one would.
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Marc took out his hand-held tape-recorder and pointed the microphone through the door.
* * * * * *
By the time Marc reached the observatory, Brody and Randal were already there.
“Hey guys!” Marc exclaimed, grinning. “This is it!”
“We got everything all set up, ‘cept the message and the coil.”
“Right, here’s the coil,” said Marc, handing Brody the missing link. The large lad folded over, simultaneously kneeling to reach the gap in the machine where the coil belonged and doing a charming impression of Niagara Falls.
“I got the telescope all set,” boasted Randal, “so we can start uploading the audio track as soon as Brody’s done.”
“Oh, man, this is going to great!”
“Hey, Marc,” asked Brody, defying all known laws of physics while straightening up. “What music did you get?”
“Listen.” Marc clicked the playback button to summon the track he had just finished transferring to the machine. They drank in the haunting music, and hoped that any life out there would want to savour it as well.
Oh, no, Love! You’re not alone!
“Hey, look,” Brody whispered. “It’s sunset.”
“So?” asked Randal.
“Dude, you’re killing the effect.”
“Just send it!” Marc implored.
They hastily finished the last minute preparations.
“Transmit, transmit!!”
~Beep~
“Yes!”
“It’s going!”
Victorious, they danced around the cluttered room. Unbeknownst to anyone, someone’s uncalculated arm-fling knocked the telescope off its target. As Earth’s mouth sped off to some far-off coordinates, its eyes swung around to look back on the campus.
“Hey, let’s see if we got anything.”
The three crowded around the eyepieces. Marc thought he could make out the oddest fuzzy shapes. They were quite clearly moving. Frenzied, he pulled off his goggles, rubbed his eyes, and looked once more.
And there they were. His People. There were two distinct beings, both covered in a golden fur. It looked almost like foliage. This wasn’t quite how Marc had imagined them, but he was prepared for anything. He tried to speak, but his mouth had gone terribly dry, so he just continued to gaze silently. Finally, he heard Randal whisper,
“Turn on the audio reception.”
Marc obediently reached over, not daring to look away from the viewfinder. In one somnambulant, zombie-like motion, he flicked a switch and a chilling sound filled the room.
“Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your
cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide.”
The three communicated in tiny, reverent voices.
“My gawd. They’re singing.”
“They’re singing our song.”
“You guys…do you know what this means?”
They sighed together.
“First Contact.”
Brody jumped up.
“Holy guacamole!” he shrieked. “They just passed the clock tower.”
“You mean they’re on campus?!” demanded Randal.
There was a very brief pause, and then a very loud panic. They all screamed, ran around the room, and tore through the doorway.
“It’s all very odd,” Marc thought between the mental processes of “OMG OMG OMG OMG!”
“We’ve spent our whole lives searching for them, and now that they are coming to us, we’re scared. I guess its like finding the Holy Grail, or meeting a favourite celebrity. Boy, I’d like to meet Patrick Stewart –OMG OMG OMG.”
Marc, the fastest runner of the bunch, was running on adrenaline and very cheap sneakers. The sneakers seemed to be most comfortable with the shortest path back to res. Randal and breathless Brody followed close behind.
* * * * * *
Marc threw the dorm door open and charged through.
“ARGH! They’re here, they’re here!” he screamed.
“The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming!” shrieked Randal, coming up close behind.
“Wait…for…*glup*…me ” panted Brody.
They slammed the door behind them and stopped to catch their breath.
Marc looked around the comfortingly familiar surroundings of the dorm. Fruitpunch and Laura were sitting at the table, just gawking at the intrusion. Laura, ninja instincts well intact, came to her senses quickly. She used this newfound balance to do what she did best, make a snarly face.
“What the hell’s going on here?” she said with a scowl.
“We saw them, we saw them!” Marc blurted out. He was terribly shaken, but just then, his mind was able to absorb and comprehend the magnitude of PFC’s accomplishment.
“WE SAW THEM!” he exclaimed, triumphantly.
“Saw who!?”
“Extraterrestrial life forms! We went to the observatory, and we - ”
“Summoned them!” shouted Brody, between gasps.
“Yeah, and now…THEY’RE HERE!”
Laura shook her head and made her way over to her bedroom.
