Indigo Children

Written Statement #1 Emma

I, Emma Grayson, 99 No-fucking-way Lain, post-code- P I 5 5   0 F F, make this statement of my own free will. I understand that I do not have to say anything but that it may harm my defence if I do not mention when questioned something which I later rely on in court. This statement may be given in evidence.

Blah, blah, blah!

I've told the truth about Sunday, so why can't I go home yet? I've told you everything! Why won't you listen? I don't understand what you want me to write! There wasn't any incident! I've already told you it has nothing to do with us.

But if you cops insist I write a statement, then please, take a pew because I'm about to write you a short story.

Get ready for information overload.

Sunday morning, I woke up to the usual chaos of my house. My mum was stomping around, getting ready for nowhere. She goes as far as the corner shop. Her tab-ends go further than she can imagine. She blows and curls her hair every day for what? And I'm sure she enjoys slamming the microwave door to wind me up.

Her overgrown man-child boyfriend playing video games on volume eighty is enough to make me want to scream. Then there's the dog chewing my trainers while cocking his leg every three minutes.

The gas meter never has money on it—no shower for me. I don't remember the last time my mum put the washer on. I'd do it myself if she were so kind as to show me how. She threw out my GCSE artwork with the last boyfriend she had. The beat goes on Da-da-dum, da-dum, da-da.

The only thing keeping me sane was the sun making an appearance—a rare occasion in this grey and wet village. I put on my yellow dress to rejoice in such warmth and did my hair and makeup, ready for another day.

(by the way, I've been in the same dress for over forty-eight hours now)

I cut my foot on the carpet grippers like I do most mornings because it's clear the landlords don't give a flying fuck. Our house is dangerous, and its Rizla thin walls drive me crazy. I can hear Norma buttering her bread through the walls every morning. But that's by the by.

When I walked into the kitchen, where my mum hardly glanced at me before throwing a fit, in her words, my purple hair was the worse thing she had ever seen. No shock there. I suppose my heavy eyeliner will get an insult at some point. But anyway, my hair is not purple. It's laidback-lavender.

She hates everything I do and, for the hell of it, everything I don't do. I didn't argue because she tends to throw me out, and I couldn't take another week of drifting between friends.

I sat at the kitchen table, prepared to ride the storm, when mums boyfriend came in. He was oblivious to the foam gathering in the corners of her mouth. The guy doesn't notice much, to be honest. I mean, does he know what planet he's on? He rambled on about his lactose intolerance for a straight five. Whenever he comes in, mum holds back the true raving lunatic because she fears loneliness.

Her deathless stare was on me for a minute until my eyes strayed the wrong way or my fingers tapped the wrong rhythm. Who knows what part of me annoyed her to the point of despair that morning. Before I knew it, my backside was out that front door. She told me again never to come back and that she couldn't cope with me: same story, different day.

See-ya, bye.

Do you know what makes me laugh? My mum, a forty-five-year-old woman, uses make-up to shape-shift into a nineteen-year-old girl. And nobody found medication with a label for that shit. She wears clothes two decades too young for her and thinks better days are coming even without a job. The woman believes she's in Ibiza from July to August. When her hair extensions come out of the drawer, the lace of her bra is on display, and contouring is her business.