This is the new, extended version of my dream piece, with new title. The sixth version is here:
http://www.writingforums.com/viewtop...ighlight=dream
Clearly quite a bit longer than the last one (hence, extended), same story, different design.
Also, could I have an indication from those who read
http://www.writingforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=15642 what they thought of the plot? I'm guessing nobody likes it, lol.
***
All The China Dolls
My boyfriend comes home with me after school and only thinks with his little brain, like all seventeen-year-old boys at school do. He gets us undressed, gets me into bed, fucks me, gets dressed and goes home.
I get up and have a shower. I always do that after his afternoon ritual. I stand there under the boiling water and
let the hairspray wash out of my bleached blonde hair,
let the makeup run in tracks down my face,
let the smell of heavy perfume evaporate,
let the blood drip down between my legs,
let the tears cradle at the corners of my mouth and
let the vomit coat my feet and wash down the drainpipe.
I eat some dinner. Not much, but enough for my parents not to worry. My brother tells me that I shouldn’t eat otherwise I’ll become fat and unattractive. For the next few hours, for the rest of my life, I’d like to become fat and unattractive.
I do my homework. I don’t try very hard but I know I’ll get perfect marks anyway. I believe that keeping one’s sanity is more important than keeping good marks. For once, I’d like to get a bad report.
I study tonight’s episodes of teenage soap operas so I don’t have to remain silent at school tomorrow. I watch teenage girls on a not-too-distant planet have mid-adolescent crisises and I watch teenage boys addicted to video games. And I watch everybody have sex.
I go to bed, turn off the lights, and lay there in the darkness. My radio stays on quietly. I trace every scar on my body
the ones on my face, no longer suffocated by makeup,
the ones on my neck, from the hickeys I’ve sat through,
the ones on my stomach, from carving any bit of fat and
the ones on my wrists, from trying to create an individual again.
The tears come up to choke me to death, as I lay flat on my back. The sobs block off my throat, coughing beginning to well in my lungs, leaving me struggling to breathe as the identical china dolls watch me from the windowsill, smiling.
Kindly…
…When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.
The air smells different now, it smells strongly of something sick.
It smells of heavy perfume from the David Jones counter… been through there so many times.
The air clutches at my face, wanting me stay trapped and I think I could struggle against it, but fear of rejection is worse.
A sweet-sounding, innocent-sounding, girly voice speaks up, ‘Relax, cover girl’…
… The white light is harsh against my eyes, I want to squint but my eyes refuse to close.
I stare at the hazy, immaculate bodies of the girls surrounding me, staring at their sameness, in waiting.
Manicured fingers of one of the girls stroke my hand and I try to raise it, but it won’t move.
I try to swallow tightly, afraid, wanting to breathe deeply to control my fear. I want to get off this table and run.
Stuck by my own accord, I stay – my wrists not moving, my elbow not moving, my arm not moving, my body not moving.
The manicured hands now hover over my naked body, holding something silver that sparkles, the reflection of the silver dancing over my skin.
A six-year-old girl dances in the shivering metal, in a ballerina outfit, transformed to an angel and brave to be herself around anyone who notices.
I want to squirm away as I panic over the inevitable knowledge of realising the silver is a scalpel, realising in anxiety that the scalpel -
dives inside of me, determined to make changes.
Blood bubbles at the corners of my mouth, staining my lips ruby.
My semi-tortured mind cries out in excruciating pain, the cutting never ending, the ripping, the tearing, the implantation of objects that every girl needs here…
… I bathe silently in blood as my body is stitched together in a new fashion.
Vanity mirrors are displayed all around, I watch myself on all angles, gazing over my porcelain skin.
Now this isn’t what I wanted at all.
I scream inside, wanting to smash those black bruises that will soon give way to a broken prostitute’s perfection…
‘Relax, cover girl…’
I wake up desperately, reaching out hurriedly for the glass of water but knock it over, so I watch it smash on the wooden floor.
‘This morning we’re counting down the top one hundred songs from…’
My hand slams down on the radio, shutting it up. Cheery voices don’t let me sleep.
I try to breathe, feeling my body finally relax, as much as the silicone will allow me to. The same nightmare, something happens once to me and it’s never, ever forgotten. And I can never escape it, even when I’m dead to the world.
Or maybe it’s just seeing the experience every day.
My hair becomes soaked in the sweat that has dripped into my pillow, and that sweat will continue to cover me all day. My underwear clings to my skin, and I look down my bra, upset to find the same large breasts that were there yesterday.
My mother yells out if I’d like breakfast, and I call back in that sweet-sounding, innocent-sounding voice that no, that just every other morning for the past four months, I do not want breakfast.
I swing my hairless legs over the side of my bed and the corner of my doona goes flying over the only uncomfortable looking china doll on the windowsill, covering it.
I dress in the uniform of feminine form – ultra mini-skirt and skimpy top. I
coat my mouth in red lipstick,
spray a gallon of hair spray,
stroke my lashes with several flicks of the mascara wand,
smell strongly of heavy perfume,
wait for the bus to travel with others identical to me and
silently understand that I can vomit and cry later…
… The girls – the ones who aren’t busy with their boyfriend’s hands up their skirts – smile at me in approval as I board the bus.
They all look the same – perfect bodies, clear skin – and I look the same as them, and we appear to be numb.
I sit in the spotless leather bus seat besides another girl who looks just like me.
Fluid creeps down onto my pure white school sock and I look down to see dark red blood puddling into my shoe.
I follow my eyes to see where it comes from and I see the girl beside me, then see the blood running down her legs.
Carefully, not to catch anyone’s gaze, I look around the bus at the other girls.
We all smile with flawless, symmetrical white teeth and while for many that smile echoes in their eyes, for some
their eyes are sweating or
their eyes are bleeding or
their eyes are trying to recover from the nightmare of the night before or
their eyes are everything…
… I walk past the chemistry classroom and hear tormented screaming.
Though I know what will be there, I look up through the windows.
A girl tries to thrust and jerk on the table, uncertain if she wants to fight the scalpel, living out our pasts and our current to future nightmares.
Blood sprays on the windows.
I refuse to close my eyes until I absolutely have to…
… The temptation to vomit overpowers the need to look the same.
I rush into the school toilets, my hand hovering just over my mouth, trying to not smear the makeup.
But then I freeze, about to dash past an open cubicle door, and look inside.
One of the perfect girls, trying to slash at her cream porcelain and sky blue veined wrists, with a scalpel.
The little ballerina continues to dance bravely in the dark.
The girl looks up at me, bitter tears smeared across her eyes, and I completely understand.
I’m excited for her.
Not many of us are able to be on our own anymore.
While my need for vomit remains, I kneel down before her, and begin to stab her veins and arteries, her gagging sighs singing as relieving music for the both of us.
