Sort of A Little Bit Almost Slightly Psychotic

Authors Note: No characters are based on real people.  Yes, I train martial arts, but I randomly chose one of the four martial arts I train and selected it for the story.

Also: TRIGGERING! I mention self injury, if you aren't safe DON'T READ. 

 

Sort of A Little Bit Almost Slightly Psychotic

By Calliope Sylvers

Chapter One

It’s real dark outside and I’m standing at the bus station.  The world is my stage.  Really?  Well, no, life is supposed to be interactive, but all these people I see walking by each day wear masks.  They walk by me with their painted faces and they don’t even notice the (Girl? Boy? Someone Somewhere In Between or Nowhere Near Either?) sporting black baggy pants and chains.  You portray one face, but inside you’re someone else entirely.  That’s kind of like me. ‘Pshhh,’ I mutter under my breath as this  real aggressive looking dude staggers around the bus stop.   He’s got these really wide shoulders and a tough non-smile on his face that says he thinks he’s the best s**t that’s ever graced the universe and any chick would be lucky to fall upon his footsteps.  He’s wearing a white tank top that’s way too tight on him and silver chains and I’m sure he thinks he’s all that. I scoff to myself: ‘A bullet ‘ould still kill you the same way.  You’d still scream in pain if I stabbed you in the eye with my favorite knife.  I can break your arm in seven different places.  The only difference between you and me comes from a tiny little Y chromosome; I guess that must be what turns your brain to mush.  Thank goodness I’m androgynous.’    He’s staring at me now.  Arms crossed against his oh-so-wide chest.  As if mine isn’t muscular enough to tear him to shreds.  I’d enjoy watching him scream in agony.  I stare back.  Defiant, my dark eyes mocking him.  I kind of hope he’ll attack me.  It’d be fun to hurt someone right now.  It’d be just what I need to get my mind off all the s**t in my life.

There’s something you should know.  I’m sort of a little bit almost slightly psychotic.   Not that I have any sort of clinical diagnosis.  You should know, I scoff at psychiatry.  I’m not crazy, the rest of the world is.  You should know that.

“Whud you think you looking at?” the man leers.  “You like what you see?”  God, he’s disgusting.  God probably thinks I’m disgusting, too, though.  So I don’t know.  I shrug my shoulders.  Feeling the mist of the gray sky engulfing me.  I feel the green- gray kryptonite other-world I go to when I meditate after Kung Fu practice.  Oh yeah, did I mention?  That’s where I’m coming from.  I’m more than prepared to kick some heterosexist a*s.

I can’t help it.  I laugh.  “In your dreams,” I say in the lowest, most menacing voice I can. 

“I’m gonna make my dreams cum true, sweet cheeks,” he growls in a voice that I think he intends to be threatening.  It isn’t. 

My lips stretch as far as they can go.  A smile as creepy as the Joker.  Creepier, I’ll bet you.  Especially since the Joker ain’t real and I am.  I place my left hand in my pocket and put on a fake scared face.  I pull out my shiny silver knife.  Twist it in my hands.  I know this knife like I know my own body.  I’ve explored my entire body with it.  Almost bleed myself dry, ha.  I’ve used it during sex play with my old girlfriend, Koira, too.  Ah, she’s dead now.  I really want to cut someone now.  And not myself, I’m done with that s**t.

“Come and get me then, a*****e,” I scoff, hoping he’ll take the bait.  I’ll scream at the top of my lungs while I’m cutting him and kicking him in the balls and no one will ever question that it’s self-defense.  I mean, look at him.  He’s so huge.  No one would ever think tiny me could kill him.  Okay, okay, I won’t kill him.  I’ll cut him in a non-life-threatening place and leave him unconscious .  He’ll wake up in great pain in the morning, but I won’t cut him any worse than I’ve ever cut myself (but you should see my scars.  I’ve cut pretty deep and survived without even having to go to the emergency room to get stitches.  Not even once!).

He lunges.  I watch in slow motion as his bulky arms reach out to grab my wrists.  This is too easy.  I fall into rhythm with all the drills and forms and sparring in Kung Fu every single day.  I step forward into front stance and block his attempted grab.  I thrust in with the knife, my limbs moving robotic and smooth.  Elbow to the chin.  “Stop! Stop hurting me!” I scream as he still tries to grab me.  That way if anyone is watching there’ll be no doubt that he is the aggressor and I am the “victim”.  He gets a few punches in but I don’t feel any of it.  Sidekick to his ribs.    Is he reaching into his pocket to pull out his own knife?  Huh.  Looks like he is. His knife has a black leather handle and the blade is all rusty.