The three members of Project First Contact were left effectively alone in the dorm’s mini-common room. Fruitpunch was also physically present, but she was…in ‘Hariettopia’. The room held a heavy silence.
After a moment, Marc’s ears perked up. He thought he recognized the swooping dial-tone sounds always associated with everyone’s favourite levitating tableware, the flying saucer. Marc wandered around the dorm, listening for the source of the unearthly humming. Had they gone too far? Had PFC crossed that final frontier?
Marc stopped himself outside Kayla’s bedroom door. The sound was coming from inside. Kayla had access to a balcony. If the aliens were coming for them, Kayla’s room would be a key entry point. Marc had never been so afraid in his life, but if Kayla was in danger, no fear was too great. Marc flung the door open and shouted,
“Alright, you alien scum, get away from my sister!!”
“Hm?”
Marc jumped back and clapped his hands over his eyes.
“Oh, ah, sorry there, er…sorry.”
“Hey, that’s alright, man,” replied Sebastian.
“Marc’s a little over-protective,” Kayla said to her boyfriend in a comical stage whisper.
“So I see,” Sebastian said, grinning. He carefully pulled a leaf out of Kayla’s hair.
There was an awkward pause as all three of them realized Marc was still standing there.
“Um, we weren’t actually DOING anything,” said Kayla. “Just to clear the record.”
“Yeah, seriously,” added Sebastian. “If you want to stay here, that’s cool. We’re watching this old 60s sci-fi.”
“Oh,” said Marc. “Well, I’ve got some friends here.”
“They can watch with us.”
“No thanks,” said Randal, stepping into Kayla’s room. “I’ve got to get going. Hot date tonight.”
Kayla’s eyes opened wide.
“Him?” she lip-synched.
“His Mom is going to call him,” Marc said reassuringly.
“Well, I’ll stay,” said Brody. “Your sister is sharing her pasta salad.”
“I’ll keep you guys company out there then,” said Marc, leaving the room. He sighed. Maybe there was no sense in tracking down alien life. There were already so many weirdos down here. Well, everyone needs a passion. Tracking aliens would be Marc’s. Fortunately, unfortunately, being a complete a total weirdo was the passion of everyone else in the Thornhill family.
Kayla's Day
Today was what Kayla Thornhill affectionately called “sweatpants day.” This was the day she had no classes in the morning, and so she often took the opportunity to spend some time wearing sweatpants and possibly scrabbling through some homework. She had already put on purple sweatpants and a pink sweater, but the dorm room would have to clear out before she actually accomplished anything constructive.
In search of breakfast, she meandered towards the kitchen. No, this would be no ordinary search. This was –dun dun dun duuuunnnn- a quest to retrieve the sacred toast from its silver altar. Kayla ducked and twirled and darted through the hallway. She was half-running, half-dancing to the theme music playing in her head. She passed the bathroom door. There was a guard outside.
Bang, bang, bang.
Gasp! Gunshots!
Kayla then realized it was one of those times to pay a little visit to reality. Laura looked seriously peeved. She could use some sisterly caring.
“Whoa, sis!” Kayla exclaimed, having just snuck up behind her. “Take a chill pill!”
The beast whirled around, fire in her eyes.
“Sure, sure, hand it all off on that laid-back California attitude! I’ve got things to do!”
Ouch. Kayla wondered if everyone who had gone to school in Japan was so uptight. Then she began thinking of those karate movies…
“Laura…” said Marc, who had just ‘energized’ into formation behind them.
“Shut up, Marc. You piss me off too.”
“But I’m not laid-back,” he protested.
“You’ve also never been laid; what’s your friggin’ point?”
Marc turned and wandered away, dragging his feet and muttering under his breath. Kayla tried to calm everyone down. Strange, she usually had the opposite effect on people.
“Oh, give her a chance,” she implored. “C’mon, let’s go get some breakfast -”
Breakfast! At Tiffany’s!
“You mention anyone named Tiffany, I swear, I’ll give you such an ass-kicking!”
Not that she was going to say anything at all.
The girls returned to the kitchen. Marc was already in there, fiddling with the sacred silver altar. The mission could not be completed. Her action film had become a tragedy.
Laura plunked down at the table.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just really stressed. Today I have that class with Amy. Yes, that Amy. I wanted to ask her out. But I won’t today if I look like hell.”
