Bernice Pt. 4

continuation

Last night Dee and I stayed up and looked at the unblinking stars, constellations woven together by gravitational yarns, bound by great forces, invisible. I always imagined them as projectors from the back of a movie theater, and we are just flimsy, transparent holograms; temporal, insignificant, translucent. We talked all night while sitting cross legged on the hood of the minivan, struggling to hear due to a slight wind, straining and leaning towards each other, tilting our heads as though listening through a tin can phone held up to our ears. Her eyes, bright as diamonds, glittered and shone in the starlight as though they were responding the messages of the twinkling pinpoints far above. All I could see of her were her eyes and teeth and her salmon colored tank top. Her coffee colored skin was invisible except a faint outline of blurs that could only be seen as she shifted her slight frame.

 The high had worn off and I was feeling wistful; the night was passing on and I wasn't ready to cease our talk. The vibrance of day had left too soon. The car battery was turned on and the music was low, a classic rock station. The musicians were anonymous to me. Now a soul singer with a gravelly white voice sang "It stoned me just like Jellyroll. And it stoned me." 

We had a conversation; sentimental, twee. All the things girls talk about to each other, or so I guess. After going inside, we slept on the adjoining couches which formed an L shape, each leg the same length. Dee always fell asleep before I did. She said goodnight quietly, her voice raspy and loving, like hot cocoa and marshmallow after a venture into the snow. S'mores. 

Last night I dreamed I had a parakeet. The coloration was like that of a peacock and a macaw parrot combined. It's cage was wrought wire, filigree. The blackened, hexed skeleton of a victorian house. It spoke to me, said it was lonely and heartbroken. It's voice was the like the Furby I had always wanted, never gotten, watched the other kids at school, their backpacks speaking electronic gibberish. 

In the morning Dee and I had cereal. I was still feeling wistful and sentimental, I always do after getting high. I lit a cigarette on the back porch. Everyone must feel this way. The loneliness of knowing you are alone, that no form of communication can describe the joy and sorrow and bittersweetness of being human, of being alive, knowing you are temporary, knowing you may cease to be at any moment. The things you only wish you had the eloquence to describe but not one person can convey. Now that would be a boon. Maybe I'm going crazy, maybe we're all crazy from loneliness. 

"Dee let's do something today that we'll remember someday," I told Dee. 

"Okay," Dee told me.