“Look at the scars on my arms, douchebag.  Knifes don’t scare me.  Knifes are my friend,” I grin my creepy Joker’s grin.  We fall into a rhythm.  A kind of beautiful knife fight.  The time of my life. 

A loud noise screeches.  That’s my bus pulling up.  Ah, but I was having so much fun!  Damn it, I’ll have to cut it short.  I dig my fingers into his eyes while screaming, “STOP TRYING TO RAPE ME!”.  No one can take that kind of pain.  Not even me.  It’s ridiculously hard to stop myself from laughing but I’m sweating and almost out of breath so I guess I’m glad my bus came.  I shove the heavy beast on the ground and step onto the bus.  Show my college ID with a weary look on my face that’s only half fake. 

I settle into a window seat at the back of the bus.  It’s started to rain outside.  I can see my reflection in the window.  The rain blurs the image and I don’t know what I see.   Because it can’t be me, this girl with sweaty armpits and short spiky hair.  This girl with small eyes and breasts (small ones, and barely there, thank god).  I see sculpted arms, I see scars.  I see the face on the outside.  Inside, I’m someone else entirely.  Sometimes I wonder who the hell that person really is.  If it’s a she or a he.    Sometimes I just laugh at the world and say it doesn’t matter.  I miss those times.  It was easier when Koira was alive.  Sometimes I just want to cry, but I don’t.  I can’t hear the rain plitter-platting against the hard pavement outside, but I can feel it.  A can feel it ricocheting inside my body.  I’m glad I was actually able to defend myself because at night I always have these dreams where I’m attacked but I forget how to use my arms.  In my eyes I think I’m throwing punches, blocking punches, avoiding being grabbed and being dragged into a sinister white van, but my body isn’t listening to my mind.  I kind of knew something like this had to happen eventually or I’d always be afraid I’d turn into the girl in my dreams.  Now I know I’m not.  God, I hope that man was as much as a druggie as he looked like.  As much as a rapist he talked like, who’d never turn to the cops because he’d only be incriminating himself and turning himself in for the many crimes he already committed.  I breathe in.  Breathe out.  Focus on my green-gray kryptonite time-space I go to when I meditate after Kung Fu.

“Anything’s possible.  The impossible just takes a little bit longer.”  That’s what Koira told me.  Before she died I mean.  She told me I had to be sharp, vicious.  Always ready to pounce from the shadows and attack.  “Your mind has to work like kryptonite, Lani.  You have to dig weaknesses out of people like a metal detector.”  She said that also.  Except that now she’s dead.  Koira Moon, the girl who always had a smile on her face.  If I blink, I can almost see her walking down the stony street, the wind blowing her raven hair in front of her face.  Those sharp, green eyes staring off into space.  “No, no, you can’t show any signs of pain, Lani.  You have to smile all the time.  It’s your poker face.”   We were chasing each other down the street on our bicycles when she said it.  The wind was particularly gusty that day and my mind was someplace else, maybe I was thinking about how angry I was that I had ten pages of homework or maybe I was thinking about the blistering heat.  I don’t quite remember.  It doesn’t matter.  But I wasn’t focusing and I swerved to the right and crashed.

                There was blood everywhere.  My knee was the ocean split right open, the great red sea.  Marred, but beautiful.  There must have been tears in my eyes.  Because that’s when she told me.  ‘You have to smile all the time.  It’s your poker face.”

                There was blood everywhere when Koira Moon died, too.  Her head split wide open, like the sea.  Throbbing red and most likely painful, but Koira Moon never stopped smiling.  There was a dark glare in her eyes, too, as if her death was somehow meant to be.  As if she had chosen it, but that wasn’t the kind of thing Koira Moon was supposed to do.  How could the girl who always had a smile on her face shoot herself in the head?  But I guess she did. 

                It was raining that day.  The day Koira Moon died.  She woke up in the morning and dressed in black, from head to toe.  Crept out in stealth, into the glaring city lights.  This is what life is like.  Always dangerous, you never know what’s going to happen.  Everyone does drugs, and everyone is stealing something.  Some thing or someone, corruption ran through the heart and blood of the city.  It froze the blood in my veins, thinking about it.  But criminals didn’t kill my Koira Moon.

