Failure of Glory

Chapter 8

Jolie woke up to Aaliyah prodding her burnt finger, which had now developed a blister. It had bubbled up in the few hours that she had been asleep and the skin around it was a bright red. Jolie figured that it was from irritation, maybe she scratched it or rubbed it against the bed while she slept.

"This looks pretty bad," Aaliyah said, poking it again. "You didn't put anything on it? Did you even try to avoid being burned," she queried.

Jolie winced at the sudden wave of pain that traveled from her finger all the way up her arm and pulled her hand back, pushing Aaliyah away with her other. " I was tired and frustrated. Go get me the cream or I won't be able to work on the mask anymore."

Aaliyah complied, releasing a string of complaints on the way out. She came back moments later with the cream tucked under her arm and a jar of peanut butter and bandages balancing in the other hand.

"Why do you have bandages," Jolie questioned, getting out of bed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Well Jolie Woly, maybe if you hadn't been lazy last night and put the cream on it like you were supposed to then you wouldn't have to wrap it."

Jolie rolled her eyes at the nickname. "First of all don't call me Jolie Woly and secondly how do you know how to treat an electrical burn." Jolie stood from her bed and slipped a shirt over her sleeping bra.

"I read it in one of those stupid books," she shrugged while Jolie gave her a skepitical look. "What, you're not the only one that gained an interest for something through a book."

"I didn't say anything," Jolie said, throwing her hands up in surrender. "But what am I supposed to do when parent A or B walks in and I have a thick bandage on my hand and I'm not supposed to leave this room?"

"I don't know, just hide it under your blanket or something. I'll try to keep them out of here."

Aaliyah pulled Jolie's hand into her lap and began applying the cream to her fingers. Jolie winced slightly at the pain and at how cold the cream was. She watched her sister's concentrated face as she began wrapping the bandage over her wound.

Aaliyah furrowed her brows trying to remember the steps that she had seen in the book, she wasn't always the best at retaining information. She had taken a particular liking to all of the medical books in the bunker just as Jolie had to the engineering books. She visualized the pictures from the book chapter on how to wrap a bandage. She couldn't remember whether it was over then under or under then over. She focused hard before deciding that she would start under.

"I'm impressed," Jolie said, inspecting her sister's handy work.

"Yea well the books are pretty helpful," she mumbled in response. "Now, hide your hands, eat your peanut butter and get some rest."

While Aaliyah went to go enjoy her own breakfast of brown, protein sludge in the kitchen Jolie flopped onto her back and began to visualize her mask. The face piece, the neck piece, the inhalation valve, the filter holder, the filter and other small various parts that she had given unofficial names to.

She watched as the imaginary pieces flew together then apart when the mask didn't work. She rearranged wires and metal in her mind, trying to make sense of why she couldn't put this thing together; even if it was only imaginary. The wires tangled together in a jumbled mess before exploding into a ball of sparks.

She groaned in frustration, rubbing her hands down her face and reaching over for the peanut butter on her dresser. She scooped a spoonful out and shoved it in her mouth, praying that food would somehow make all of her electrical problems go away.

But it didn't.

When she closed her eyes again the pieces were still jumbled and she saw no other angles to her problem. She pulled all of the imaginary pieces apart, arranged them in alphabetical order and began to evaluate them all. She went through and through still not being able to find out what she was missing. She kept it organized, trying different orders and still nothing helped.

"Maybe being organized isn't what I'm good at," she muttered. She ran her hands through her hair, groaning when her hand snagged and pulled her head back because of how matted her hair had become.

She thought about the word organized. It just wasn't her, her deemed creative room was a mess. So is her life, her side of the room would be as well if Aaliyah wasn't a raging clean maniac.

Everything in her creative room was messy and thrown around but that's how she liked it. It was her system and it might not have made sense to anyone else but this was the only way that she could find things.

She remembered the time that her father had come in and reorganized everything while she slept. All of her tools were hung on the wall and her metal scraps were placed into bins depending on their size and wires depending on their length.

When Jolie walked in to find her father with a proud look on his face and her floors seeable she screamed so loud that her mother thought that she left the kettle on. She proceeded to give her father an earful for even daring to enter her sacred space. Hasan decided to continue the argument by stressing how unorganized the room was and that it was a safety hazard. They went back and forth for what felt like hours, neither of them really listening to the other's argument.

This was when the drifting between Jolie and Hasan really started to begin. They had had small fights before, even about engineering but this was the fight that started the constant war between the two. The constant fights, the constant tears, and as much as Jolie hated to admit it, the constant hatred. After that fight they couldn't see eye to eye on any small matters like breakfast or her school materials, much less the bigger matters like the time she spent on engineering or the time she spent in her head. They went into this closer than ever and now they weren't speaking, unless you count yelling.

She spent the entire morning emptying the bins and throwing things around so that the room would return to the peaceful chaos she once loved. Within minutes she could no longer see her floors but all she could see was order.

When Hasan walked in-expecting his daughter to be getting used to the cleanliness-he was rather enraged to find that she wore the same proud expression he did. Another similarity between father and daughter, they were proud of their accomplishments and they didn't care who disapproved. Her hands were on her hips and a wide smile spread across her lips as a scowl fell upon his.

The cherry on top of it all was when Hasan tried to walk towards Jolie and stepped on a stray piece of metal, cutting his foot. Not wanting to be blamed for it Jolie slowly backed out of the room while Hasan let out a string of curses.

She thought about the few times she had managed to dip her hand in the pile and pull out the exact piece that she needed. The mess worked for her, the clean didn't. She could find things in the mess but not the clean. She found order and peace in the mess but not the clean. It made no sense to anyone else but the mess was her own little world.

Jolie shot up. "The mess," she whispered. "The mess."