“You look fine,” said Marc with a dismissive shrug.
“Says the guy who electrocutes himself every morning with a toaster,” Laura said dryly. Kayla bit her lip and snorted.
“Excuse me!” Marc looked deeply offended. “Never have I once electrocuted myself…with a toaster.”
“Then how do you explain that hairdo!” the girls joked in unison.
“Aw, bite me.”
“Come on…” Laura whined, jokingly. “I’ve got a wit like a guided missile!”
“Yeah, obsolete and corroding,” he muttered.
Oh, burn!
“Hey Marc,” began Kayla. “Look out, you have two strands of hair sticking out the same way!”
“What’s that thing called? A Van der Graaf generator,” Laura’s voice dizzily probed.
Marc shook his head and returned his attention to the sacred toaster. Kayla slyly looked around the kitchen. Especially at the sink. There was something very mean that she had always wanted to try…might this be the golden opportunity? She thought carefully. It was quiet. Then Laura assaulted the table.
“FUCK! What the hell is she doing in there?”
“Alright,” said Kayla. “I’ll get her to hurry up.” Kayla reached for the kitchen sink and turned the hot water tap to the limit of its arc. Laura sprang up and made her way to the bathroom door.
It was quiet again. Kayla didn’t like silence very much.
“So,” she cheerfully asked her brother. “What’s up for today?”
“Well,” he replied slowly. “My friends and I are going to reach the aliens today -”
“Aliens? Whoa, cool!”
And Kayla flipped back and pretended she had an extraterrestrial spore thrash its way out of her torso. At the end of her performance, she laughed and told him she’d be just “doing whatever” all morning and had classes all afternoon. After all, it was sweatpants day.
Marc threw a hasty glance at his watch, grabbed his backpack, and ran out the door.
Kayla’s other siblings vacated the premises within about twenty minutes of each other. And then it was quiet again. To clear that suffocating silence, she began humming. It was a tune she couldn’t quite place, but it certainly did its job as a shield against the ever-pervasive loneliness.
No matter what or who you've been,
No matter when or where you've seen,
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain.
I've had my share. I'll help you with the pain.
You're not alone.
* * * * * *
Sigh, journals; the bane of every drama student’s life. Kayla had let them pile up, and as she sat out on her balcony this crisp autumn morning, she was struggling to pile them down.
“What light through yonder window breaks?” came a familiar voice.
Kayla set down her books and leaned over the rail.
“It is the east, and Kayla is the sun.” Standing in the cherry-picker basket, just below her, was her boyfriend, Sebastian. Sebastian was also a student here, but he had the additional responsibility of the World’s Most Eccentric Paper Route. “Le Dernier Citrouille” was the campus’s unofficial Newspaper for the Out-There. The multi-coloured rag was forged out of recycled paper and original ideas, the inverse of most papers these days. And, the biweekly issues were delivered to balconies and windows via cherry picker. Sebastian knew all the more interesting people on campus, through both this job and life as a student.
It could be said that Sebastian wore many hats. This was also true. No one had ever seen him wear the same hat twice, at least not without painting or shredding or otherwise manipulating it for the second go. Today, he was wearing a jester’s hat. Kayla had expressed a special interest in a continuing story, and when the new issue came out, Sebastian had promised her he’d be there to deliver it with bells on.
“Well, hey there, Romeo!”
They casually kissed hello and Kayla tossed the newspaper in her to-do pile alongside her journals. Fun comes before responsibility; check any dictionary. Sebastian helped her over the rail and into the basket.
“So,” he said, as he fiddled with the remote controls, sending the cherry picker into a 3-point turn. “Sweatpants day?”
Kayla laughed. “And what’s your excuse?” Sebastian was also dressed for the occasion.
“I had only one class today, and it was first thing in the morning. Considering I don’t see many people today, I figured, why not?”
“Oh, but you come to see me?” Kayla said, mock-judgingly.
“Yeah. I wanted to do THIS.” The cherry picker sharply turned and the two were veering headlong into a tree. They swerved around, and the two were dragged through a cloud of crunchy, colourful leaves.
“Oh, my gawd,” said Kayla, laughing and looking down at herself. “I’ve been tarred and feathered.”
“Actually, we’ve been cottoned and leaved,” Sebastian said matter-of-factly. They exchanged glances and burst out laughing.