                I’m a coward.  I remember sinking to my knees, burying my head in my arms.  Covering my ears.  And I did nothing.  I just sat there, with my muffled cries.  Silent as hell because I was scared.  No one around here ever admits they’re scared but the city’s gone dark, man.  I can pretend to be tough all I want.  Smile.  But in that moment when I should have done something, I didn’t.  It wouldn’t have changed anything.  What could I have done?  It all happened to fast for anyone human to change anything.
                Koira Moon was strong though.  Strong, really strong.  She didn’t just put on a mask and pretend to be tough like people around here do.  You have to be “strong”. If you’re weak, you’ll be killed your first day here. 

  “Pain is temporary, Lani.  It’s just a signal neurons fire to your body to tell you to feel pain.  To warn you that something’s hurt, damaged.  But you already know that, silly girl, so you can just ignore the signal.  And go on as if nothing is wrong.”   God, I miss her.  Is it the same with this empty feeling tugging at my chest?  The black hole I’m turning into.  Is that just a signal, too?  I can ignore it, I guess, sitting inside watching television and trying not to think of her.  God, I should be doing something.  But I can’t make myself move.  I’m still frozen by the image of my girl’s skull blown to bits.  What was left of her body, lying limp on the ground soaked in a pool of blood.   She was wearing that black dress.  Thin straps, soft cotton.   I remember the day we bought them together.  Matching dresses, I mean.

“Lan! Come to the mall with me!” Koira Moon said, tugging on my hand.

“The mall?  Why in hell would we go to the mall?  Let’s go hiking, Moon,” I said.  Koira Moon just stood there with a weird smile on her face, tugging on her tanned native American skin. 

“Because it’s ironic, Lan.” Lan is my male name.  “Because everyone’s there’s normal and we’re not and we’ll show them!”

“Alright, alright, Moon,” I said, leaning in and placing my chapped, pink lips on her glossy lips. 

“In this century, Lan,” Koira Moon said, pulling away.  “We have to get changed.”

“What?” I said.

“My brother’s room,” Koira Moon said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  “We have to wear Tish’s clothes.”

We both grinned.  Imagine electric hip hop music, pulsing loudly in the room.  It was the music in our veins.  We ran manically through Koira Moon’s empty house.  Laughing and screaming.  This was our life.  Simple, all expectations and complexities stripped away.  Rummaging through Koira Moon’s older brother’s closet trying on clothes.

“Do you have it?” I asked.

“It’s in my room.  I’ll go get it,” Koira Moon said.  Still smiling.  Almost giggling.  A chill ran down my legs.  This was my secret pleasure.  My secret world, known only by Koira Moon and I. 

Koira Moon bounced out of the room and was back holding two ace-bandages in her hands.

“You ready?” she grinned.

“Hell yeah!” I said.

I pulled off my black tank top and Koira Moon threw off her neon green t-shirt.  A little too fast.  Off with our bras.  Away with our breasts.  Koira Moon started wrapping the tan ace-bandage around my chest.

“Tighter,” I said.

I wrapped the second ace-bandage around Koira Moon’s chest.  And there you go.  Lan and Moon.  Breastless, dressing in Tish’s clothes, going to the mall to buy black dresses.  No better way to shock the sleeping masses shopping in Forever 21.  Me with my buzz cut, Koira Moon with her long, thick raven hair pulled up into a baseball cap.

We ran out of Tish’s room and Koira Moon drove to the mall.  The parking lot was buzzing with cars and the only parking spot left was in the way back, but that was alright.  We enjoyed running through the parking lot looking like the Weirdoes we are.  Were.  I still have to remind myself that Koira Moon isn’t here anymore.  How did I not ever see?  But she always had such a big smile, and it never looked fake either.

But we ran through the parking lot.  Into the mall, pushed our way past the normal people peering into store windows.  Into Forever 21, where we bought soft black dresses with thin straps because it was ironic.

I’ll tell you ironic.  The fact that Koira Moon is dead, but she was the strongest person I ever knew, the only person, if any person ever could be, that I could imagine being immortal.  And now the only person in the world who knew all of my secrets is dead.  Even worse, she chose death, so I have to be happy with it, right?  It’s what she wanted, after all.  If there is an after-life, I can imagine my Koira Moon all stoic standing among gray mountains, her black dress tight against her muscular body, a huge grin on her face.  She’s finally home, after all.

