Ruby Red Marionette

forty | hemisphere

//: Ten chapters left!

Two days had passed, and I decided to spend them watching TV.

It was something I hadn't done in what felt like ages. A lot of what I watched was the news, where they talked about Madonna and poison in kids' toys and people killing people. At one point, a lot of what was one the news would have depressed me, but a lot of time had passed. There was a time in my life when my biggest problems were my parents, men, and being dirt poor. Now, my problems were so big that I couldn't even identify them.

All Isaiah and I had been doing was lounging around the house, watching TV, eating, and sleeping. We barely spoke. We never cleaned. We had to put reminders on our phones for things like showering and calling the others to see how they were doing. The stress, the absurd helplessness, of our situation was weighing down on us again. The only way we functioned was by default; if there was a way for us to close our eyes and just die, I think we'd all have done it by now.

I would have done it before I even met the rest of them.

The one who always seemed to have the most energy, Yvette, proposed that we have a meeting. She said that us being together always brought good things—which confused me, since every time we all got together all that came was either disappointment or severe trauma—so we should try to do that to lift each other's spirits. Batul was the second one on board with the idea. Tyler was in no mood to socialize, or get up, or breathe, but Batul forced him with threats of violence.

Isaiah finally agreed. I never did, but I lived with him, so I had no choice.

They all came over to the house on a cold, bitter morning. I made hot chocolate and ate some marshmallows that had been in the cabinet for about a month. Isaiah, Batul and Yvette claimed to not be hungry. Tyler sat on the floor next to me and ate some of my marshmallows and didn't seem to mind the stale taste.

"Why are we here?" I asked in the midst of their small talk. They all looked at me with that same expression, the same eye-roll and sigh that said "Here we go again with this one".

"I second that question." Tyler nodded.

"We're here because Yvette proposed a meeting." Isaiah said with a warning sternness in his voice.

"Yes, and I did that because I needed to bring something to your attention." She said. "We haven't been having a lot of fun lately. Have any of you realized that? Everything we've been doing has been so heavy, so serious."

I swallowed a marshmallow and looked at Yvette. "You're right. I think, of late, we have been avoiding amusement parks and trips to the movies because we seem to much rather enjoy being taunted, attacked and blackmailed. I thought no one would ever bring it up."

Tyler high-fived me.

"None of us are here for that," Isaiah said. "Let's just...let's just try to have a conversation."

"About...?" Tyler asked.

"We can talk about peanut butter." Batul said. "I bought some coconut peanut butter the other day. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but I think that's just because I don't really like coconuts. If someone else ate it, I think they'd like it."

"Maybe I will like it. Why don't you let me taste it?" Tyler asked her.

"Because you don't know how to share food without finishing all of it." She snapped.

I held up the almost empty bag of marshmallows and nodded. "Exhibit A."

"I wonder how many flavors of peanut butter there are." Yvette said.