“Let’s do that again!”
The two of them spent the morning cruising around the near-empty campus and playing in the leaves. They stopped at about noon for muffins. Kayla had suggested the coffee shop in the law building because those people were the easiest to shock. The muffin lady looked at them, covered in leaves, with a little apprehension. She closed her eyes and chanted, “as long as they pay, as long as they pay.”
Soon, they had to go their separate ways. Sebastian had to deliver the remaining papers, and Kayla had four consecutive hours of classes. He dropped her off outside the drama building and she smiled over her shoulder as she walked inside, leaves and all.
But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
“Parting is such sweet sorrow!”
Just turn on with me and you're not alone
She had a presentation today, a choral reading. She hadn’t bothered to practice. Kayla Thornhill was a natural at all things dramatic. Plus, she had a pretty good group.
The room went dark, save for one yellowed spotlight on Kayla. She spoke, in an ominous tone,
“Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth,”
She walked around the other three people in her group, who were kneeling in front of her, facing the audience. She grabbed the right-most one, and jerked him violently upwards.
“You pull on your finger!”
Then she hauled up the left-most student.
“Then another finger!”
And the middle.
“Then…your cigarette.”
She paused.
“The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers.”
“Lingersssss” chorused the others.
“Then you…um….?”
There was a long pause.
“Oh!” she screamed. “You’re a rock and roll suicide!”
* * * * * *
The classes were fairly interesting, but she was honestly just looking forwards to meeting Sebastian again afterwards. Finally, five o’clock rolled around. He met her outside her last class and they climbed into the cherry picker basket again. They did a bit more tree-swerving before they both tired of the game and decided to return to res. Kayla invited him to her room to watch movies, and the two headed back, covered in gold leaves and singing.
The two cruised across campus, past the caf, the library, the observatory, the football field, all the way back to res. Sebastian parked the cherry picker under Kayla’s balcony, and the two clambered up over the railing.
Gimme your hands cause you’re wonderful!
The leafy couple sat down on Kayla’s bed. Kayla reached over and flicked on her tiny portable black-and-white TV. It turned on to syphon in the station she always left it at, that channel that played old movies. She was never far from a movie. Also, most of those old films were black-and-white anyway, so it made her feel better about having a cheap TV set.
Just turn on with me and you're not alone.
The current feature was part of a 60s sci-fi marathon. The two simultaneously enjoyed the film and enjoyed making fun of it.
~Look out, Dave! Nuclear ooze!
~It’s a spaceship! “Yeah, on a string.” “Hahah, shhh.”
“Alright, you alien scum, get away from my sister!!”
“Hm?”
Kayla and Sebastian turned towards to door, and saw Marc, panting and looking very confused.
“Oh, ah, sorry there, er…sorry,” he stammered
“Hey, that’s alright, man,” Sebastian said coolly.
“Marc’s a little over-protective,” Kayla said to her boyfriend in a comical stage whisper.
“So I see,” Sebastian said, grinning. He carefully pulled a leaf out of Kayla’s hair.
There was an awkward pause as all three of them realized Marc was still standing there.
“Um, we weren’t actually DOING anything,” said Kayla. “Just to clear the record.”
That was true. In similar situations, most couples aimed to use a couch as a bed. Kayla and Sebastian preferred to use a bed as a couch.
“Yeah, seriously,” added Sebastian. “If you want to stay here, that’s cool. We’re watching this old 60s sci-fi.”
“Oh,” said Marc. “Well, I’ve got some friends here.”
“They can watch with us.”
“No thanks,” said a very skinny nerd, stepping into Kayla’s room. “I’ve got to get going. Hot date tonight.”
Kayla’s eyes opened wide.
“Him?” she lip-synched to her brother, nodding curtly and raising her eyebrows.
“His Mom is going to call him,” Marc said reassuringly.
“Well, I’ll stay,” said another, fatter nerd from the hallway. “Your sister is sharing her pasta salad.”
“I’ll keep you guys company out there then,” said Marc, leaving the room. He sighed as he closed the door behind them.
Kayla rested her head on Sebastian’s shoulder as achromatic saucers on strings hovered above the panicking crowds. She imagined what she would do if Earth were invaded. She imagined they’d be able to handle it together.
Oh, no, Love. You’re not alone.
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