The bus stops.  I’m just a block away from my apartment.  I’m tired and my legs feel like lead.  I walk quickly down the street and up the stairs to my apartment.  I twist my scratched up silver key in the door.  Step in and pull my key out.  Slam the door shut and lock it.   Collapse against the white, pasty wall.  I don’t even bother to smear a half-smile on my face because I don’t care about s**t.  This is the time of no hiding. 

So I guess this is moving on.  I stare blankly at the wall, trying to make Koira’s face appear in my mind.  I shake my head.  Over and over and over.  On and on and on.  Someone stop this spinning, make my head stop spinning!  I didn’t want to hurt him!  I didn’t.  It’s not my fault.  And she’s dead.  Dead dead dead dead.  I stand up shakily and walk to the kitchen.  I grab a protein bar from the wooden cabinet and rip it open.  Slowly chew on the disgusting piece of s**t that I need to eat to gain the weight I need to gain to like myself.  This is the anti-anorexia.  Opposite goal but the same slow tearing apart of the mind when you can never live up to your goals. Too skinny too feminine ugly face wrong gender doesn’t belong on the face of the Universe.  Not much has changed, then, I guess.  Not at all.  I remember a time when I didn’t eat.  A time when female is skinny and skinny doesn’t eat, except that I never thought that, I just wanted to be the skinniest person on the planet.  It was the one thing that I could be the best at.  It was easy.  Easy to not eat and be an artistic mass of bones.  I never thought I was conforming, but I was.  I was so stubborn, loathed normality, but I guess I was the face of normality.  I didn’t have any friends and I didn’t talk to anyone and I thought I did what I wanted, but I was faceless.  I didn’t know who I was.  I thought I did.  I got straight A’s.  Didn’t know why, didn’t remember anything I learned, but I had to be the best, and that was the only reason.

I come from the time of slicing flesh.  Of splitting my skin open to see the pretty red blood.  Not really to feel alive or to manipulate the sensation of pain but to stare at the blood, play with it.  Bring it to my mouth and taste it, slowly, wishing I wasn’t of this world (this world where I am Freak, non-girl, non-boy who loves fighting, who was made for the time where swords clash atop fierce horses.  This world where I am Freak, made for the Faerie world of drinking blood and leaping from rooftop to rooftop chasing aliens, being alien, alien, funny little word).  Freak.  I like that word.  I like what it tastes like on my tongue.

Yes, that’s me, I come from that time.  Now I spend my time doing pushups and training Kung Fu.  That’s my life, I’m a martial artist.  But I wasn’t always, once I was the Freak who slit her wrists and starved herself and wrote creepy poetry.  I still write creepy poetry except if you read it you would like it (or else I’ll break your wrists…do you believe me?).  Not that I disown that time where I come from.  It toughened up my mind, made me strong.  I suppose Koira Moon dying did that, too.

I sit down at the table.  Breathe.  In and out.  I force myself not to think of the bloody knife in my pocket.  The red blood is so pretty, I wish it was mine.  Ooh la la.  ‘Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking,’ I chant to myself. 

I am not a cutter anymore.  I am not a cutter anymore.  Right?  Right.  Stop thinking about that f*****g knife.  But I know if I touch it I’ll use it so I take off my pants walk out of the kitchen.  Shove it under my bed and put on pajama pants.  Did I lock my door?  Yes, I did.  I don’t need to stand up and double check.  I must have locked it.  I can hear people screaming and cursing outside my window like always, but I push it out of my mind.  Like always.  Collapse onto my bed. 

 

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I shove my black gi in my bag and open the door.  Its blistering hot outside.  The sun scalds my skin.  But it’s time.  My backpack is heavy against my back and the strap of my sports bag singes my shoulder.  I bump into a man with short black hair and tan skin.

I step back and look.  “Tish!” I say surprised.  “How have you been?” I ask, but it doesn’t mean anything, everyone asks that.  It’s a cold question, a triviality.  I have places to be; I’m sure Tish has places to be.  Right?

“I’m fine,” Tish says.

“Good, good,” I say.  “That’s good.”  Neither of us mentions Koira Moon.

“So what about you, Lani?  How are you?”

“Fine,” I say.

“Really?” Tish asks.  We were never close, not really, so who is he to question whether or not I’m really fine? 

“Yes, really,” I say.  My voice sounds cold, I know it does, and I wish I could help that but I really just want to walk away from the past.  Right now.

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“Okay.”

I nod and step to the left so he’ll continue walking.  And I do the same.  I walk towards my future.

