Everything & Nothing

all apologies - 1

"Watch where you're going, cunt!"

Right, you bumped into me and I'm supposed to watch where I'm going?

I sigh and keep moving along with the crowd of my classmates. I've become quite used to all this derision by now. Field trips are exhausting—physically and mentally. Well, school itself is exhausting. I'm glad it's only two more months until final year is over and I'll be free from everything.

I slow down until I'm at the very back of the group; it seems safer here. Putting my earphones in, I hit 'shuffle' on my phone and let the music fill my head. Listening to music is and will always be a thousand times better than all the derision being hurled at me, or the buzzing noise of the other visitors talking, or the constant droning of our group's tour guide.

My trudge has almost become zombielike—I'm walking but without aim or direction, I am simply following the rowdy group of my fellow Glenn High Schoolers ahead of me. And I could care less about the guide's boring commentary, because I've got two working eyes and a fully functional brain and I believe using them will be better for me. We go along a hallway lined with all kinds of swords—double-edged, long, short, dual, tapered, widening. At the end, it opens into basketball court sized chamber with red sandstone walls. All around the room, small cubical cases display various trinkets and knick-knacks of great value—lockets, bracelets, rings, armlets, brooches and more.

We pass box after box with me stopping at each one to read its accompanying placard, and consequently, expand my vast collection of useless trivia about old thingymajigs. Every one of these items have such a great history behind them; it amazes me to no end. One particularly grabbed my interest—a gorgeous piece of uncut lapis lazuli inset in a delicate locket called the Cintamani Stone. It's a Buddhist relic, I learn from the placard, one that grants wishes to those it deems worthy.

Can rocks discern who's worthy of their blessings and who isn't? It seems that this one can. But, on what bases does it make its judgement?

As I ponder on the magic lapis lazuli, my earphones are suddenly jerked out of my ears. I whirl on the imbecile who dared to touch my earphones, that too, when I'm listening to music. "Hey—!"

My voice dies in my throat as soon as my eyes land on said imbecile. I take a step back from my ex-boyfriend—Chandler Ray; star quarterback, heartthrob, heartbreaker, sex-addicted asshole. His hazel eyes look me up and down, and he asks, "cat got your tongue, Mercy?" When I don't answer, he chuckles darkly and says, "thought so." His gaze moves off me to the Cintamani Stone. "You know what I wished for? I wished for you to die alone and horribly."

Forcing myself to stand my ground, I swallow the knot in my throat. Finally finding my vice, I retort, "I expected this of you, Chandler. To believe in wish-granting rocks like a seven-year-old." I manage the courageous act of scoffing mockingly. "Well, news flash, you man-baby. This is just a story, it's not real! Neither are Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, nor the Easter Bunny. Grow the fuck up!"

Chandler looks like he's about to punch me, then kick my intestines out. Thankfully for me at that moment, from across the room, our tour guide calls, "you two! Stick with the group, please."

Giving me one last glare, Chandler stalks off to reunite with his other equally asshat jock-friends who have noticed me and are already gotten on with their name-calling. The guide shouts for everyone to be silent, and moves ahead with his info-dumping rant. I plug my earphones back in, noticing that one of my favorite songs is playing—Nirvana's All Apologies. A diabolical idea strikes me then and I look at the Cintamani Stone. I murmur, "bring Kurt Cobain back."

Shaking my head at my indulgence in such an asinine act, I go after my group which has already left this chamber for the next. An hour of getting shoved—despite my best efforts to maintain a great enough distance between myself and my classmates—and walking from room to room, studying about artifacts, tools, bones, taxidermy, preserved dead bodies dug out of their eons old tombs (gross!), this infernal field trip has reached its end. Thank god, because my legs are only minutes away from giving out under my weight. In the bus, on the way back, everyone's too tired to continue giving me a hard time; this is a very welcome bonus.

As soon as the bus stops in the school parking lot, I'm the first one to get off and hurry on my way— lest people suddenly reconceive the need to bully me a little before going home. The walking makes me wish I had a car though; almost everyone in my year has one. It's not like mom and dad can't afford one for me, they simply don't want to 'spoil me too soon' as they keep saying. Seriously though, I hope they finally see one day that both of them being too busy to drive me around and I being old enough to drive myself, a car is very much needed.

There are some perks to walk homewards, though, and they've made me like it somewhat. The time taken to reach home is only thirty minutes, but it always gets extended to almost an hour because of all the little pauses and short detours I take. I stop by the Glenn City Park to watch the seasonal flowering plants in bloom, the geese and ducks swim around in the pond, the kids play ball and fly kites, and at times, I also get surreptitiously jealous over the couples lounging on picnic blankets under the shades of the hickory trees. I move along, soon coming across this dog walker with eight of the cutest mutts in all of Glenn, like every day for the past right months. I remember all of their names—Lacey, Pickles, Mike, Korra, Sonja, Hunter, Gerard, and Oliver. After spending fifteen minutes playing and petting them to my heart's content, I am back on my way home.

Using my spare key, I enter and call out, "mom! Dad! You guys home?"

"In here, sweetie," sing-songed my mom from the kitchen.

I find her bustling about, stuffing herself with lasagna. "Slow down," I say, going over to the refrigerator and getting myself a box of chocolate soy milk. "You'll choke yourself."

"Oh, I don't have the time to slow down," she complains, setting her plate aside to pull on her business suit. "Just got the message for a board meeting in ten minutes! Oh god! So..." She rushes to the drawing room and I follow close behind. "Help yourself to some lasagna if you're hungry, I gotta run."

Mom keeps forgetting that I am an ethical vegan. Oh well, I can't be bothered to remind her again and again, instead I set about on helping her get ready. Handing her the keys from the little porcelain bowl on the mantel, I ask, "where's dad?"

"In a flight," she says, ruffling through a bunch of pamphlets, "on his way to Sidney for that conference he was so excited about."

"The sustainable energy one?"

"Yeah... That." Finally deciding that she has everything she needs, mom gets up, brushes invisible dust off her pinstriped pants, and makes for the front door. Pausing once, she abruptly turns around and pulls me into a cinnamon-fragranced embrace. "You take care of yourself, okay? I may have to work overnight today. Don't go hungry, complete your homework, and it's your turn to do the laundry tonight."

"Okay, mom." I sigh as she draws back. "You have a great and productive day at work, yeah?"

Mom's already gone out the house and is getting into her silver convertible. I stand on the porch watching her pull out of the driveway and zoom off down the lane. Those are my parents for you; busy, busy, busy. Going back inside, I double check the locks on the door and the kitchen exit, grab my backpack from the sofa where I'd dropped it upon entering, and head upstairs to my room.

Upon entering, I move with the sole intention of faceplanting on my darling dearest bed but stop dead in my tracks. There's a man standing in the middle of my room; a somehow familiar stranger... I'm immobile, unable to make sense of this situation. The man stares back at me, eyes wide and mouth hanging open—he looks as surprised as I'm feeling. Out of the blue, my instincts kick in, and I almost scream but the man makes a rather agile leap across the room, pushes me against my bedroom door, and covers my mouth with one large hand, while the other holds my shoulder in a vice grip.

This is it. I'm gonna die.