Parasite

Part 1: A Parasite Lives in my Shadow

            Again, it tries to get me to respond. "Do I scare you? If so, I mean zero harm. I'm like a good infection."

            Seriously? Oh. My. Gosh. A good case of the sneezes? Not a thing. I repeat, NOT a thing. Anything that tells me that deserves an F- for disruptive egotism. "Yes, you scare the hell out of me." I don't withhold my fear. I sound like a bicycle without rubber tires, hard and tone dead. Crash! The drawer falls off its hinges, and I tumble right along with it onto the floor. I hit my head, going into a daze. Little stars swarm in the ridges of my vision like an uninvited guest. So I lie there like a persuasive corpse.

            The monster, disregarding kindness, shuffles across my bed. The beast goes Shuck, shuck, shuck. I wonder if it has legs. Does it move on fins? Eww, is this some exotic creature from the Atlantic Ocean?! If so, I'm leaving for the Mediterranean. At least they make a mean Moroccan Tagine.

             "Talk about lousy speaker and clumsy." Its head dangles over the side of the bed, smiling full of renewed sarcasm. "Don't tell me you're dead. I wanted to have some fun with you first."

             Fun? I'll wake up faster than a bear in a food coma to beat this loser's unappreciative butt. I don't recommend making fun of the mighty Violet Gwendolyn, star of her physics class. The only reason for the 'star' status is I demonstrated the law of momentum during the lecture. Like the good girl I am, I wasn't paying attention. My chair tipped too far back, and I smashed into the person's desk behind me and flopped on the ground like a fallen angel. Even my breath fled the scene. (I was left gasping like a fish out of water.) Every ounce of confidence I possessed seemed to vanish since I never got asked out again. Men labeled me as a sad starfish– which made me depressed. That's also the cause of my obsession with extra-large hoodies. Did I mention how I was wearing a crop top? Did I mention the crop top was a size too small? Did I MENTION everyone talked about the physics of my upper body for weeks? Did I?

            I've never been so embarrassed! Problems like that are why young women cover up rather than show off. Men (but in this case, both) can't let an accident die.

            "What's with the long face?"

             I bolt upward, "I'll kill you–" my head whacks against the underbite of the table, and I wither. "I'll kill you next year." I groan, closing my eyelids. Whatever ambition to slaughter him where he stood poofed out of existence. The throbbing of my skull seriously put a pause on normal thought processes. For me, at least, it happened to be a big deal.

            "Yeah, that's what I expected, here, let me help you," massive hands extend from under the duvet, and I think I managed a psychotic half-smile.

            "No," I respond, cold but firm. My dominant side (which remained dormant for most of my life) was beginning to emerge. Eclipsed by a goofy-looking figure the size of something from Attack on Titan, I scream simply because that show made me pee 17 times in one sitting. My bladder said, "Nah, I'm gonna do things my way." It caused my parents to reconsider if I'd grown up. My dad, bless his heart, nearly convinced me to go to a counselor. He told me: "The bladder is hard to control; sometimes we need a stranger to talk to about it." My face was beet red for hours afterward. From then on, I swore I would never watch anime again. That promise holds up even today.

             Dropped back to reality by a hand the size of Dwayne Johnson's shiny head, I'm brought upright. I stand face-to-face with an anomaly from the pages of Dr. Seuss' fictional masterpieces. (Is it just me, or did Green Eggs and Ham not sit right with anyone else? I even ate the green eggs and vomited for an hour straight, curing myself of any need for a diet. Yippee, Dr. Miracle-Worker.) Gorgeous, perfectly spaced, blue eyes plunge themselves far into my soul. Like a madman on the verge of his final breakthrough, all before being caught by celebrating police. They cheer and accidentally crack open a case of fireworks randomly lying around, sending everyone to the afterlife. Tough choices, right?