 

                You know when you play video games, and you feel like you are trapped in this little sphere where the rule of the real world no longer apply, and you can do whatever you want, and you don’t have to bother with making eye contact and saying hello?  Of course you do, you’re normal.  Well, maybe you don’t think of it that way, but it is.

                That’s what it’s like in the dojo.  Except that you have to make eye contact but you don’t have to say hello.  But you have to kiai.  That is, shout from deep inside your core.  Which is a pretty easy thing to do if you’re not worried about embarrassing yourself.

                Rule number one of Freakdom.  You can’t be worried about embarrassing yourself.  You have to stand tall and look straight ahead.  Well, not straight ahead, if you catch my drift.  But you do have to stand tall, keep your eyes focused on your target, and never look back.  That’s an important part, never looking back.  It’s the only way to live with yourself.

                I bow when I enter the dojo and immediately walk to the mat in the back to start stretching.  I reach towards my toes and place my nose on my knees.  Kevin is already on the mat, the guy that reminds me of Robin (Batman’s Robin).  His hair is short brown, not Robin’s spiky black, but there’s something about the way he moves and walks that reminds me of Robin.  Venna is there too, attacking the heavy bags like they did something terrible and tragic to her.  That’s Venna for you.

                Like I said.  The dojo isn’t the place to say hello, at least not this dojo.  There’s a place that is, a place you don’t know about, but that’s a different story.  We stretch.  The class that was there before us leave and the black belts signal us onto the mat.  We bow in, and we train.

                You have to remember where you came from.  Listen when people talk to you, and when you  spar, you have to  make eye contact and you can’t shrink away, because it changes you.  If you’ve never had staring contests, you don’t know what it feels like to look into someone’s eyes, really look into someone’s eyes, and leave your eyes trained on their eyes for more than a minute.  I’ll tell you what happens, your eyes feel pressure, but really it’s in your mind.  So you just let it go and continue staring.

                Venna punches.  I block.  I punch.  Venna blocks.  After last night this all seems so…..

                I’m standing there.  Looking into her eyes, sparring. My eyes feel pressure but it’s really my mind, so I just tell my mind to relax into it and then it’s easy.  Punch, duck, crescent kick, block, palm-heal strike.  This is the poison masquerade.

                That’s rule number two of Freakdom, the rule I learned from Koira Moon.  Relax, smile.  Tense muscles won’t do anything for you in combat.  All the male newbies we get in the class think they will; I can practically read their mind.  Seeing them standing there, awkwardly, some have short hair and some have that wild hair that men think girls like.  A grin on their faces, the hair rising on their pale skin.  Brown eyes skirting back and forth, looking at the clock.  The line of sparring partners rotates and I am standing in front of one of these newbies, his hair red and somewhat gangly.  Athletic, maybe.  There’s a faint drowsiness in his eyes.  When my eyes meet his, this stranger whose name I don’t know, I can almost hear him thinking, ‘Ah, she’s a girl, I can beat her no problem.  I’ve never done martial arts before, never in my life, but I’m a man, so I could beat her up any day.’  He’s the kind of guy who must think martial arts are a joke.  Why even bother, then, if you think you’re so macho that you don’t need it?

                Ah, but you need to desensitize them.  Beat them up a little.  Not too hard, just block a little bit harder, counter-attack with a little more power than usual.  Re-educate them, wake them from their stupor.

                “Hagime!” The voice of one of the instructor’s boom.  Newbie steps out into a front stance, or tries to anyways.  He advances to punch, and I block it.  Bang.  My arm crashes into him, and then I counter attack.  At this point I barely feel it when arms clash together.  Iron body training.  It’s a thing we martial artists do, some more than others.  Clash arms repeatedly to wear down the bone, then drink milk and wa-la, the bone grows back stronger and tougher than it was before.

                That’s rule number three of Freakdom, anyways.  Iron body training.  Or should I say, Iron mind training?  You can’t let anyone sway you from your way of being - you can’t let some simple-minded person wipe your mind of your ideas; you can’t let the will of the masses sway you to suppress your quirks and absurdities.

                I step into front stance, my eyes piercing into Newbie’s brown eyes.  Focus on your target.  Move, quick as lightning.  Attack.

                I do.

                Newbie blocks.  His shoulder is all tense. 

                “Relax your shoulder,” I say.  “That won’t work.  You have to use your whole body.  Bring your arm up to your ear and drop your arm, as if it’s  attached to a string and someone pulled the levee.”

                Newbie tries to do so.  He’s still trying to muscle it, though.  That won’t work; I’ve got just as much, maybe more, muscle than he has.  Even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t work.  You can’t just place your arm on the attacker’s punching hand.  A real attacker would just push past you, easily.  You’d have a black eye by morning.

                Iron mind, I think.  We bow to our partners and rotate.  I remember a time when I didn’t have an iron mind.  I thought I did, of course, but even your own thoughts can trick you.

                I was only ten.  At the ice-skating rink, my brother skated with his friend, Kelsey.  She’s only a year younger than me, short raven hair and green eyes.

                It was the day that shook up my world.  Or should have, I should say.

                I was confused.  I realized that I was attracted to her, of course, but I thought I was supposed to be attracted to boys.  That’s what everyone else does.

                So it became my obsession - that lasted a week, if that.  I found a book in Borders that said it was okay.  I was only ten.  “Secretive” wasn’t in my vocabulary, so I told my mom.

                “Is it okay to be attracted to girls?” I had asked.

                “No,” she said.

                “But I found a book that say it is!” I said.

                “The book’s wrong, then,” she said.

I don’t remember that day in much clarity - or even exactly what I said, or exactly what my mom said.  I do know that I suppressed it, even forgot, who I was for so many years.

                I wish she would have told me it was okay.  She should have said, “Yes, Lani, it’s perfectly natural.  Not everyone feels that way, but it’s okay to feel that way.  It’s okay to be different.” 

But you can’t go back to the past.  You can’t look back, you have to stare at your target and move on with life.  After all, all’s well that ends well, right?  I guess so.

                I push my mind back to class.  Train, spar with Robin guy (he’s fun to spar with).  Bow out of class.  Meditate.  You’re supposed to focus on your breathing, but my mind wanders.  I’m thinking about Koira Moon again.  Damnit.  Inhale, fill every organ with air.  I do.  Exhale.  Count your breaths.  Relax each part of your body.  I do that, too.  But Koira Moon just refuses to leave.

                I shove my gi jacket into my sports bag and shuffle out.  Change into the clothes I came in.  It’s nice outside, peaceful.  My phone hums softly from my bag but I ignore it.  I am walking, where am I walking to?  I don’t know.  My step has no rhythm.  I wander aimlessly.  The leaves of the trees shine green, like kryptonite.  Koira Moon said my mind is supposed to work like kryptonite.  It’s supposed to look like kryptonite and feel like kryptonite.  Absorb kryptonite.  But kryptonite isn’t real, there’s just the shoddy sidewalk and the darkening sky.  An empty, surreal place. 

                This is the place I would walk into the forest and a vampire would bite me.  I would suffer tremendously but become immortal.  I would struggle through my bloodlust but eventually conquer it.  That’s not going to happen, though.  Not to me, not in this world.  I squint my eyes shut, and break into a run.

I wonder why it feels like my body and everything inside is shattering into pieces.  You’d expect the streets to be empty this early in the morning but they aren’t, not in the city.  I hear the buzzing noise of cars driving forth, constantly moving, towards something.  I focus on the roar of the tires against the black road.  I gaze at the pale sky.  Out of the corner of my eyes I see an old man with a gray beard wrapped in a thin blanket leaning against rough gray bricks.  He’s asleep.

                I have the sudden impulse to run away, far from here, anywhere but here, and my legs are suddenly pumping and the muscles in my legs are burning so I pump my legs even harder because the pain makes me forget everything.  I don’t see the cars passing me by, driving towards some sort of future I will never have.  I don’t see the banana peels spilling out of the garbage cans.  I don’t see the drunken party girls huddled in groups, leaning on each other and screaming and laughing as they stumble down the street.  I wonder what it is about them that make them so happy.  I don’t really see the shadows in the corner and I don’t feel the danger that is always, always there. 

                But I feel the wind tugging on my short spiky black hair..  The wind brushes against my face, and sweat drips down from my forehead and right now I am not worried about the pimples that are sure to surface tomorrow morning.  I feel my legs burn.   I’m whisked away to a world that does not exist, a world I was born for, but it does not exist.  I run past the Seven Eleven and I hold my breath when I pass a skinny girl in black jeans smoking a cigarette.  No way in hell am I gonna let cancer ruin my chance at living in this beautiful ugly world.  I run, my bare feet grazing the off white sidewalk.  It feels like Moon is watching me.  I close my mind and look at my image of Moon in my head.

                Koira Moon, tough girl in neon green clothes, smiling.  Black combat boots racing the moon and the sun to the end of the earth, laughing and screaming.  Spiked wristbands and tribal tattoos, the blood in her veins pulsing and pulsing like it would never, ever stop. 

                I did not think the Koira Moon I knew was a mask, but maybe she was.   Maybe I didn’t even know her.  Maybe instead of seeing whoever Koira Moon really was, I saw a reflection of myself.  Or maybe I just saw what she wanted me to see, so no one could save her.  Because I would have, too.

                I didn’t think Koira Moon was the type of girl to wear masks, though.  I should have, the way she talked about smiling and poker faces, but I never saw it.  Poker faces are useful, you know.  When you’re in a fight for your life.  Not when you’re slumped against the sidewalk with your soul-sister and mate-for-life.

                And that’s the most important rule of Freakdom.  I might have said something else was most important, but this is most important.  Never wear a mask.  Never.  Just never do it.  If you listen to anything, listen to this.  Don’t wear a mask.  Don’t try to be normal.  No one’s normal, and if they tell you they are they’re lying.  Be weird.  You know you want to.  Come on, I urge you.

                No one is listening.  I keep running and I imagine I am talking to people, but I am alone, a solipsist, the only conscious being in the universe.  My feet pound on the pavement and my bones jar.  I think of my brain all alone inside my head, my mind pumping and pumping and pumping but no one will ever be in it but me. 

                I open my eyes.  This is the last place I want to be, the cemetery.  But here I am.  The wind blows, tugging on my baggy pants.  I close my eyes and walk down the rows, looking at all the names carved into stony gray and I find that I don’t feel anything at all.  A gust of wind blows dirt on the ground towards my face.  I blink.  Wipe my eyes.  Continue forward.

                “Lani?”

                I am surprised to hear a voice.  Who spends their time at the cemetery?  Only freaks like me.  Don’t think I’m hating on myself.  Freak.  Say it a couple times.  Roll it over on your tongue.  You’ll learn to love it, like I did.   

                I turn around and there’s a man in dirty clothes and sunken eyes that, for a second, I don’t recognize this.  What is this weary, sad face?  I’ve never seen it before.  I’ve seen those eyes, just not quite like this.  Always so neat and composed.

                It would take a cemetery to tear down all masks.

                “Venna?” I say, surprised.  “What are you doing here?”

                Venna smiles sadly.  She starts walking and I follow her.  She walks and walks and I walk and walk but I stop when I see the stone.  Venna stops too.

                The gray stone, stark and unappealing, stands as solitary as Koira Moon was.  Her name, engraved in dark gray, Koira Moon Kanders, rest in peace.  I think my Koira would laugh at the word peace.  But then again, I never really knew her, did I?

                Venna Kaithers sits down.  Stares at her feet.  I wonder what her reason for being at the cemetery is. 

                “Venna?  Are you alright?” I ask, putting aside my own issues.

                “Huh?” Tish asks.

                ‘When the world ends you will disappear’, I think.  There is dirt on Venna’s tan t-shirt.  Dirt " dust " that is all that remains of Koira Moon. Koira Moon, no longer thinking.  Not standing atop a mountainside palace, scoffing, the widest grin on her face, finally home.  Just gone " dust, that can never be heard or felt or seen.

                “She’s really gone, isn’t she?” I whisper, not really caring that Venna doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

                “Yeah.  She is,” Venna said.

                I offer Venna my hand, and she stands up.  We both just stand there, silent, as rain pours down.  I peer up at the pale sky.  I feel surreal, standing here surrounded by light when there’s so much darkness.  So much darkness.  We both stand there.  Silent.  Inside my own head.  And Venna, standing beside me, feet digging into the dirt, inside her own head.

                Yeah.  She is.

                “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Venna says, offering her hand.  The wind blows her long black hair in front of her body.  I wonder why Venna trains Kung Fu. Why she’s wandering around a cemetery in the morning. 

                Tentatively, I take her hand.  It’s raining and we walk forward, shoulders high.  Eyes directly in front of us.  Pale hands entangled together, mine and hers.  Small feet, falling into rhythm with the poison masquerade.  Walk - put one foot in front of the other.  So easy, right?  We walk forward.  Pale faces.  Ready to take on the world.  One Kung Fu class at a time.